It's Cynicism, That's All

I guess when you lose elections, you can either change your message or change the rules.


According to an AP story, Republican leaders in states that went for Obama but in which Republicans control the legislatures are putting together efforts to allot electoral votes by congressional district as opposed to the current winner-take-all system that exists in every state but Nebraska and Maine. Reince Priebus, the chairman of the RNC and other Republican leaders are endorsing the idea,

(Before anything else, I think the name Reince Priebus should be included in every story about Republicans, much like Gail Collins made a point of including Mitt Romney´s dog in every column she wrote about Romney during the campaign. Nothing says "man of the people" like the name Reince Priebus. It makes Thurston Howell III sound like the name of an illegal gardener.)

At first blush, it might seem to be an innocent enough proposal. The electoral college is a stupid institution and the winner take all system is flawed. But the problem is illustrated perfectly by what happened in Nebraska between the elections of 2008 and 2012.

In 2008, Obama garnered one of Nebraska's electoral votes by winning the congressional district that included Omaha, that liberal city of Omaha. What did the "non-partisan" Unicameral legislature do? They redrew the congressional district boundaries to make sure it wouldn't happen again. All the Nebraska congressional districts were once again safely Republican by the time of the 2012 election.

And of course this is what has happened all around the country. Both parties have played at this game over the years, but it is the Republican state legislators in the last couple of decades who have made this sort of redistricting into an art form. Tom Delay's design of the Texas congressional map is the best example, but I can't find a good link. It was eventually overturned by a federal court anyway. The map below, from Pennsylvania will serve very well to show the artificiality of districts created by one party:



 To the best of my knowledge, which may not be as good as I'd like to think, the redesign of congressional maps used to happen only about once every decade after a national census added or removed congressional districts from various states. It is now an ongoing political strategy of the Republican party.

Republicans in the House of Representatives like to say that the message from the last election was mixed because the voters left control of the House in Republican hands. What they always neglect to mention is that Democratic candidates received a majority of the votes across the country in House races. But Republicans retained control because of the very type of gerrymandering described above in state after state where they controlled the legislatures.

This current effort by Republicans is cynical, self-serving and a dangerous precedent. If they were interested in promoting democratic elections, they would get behind the National Popular Vote Initiative.