No more safe seats
Oregonians deserve competitive elections. Now's our time to draw lines with fairness, not partisan goals, in mind.
Housekeeping
Did you miss Ginger’s post yesterday? Read it here.
Karmen Fore and Allen Alley are working on a special series…stay tuned for more details!
Now to the post!
Kevin Frazier is the editor of The Oregon Way. He’s extremely grateful to the folks who have volunteered their time and energy to make this community possible. When he’s not thinking about Oregon, Kevin attends the UC Berkeley School of Law.
An older fish turns to two youngsters swimming by.
“Nice water today,” he grugles.
The youngsters turn to one another: “What’s water?”
It may seem like politics have to be partisan. It can feel as though an Elephant and a Donkey are written in the stars—indicating the eternal nature of an eternal fight for power. We’ve become accustomed to primary elections replacing the need for general ones, extreme candidates pushing moderate incumbents aside, and ideology replacing principle as the basis for how elected officials should make decisions.
In short, many of us have never stopped to ask, “What’s water?”
We can and must ask, “Why have we accepted partisanship?”
Partisanship and Safe Seats
One way we’ve accepted partisanship is through congressional districts designed to be safe — that safe for parties and unsafe for democratic stability. Every ten years, our State Legislature gathers to draw the lines that shape our politics, but reflect their party priorities. The result is a political map that reflects the extermism you’d see on your uncle’s Facebook page:
Dark Red, dark blue and not nearly enough purple. Our current boundaries are predicted to perpetuate partisan for just about as long as the stars that shine above us.
According to the polling site FiveThirtyEight, the third district—stretching from Portland into the Gorge—will go blue 99.9% of the time; the 1st—west of Portland to the Coast—will go blue with 94.1% frequency; the 2nd—the east half of the state—will remain Red 96.8% of the time; and, our "competitive" districts—the 4th and 5th—will be Blue 51.9% and 53.7% of the time, respectively.
In other words, the vast majority of Oregonians have had their representation drawn for them. This will likely continue to be the case when the State Legislature again draws the lines this year. Nothing about the political chaos we’ve all experienced suggests that our legislators will reverse course and suddenly support making districts that encourage electoral competition.
The continuation of boundaries drawn for parties rather than people is especially unfortunate this year. This time around the legislature will have the chance to draw in a new district due to a decade of folks moving into Oregon. And, it’s inexcusable because drawing competitive is not rocket science…in fact, it hardly qualifies as political science. Consider that FiveThirtyEight (and many other sites) can easily help legislators draw up districts capable of producing officials that better represent our communities.
Here’s what the lines could look like with competitiveness, rather than partisanship in mind:
There’s still a lot of red and blue, but far more Oregonians will experience meaningful elections—ones where candidates with different perspectives have to battle for the support of many, rather than just those within their own party.
States across the U.S., including Arizona and California, have adopted independent redistricting commissions. These commissions vary in composition but are generally made up of citizens from across the political spectrum; their obligation is not to a party but to their fellow community members.
Oregonians deserve the same. It’s true that the State Legislature may not reach an agreement when it tries to draw the new lines. In that case, the Secretary of State would take over, but that’s not much of a consolation prize—even if the Secretary voluntarily consults community groups.
Oregonians deserve competitive districts by law, not by whim. Count me among those asking why we’re still accepting partisanship. We can start erasing it’s horrible effects on our political system by erasing the lines that have locked us into two political tribes.
An independent redistricting commission will not eliminate partisanship in one fell swoop; we also need to encourage broad participation in our elections, eliminate barriers to candidates from diverse backgrounds launching campaigns, and shift the incentives of elected officials toward their constituents (all of them), not donors.
But, first, it’s important to recognize the water we’re swimming in and quickly move to give ourselves a better political environment.
***********************************************
Send feedback to Kevin:
@kevintfrazier
Keep the conversation going:
Facebook (facebook.com/oregonway)
Twitter (@the_oregon_way)
Check out our podcast:
Kevin, I agree. But any changes in the process for redistricting won't take effect until 2030. Nice to play the long game. But, meanwhile, states like Alaska have shown that you can change electoral processes in one election cycle via the initiative process. Alaska's system is one model. There are others. The best changes, I think, involve open primaries and ranked choice voting.