Remember This: Why Congress Keeps Getting More Divided

Usually accompanied by a deep sigh, you can hear the question “how did we get here?” asked with a fair degree of frequency. My thesis is that there are four primary reasons that best account for the underlying dynamics surrounding legislative elections at all levels, especially the U.S. House of Representatives. The combination of the technical ability to draw maps with precision, the legal framework for drawing those districts, changes in the information ecosystem, and the nature of changes in the expectation of voters has put us where we are today.

The Rise of Precision Mapping

As far back as the 1970’s and 80’s, California House Democrat Phil Burton of California was drawing maps to maximize Democrat representation at the state legislative and Congressional levels. He famously remarked after receiving criticism over the shape of a particular district that it was “my contribution to modern art.” Shockingly, we Republicans gravitated very rapidly to the use of computer technology for the drawing of maps. Game on.

The Legal Framework That Changed Elections

In the 1960’s, the Supreme Court (Baker v Carr) issued its landmark “one man, one vote decision. In simple terms, the decision meant that in battles between competing maps, the one with the smallest deviation in the number of individuals within the given districts was to be given preference.

In this same decade, the passage of the Civil Rights legislation, coupled with court rulings, created and upheld standards that required majority minority districts in the southern states. In practical terms, despite it being southern Democrats who had blocked this sort of legislation for many decades, an entire set of districts became automatically Democrat, or were eventually made to be so by increasing the number of African Americans in them.

Similar to so many things, virtually guaranteeing an African American would be elected proved to be a double-edged sword. Suddenly, Republicans and Black Democrats had a reason to unite. Consolidating the Black vote, by definition, made surrounding districts more favorable to electing Republicans. This strange partnership evidenced itself multiple times. Quite obviously, the recent Supreme Court decision has dramatically changed the landscape. However, we are discussing history. A third criterion, geographic compactness, has never decided anything of consequence.

The Information Ecosystem

Previously, multiple times, we have highlighted how the changes to the information ecosystem have dramatically changed what content people are exposed to, the delivery system to distribute the content, and the ways the content is consumed have combined to alter the political debate itself. Without rehashing this topic, since the onset of high-speed internet, all these factors have created a new ecosystem where it is safe to say that most people expose themselves to and consume information from a variety of platforms primarily containing content that largely matches their thoughts and views on most matters. Not much time is spent on efforts to widen a given audience. Instead, the focus is going deeper within a particular space.

The Voters Have Sorted Themselves, Too

What about the voters? What would anyone expect when maps are drawn to minimize the number of districts that are up for grabs? Bill Bishop pointed out in his tremendous book, The Big Sort, that the sociological truism that the more similar individuals are in their views, the more extreme those views become had resulted in like-minded people living together in larger numbers. Pluralism had given way to tribalism in many ways. The result was that winning the primary increasingly meant winning the office. “Stand up and fight for our principles” beats “work together with members of the other party to find common sense solutions” every time.

What Happens In General Elections

So, how does this translate to our general elections? Predictably, Republicans do not beat a Sheila Jackson Lee, and Democrats do not defeat a Jim Jordan. Both of these, and many others, are firebrands within their respective caucuses. What happens, and it has been happening for a good long while, is that the number of centrist-moderates becomes even fewer in number.

In the Republican landslide of 1994, we did not beat folks such as New York Democrat Charlie Rangel. It was Members such as Charlie Rose (NC) and Mike Synar (OK). Turn around is fair play. In 2006, Democrats took back control of both chambers of Congress. Who got caught up in the wash? The few remaining moderates—Nancy Johnson (CT), Chris Shays (CT), etc.—went down to defeat. In 2010, 2014, and 2018, this trend continued.

Remember This

All of this combines to argue that anyone who believes a landslide election will purge the most partisan of Republicans is delusional. Sure, there would be a surprise here or there. At the same time, it will inevitably mean it is marginal, less partisan Republicans who go down in defeat.

Remember this: Every structural aspect of Congressional elections leads to the conclusion that this one, like its predecessors, will continue to create an even more partisan and divided House of Representatives.