Some Thoughts on Redistricting Reform in Ohio

Some Thoughts on Redistricting Reform in Ohio

Tom BrunellUniversity of Texas at Dallas

November 2013

Ohio Redistricting

• Representational Fairness is the most important part of any reform. Using the proposed text of the Voters First proposal would be a great start. “Balance number of districts to closely correspond to preferences of voters of Ohio.”

• No state, to my knowledge, has anything like this. This paragraph, properly instituted, solves many problems.

Representational Fairness

• Measuring partisan balance in state is key factor.

• Proposed using statewide elections. This is a good idea.

• Will have to have some selection criterion, for instance do you count blowout elections in average?

• OPOV, contiguity, VRA and fairness are all you need.

Items That Should Change

• Ohio’s restrictions on when a plan ought to keep counties or municipalities whole is really stringent. I would recommend doing away with this requirement.

• Counties and cities are governmental units designed to deliver public services, not communities of interest per se.

• When they are communities of interest it involves parochial issues – money, etc.

Communities of Interest

• Look at 2012 presidential election by county. • A handful are 70-30 or so.• Most are far closer to 50-50 break between

the two major candidates.• Counties are NOT cohesive communities of

interest.• Don’t be constrained by geography,

communities of interest are ideological.

Population Deviations

• For legislative districts – I recommend limiting population deviations to either zero, or as close to zero as possible. It’s the only non-arbitrary cut point.

• There are no really good reasons to allow plus or minus 5% deviations.

• Deviations are easily used for partisan advantage.

• One person, one vote is critical

Commissions?

• I am not a fan of using commissions to draw districts. The smaller commission with members appointed by elected officials is better than the Voters First model.

• Redistricting is political and I’d rather get stabbed in the chest, than stabbed in the back.

• When elected officials draw maps, we know the motivations. When citizen commissions do it, everyone wonders “was it fair?”

Competition

• Virtually everyone agrees we need more competition – I do not.

• Competitive elections maximize the number of losing voters and fundamentally hurt the ability of a representative to represent his/her constituents.

• Competition and partisan fairness are incompatible principles.

Hypothetical Redistricting

Imagine a state with 4 Congressional Districts

Exactly half the state is Republican and the other half is Democratic.

Two “Ideal Types”of districts.

Competitive Districts

Ideologically Packed Districts

What should the outcome look like?

• The state has 4 seats and is half D and half R, there is only 1 right outcome: 2 Red seats and 2 Blue seats.

• So let’s look at how the competitive scheme works in practice.

• Assume each district really is perfectly competitive and the result is determined randomly, like a coin-flip.

Coin Flip Districts

• Republicans win 4 – 6.25%• Rep win 3, Dem win 1 – 25%• Rep win 2, Dem win 2 – 37.5%• Dem win 3, Rep win 1 – 25%• Democrats win 4 – 6.25%

Competitive Elections do not lead to Good Representation

• Two-thirds of the time (62.5%) a plan with all competitive districts gets the WRONG answer (i.e. unrepresentative delegations).

• Even when it does yield fair outcomes, it unnecessarily puts half the population in a district in which they don’t like their representative.

• Losing voters like their representative less, and they have a lower trust in government relative to winning voters.

Competitive Elections Maximize Number of Losers

• SMD & wasted votes.• The more competitive the district the more

losers you get.• The more competitive the district, the less of a

community of interest it is.• Competition maximizes losing voters and

minimizes the ability to represent a district well.• Neither of which we ought to be doing on

purpose.

Ideologically Packed Districts

This method gets the right answer EVERYTIME, and voters are well

represented

Redefining

• Competitive districts should be called “districts that usually lead to non-proportional outcomes and needlessly leave many voters poorly represented”

• Ideologically packed districts should be called “fair redistricting” or “proportional redistricting”.

The (Alleged) Benefits of Competitive Elections

• It increases “Responsiveness”• It is impossible to represent all the constituents• MC will try harder to please her 51 percent, but is

this representation?• Competitive districts allow us to “throw the bums

out”• We do want elected officials to be worried about

getting reelected, but primary elections can take care of this.

What is Representation?

• Lots of definitions (substantive, descriptive etc.)

• I think it boils down to “did my representative vote the way I would have voted?”

• Competitive districts make it less likely that voters feel well represented.

Competitive Districts = Bad Representation

• Drawing districts to maximize competitiveness is no guarantee that there will be competitiveness.

• Regardless of the presence of competition, drawing districts this way is BAD for representation.

• Overemphasizes votes of swing voters.

An alternative approach

• Draw districts packed with like-minded partisans.

• Impossible to draw 100-0, but something like 80-20 is possible.

• As long as both parties are “packed” at the same level, we get proportional outcomes.

• Primary elections will be pivotal. • SCOTUS already “blessed” this approach

(Gaffney v. Cummings).

Thank you

• Questions?

GerrymanderDistrict Percent Republican Percent Democratic

1 90 10

2 90 10

3 40 60

4 40 60

5 40 60

Average vote 60 percent average 40 percent average

Democrats have packed R’s in districts 1 and 2, and cracked them in districts 3-5, thus wasting many of their votes. R’s have 60 percent of the vote, with 40 percent of the seats.

The Relationship Between Vote Margin and Ideology

Polarization

• Redistricting not the chief culprit.• If the voters are polarized, the representatives

should be too.• What’s wrong with polarization? We used to

have lots of overlap between parties.• People complained, wanted “responsible

parties”. Now we have them and we complain about them.