Even as the polls are readied (we hope) for the vote next week, redistricting reform is on the mind of scholars and activists.  Their claim is that whatever the vote is, it would be different but for the "distorting" effect of gerrymandering.  Elections, meant to mirror true preference, have been rigged against the voter.  A truly democratic result can be imagined, but it is not the one yielded by the balloting on election day, even if one or both Houses of Congress changes hands. 

     The power of this argument must depend to some extent on whether voters have experienced a real injury.  If they are victims, have they registered a complaint?  Voters rarely complain about gerrymandering, of course, because they have little reason to object to districts they share with others who have similar partisan or ideological leanings or commitments.  Competition sounds nice in principle, if it is a certain level of competition we are striving for, but it is not especially appealing to voters who have no interest in replacing a candidate to their liking with another of incompatible or unattractive views.

     Competition matters, presumably, because in its absence, we fear inadequate representation.  But there is little reason to fear it.  As Robert J. Samuelson reminds us, elections capture, at one moment in time, a specific choice, while public opinion is measured all the time and seems, because of the weight assigned to it, to guarantee a high level of responsiveness.  Samuelson sees the public, voters and non-voters alike, as both victim and perpetrator:  it is the victim of the muddled and contradictory policies that it is also responsible for in a governmental system exquisitely sensitive to its carefully tracked moods, whims and fleeting preferences.  Representative-ness is a problem, only not in the way presented by redistricting critics.  In Samuelson’s view, politicians are inflicting injuries on voters—by heeding them too closely or failing to lead them to more fruitful policy pastures.

    Numerous elections have taken place already this year, on the part of politicians adjusting their position to polled voter preference.  We have Republicans in improbable locations fleeing the President’s war policies; and we see some of the same movement on other issues, such as government support of stem cell research, where members of the President’s party are anxious to show, for voters who expect it, that their position is more progressive than their national leader.  In some of these districts, the Republican or Democrat may survive a stiff challenge but it cannot be said that they have done so in blithe reliance on favorable lines.  They will have campaigned on the issues their voters cared about; their positions and commitments will change along with those of their constituents.

     As Samuelson writes, "Democracy is working, because public attitudes remain the dominant influence—not ‘big money’ or ‘special interests,’ as many believe."  And not because politicians have tricked the voters by herding them into "safe" districts insulated from "competition."  To the voter, competition is an abstraction with little relevance to their lives.  In the ordinary course, they are happy to have a politician who as a matter of program and instinct shares their views.  When they seek a change of course, they expect a politician to pay close attention and respond accordingly.  Politicians do just that, most of the time.  Voters have all the competition they care for, and even more representation. 

     It still matters greatly that voters are able to vote and their votes are counted, and it important that politicians, reading the public opinion polls, believe that survey results can be translated into election results.  And this—the very functioning of the voting process—turns out to be the most serious challenge to their sense of democratic participation.  This is something voters understand, in the most personal terms; this is the real injury to them.

Bob Bauer