I watched the sit-in on the House floor and cheered for the Democrats taking a stand against the gun violence. I was disappointed when the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that Obama’s immigration orders are unconstitutional. However, both of these actions are symptoms of a government that can’t adequately address the most pressing issues of the day.

Even though a large majority of people support background checks on guns and trying to keep them out of the hands of suspected terrorists, the GOP in Washington won’t even allow debate on the matter. And even though we’ve been fighting about our immigration system for more than a decade, no solution is in sight. But it’s our broken political system that is really causing the dysfunction in government.

Gerrymandered districts are probably the single biggest problem. They’ve reduced the competition in elections that forces political leaders to find common ground. Instead, battles are fought in primaries that tend to elect the most conservative or liberal candidates. In these districts, compromise is a sign of weakness and a recipe for defeat.

Gerrymandering is limiting democracy. It’s nowhere more apparent than in North Carolina. Despite an evenly split electorate, Republicans have huge majorities in both the legislature and in Congress. They aren’t interested in what the majority of the people in the state wants. They’re politically beholden to a minority of voters on the far right side of the spectrum. Their compromises are with a shrinking number of moderate conservatives, pulling the whole state hard to the right.

The Supreme Court decision illustrates the dysfunction in two ways. First, Obama shouldn’t have needed to an executive order on immigration because Congress should have fixed the problem long ago. People of all political bents agree that we need to update our immigration system. However, even Republican plans like the one George W. Bush proposed over a decade ago fall short with the minority of voters who insist on deporting everybody and declare that any path to citizenship is amnesty.

Second, the Supreme Court didn’t actually make a decision yesterday. It deadlocked and left a lower court ruling in place because Republicans refuse to even hold hearings on a Supreme Court nominee. They are more scared of alienating their base in an election year than doing what they were elected to do. Instead, they’ve made the Court dysfunctional, too.

Our broken campaign finance system is the other obstacle to democracy and, to a degree, state sovereignty. Again, North Carolina is the poster child for money in politics. In 2014, we had a Senate race where the two sides spent $125 million. Most of that money came from third party organizations, not the candidates themselves. Only 45% or so the registered voters showed up to the polls.

This week, a group out of Washington, DC, announced that it is spending millions of dollars to try to defeat Josh Stein in his bid for attorney general. We saw similar spending in the Supreme Court races but this is the first, to my knowledge, of a group from outside of North Carolina trying to win a Council of State seat below governor. We’re essentially nationalizing our state campaigns. Our elected officials will be more beholden to people and organizations outside of North Carolina than the voters of the state.

Our government is not functioning properly. It’s unable to address the most pressing issues of the day because our political system has become too polarized and too beholden to special interests. While sit-ins are exciting and executive actions look decisive, they’re not how our government was designed to work. Our leaders should disagree and argue their points fiercely, but, at the end of the day, they should walk away with something in place. If neither side is happy, they probably got it right.

 

10 Comments

  1. Lee Mortimer

    There’s no doubt gerrymandering has a corrupting influence on our legislative and congressional elections. But the lack of competitive elections and polarization in legislative bodies are problems that go beyond gerrymandering.

    Elections to the U.S. Senate are based on fixed boundaries that have never been gerrymandered. Yet 78% of U.S. Senate elections going back to 2006 were won by non-competitive margins exceeding 10 percentage points. And the Senate seems no less polarized than the U.S. House (as evidenced by the recent impasse in trying to reach a compromise on guns). The real problem is our reliance on single-member/winner-take-all elections.

    Other countries, such as Germany, New Zealand and the regional parliaments of Scotland and Wales use a “mixed-member” system of district and at-large elections. Everyone elects a local “district” representative, as we do. But the at-large vote is used to assure that the legislative body accurately reflects the overall vote. And by aligning the distribution of legislative seats to a party’s share of the vote, the parties have an incentive to run strong candidates and vigorous campaigns in every district.

    Here’s how such a system could assure competition and a fair outcome in our state legislative elections: http://www.greensboro.com/opinion/columns/a-better-solution-to-gerrymandered-districts/article_d092fbd6-5b66-11e3-ae53-001a4bcf6878.html

    • Ebrun

      Well, if it’s done that way in Germany, New Zealand, Scotland and Wales, that’s reason enough to change the way we elect our representatives here, right?

      • Ebrun

        So you apparently don’t support Lee Mortimer’s prescription for reform, D.g.? Does that mean you support of our American system of representative government?

  2. Norma Munn

    I think the diagnosis is correct, but I don’t see solutions to the larger issue of government dysfunction in DC nor to the frequent ignoring of majority preferences at state levels until gerrymandering is eliminated. Getting rid of PACs and excessive money might follow. All are necessary steps if we want this democracy to survive.
    I would like to see NC Democrats uniformly reject future gerrymandering as a part of their commitment to the voters. Respect for the minority has always been an essential part of a workable democracy, and gerrymandering is a sign of both weakness and taking advantage of others. It is past time for those running for office to put good government, effective government and respect for ALL voters before party.
    I won’t hold my breath, but I also won’t support local candidates with my money unless I see those positions. It is also very apparent to me that the disenfranchisement that results from gerrymandering has contributed to the decline in voting. After all, how many times can one continue to vote if the deck is stacked against one? An accident? I don’t think so.

    • Progressive Wing

      “I would like to see NC Democrats uniformly reject future gerrymandering as a part of their commitment to the voters.”

      I think you meant to say “I would like to see NC Dems UNILATERALLY pledge to reject future gerrymandering”, no??

      • Norma Munn

        I meant all Dems in office and running for office and assumed it would have been unilateral. Yes, it was not as clear as it might have been.

  3. Apply Liberally

    I support and congratulate what the Dems are trying to do with the sit-in. I thought it really is the only recourse left.

    When one side of the aisle won’t discuss issues openly, won’t have dialogue, won’t allow floor discussion or amendments, won’t seek common ground through compromise, and won’t allow thoughtful bills to each the floor, the people’s representatives can feel compelled to take other action.

    Extreme gerrymandering (wrought by the 2010 REDMAP and its 2011 redistricting), Citizens United (brought to the the courts by conservative interests and sanctioned by a court that leans conservative), and partisanship (taken to the extreme by a GOP Congress that won’t even follow the constitution by giving a hearing to a nominee for a SCOTUS appointment) are at fault, and are all to blame for the gridlock in Washington. And that gridlock just allows bigoted dunces like Trump to call for authoritarian fixes that would just take this country on a very bad bender. In short, the GOP gave us government dysfunction, and that government dysfunction gave us Trump.

  4. Geeman

    Another fine post with which I generally agree, except that I thought the Democrats looked childish, almost Trump-ish. This is a stunt college kids pull when they don’t get their way. Agree with the merits of the gun votes, but there are other ways to handle this like adults. Thomas is precisely right that this kind of tactic is a direct result of gerrymandering that produces extremes on both sides. The Democratic caucus is so slimmed down to its most extreme base that it felt it could do something like that.

    • larry

      “The Democratic caucus is so slimmed down to its most extreme base” ….poppycock!! The caucus is now predominately Democrats vs the Heath Schuler and Mike McIntyre blue dogs whatevers. As to the those protest to look or to be childish, look again. We have had two decades of doing nothing. At least sitting in or down was finally some action toward ending the bloody carnage of gun violence in this country.

    • Laura Brooks

      Really could not disagree more. Watching them made me proud to be a Democrat. Is it symbolic? Sure. A “publicity stunt”, per Paul Ryan? He’s got a lot of nerve, is all I can say, after allowing – what? – 40-something votes on repealing Obamacare?

      But what I think the sit-in showed is this: if Americans want something done about gun control (and polls show that they do), you need to stop sending Republicans to Congress. Apparently they are way too busy trying to pass bills that would make it easier to cheat old people.

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