Tom Mast, founder of Solve American Gridlock
Reference: The Guardian.org, Sam Levine in New York, Feb. 17, 2022
What is a safe seat? Wikipedia defines it as fully secure…for a certain party, incumbent, or both. FiveThirtyEight defines it as having at least a 5% advantage.
I think that we all know that the number of safe seats in the US House is exacerbated by gerrymandering, or according to Merriam-Webster, “the practice of dividing or arranging a territorial unit into election districts in a way that gives one political party an unfair advantage in elections.” Dave Wasserman of the non-partisan Cook Political Report as of February 2022 estimates that as many as 94% of representatives will be running in relatively safe seats…
This means that the important discourse in campaigns is intra-party, taking place in the primaries of the two parties. And, with safe seats, we almost always know which of those parties is going to win in the general election. This further means that there is reduced campaigning between the two parties, fewer points of view being aired, and more adoption of the party line in the safe districts, giving voters only one choice. No wonder we have polarization! No wonder voter turnout is so poor!
Our two-party system, virtually unique among democracies now, is a cause for polarization which is a cause for congressional dysfunction. Safe seats and our party primary system essentially lock us in to having only two parties. Single-member districts are the foremost cause of safe seats with the party primary system also being very important. Gerrymandering enables the creation of safe seats by the party in power in each state at the time of the census every decade.
How in the world did we paint ourselves into this corner? Well, in 1967, Congress passed a law mandating single-member districts for US House elections across the country. Article I, Section 4 gives the state legislatures the power to set the methods of holding elections for Congress, but then goes on to say that “the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Place of Choosing Senators.” Congress had the power to mandate the use of single member districts, so it obviously has the power to mandate the use of multi-member districts instead. We should insist that it do so ASAP.
Mandating multi-member districts, ranked choice voting, and the elimination of party primaries for the House will eliminate gerrymandering and safe districts. Modifications can be made for the Senate at the same time, using ranked choice voting and modifying or eliminating the party primary system. These changes will foster more parties, more viewpoints, less polarization, and better problem solving in Congress.
For more detail, see www.solveamericangridlock.com and other websites.
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