March 6, 2018 – Arsenal For Democracy Ep. 216

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Topic: Gerrymandering in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Guest interviews with author Adam Eichen, Rabbi Michael Pollack of March on Harrisburg, Paul Blest of Splinter News. Produced: March 1st, 2018.

Episode 216 (51 min):
AFD 215

Pennsylvania links

March on Harrisburg
“How We’re Fighting to Save Democracy From Bribery and Gerrymandering, One State at a Time” | Alternet
Previous AFD interview with Adam Eichen about the book.

North Carolina links

– The News and Observer (Raleigh): “Who will choose NC’s judges – Voters? Lawmakers? The governor? New plans released.”
– Scalawag Magazine: “The North Carolina GOP’s campaign to rig the judiciary”

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Music by friend of the show Stunt Bird.

May 24, 2017 – Arsenal For Democracy Ep. 181

Posted by Bill on behalf of the team.

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Topics: Proposed reforms to US voter registration, early voting and polling locations, election methods, weekend voting, and Congressional redistricting. People: Bill, Rachel and Jonathan Produced: May 22nd, 2017.

Episode 181 (53 min):
AFD 181

Legislation Referenced (115th Congress)
  1. H.R.607 – Voter Access Protection Act of 2017 (Rep. Ellison, Keith [D-MN-5])
  2. S.360/H.R.1044 – Same Day Registration Act (Sen. Klobuchar, Amy [D-MN]/Rep. Ellison, Keith [D-MN-5])
  3. H.R.787 – Streamlined and Improved Methods at Polling Locations and Early (SIMPLE) Voting Act of 2017 (Rep. Cohen, Steve [D-TN-9])
  4. H.R.1907 – Election Infrastructure and Security Promotion Act of 2017 (Rep. Johnson, Henry C. “Hank,” Jr. [D-GA-4])
  5. H.R.946 – Universal Right to Vote by Mail Act of 2017 (Rep. Davis, Susan A. [D-CA-53])
  6. H.R.1094 – Weekend Voting Act (Rep. Slaughter, Louise McIntosh [D-NY-25])
  7. H.R.1102 – Redistricting Reform Act of 2017 (Rep. Lofgren, Zoe [D-CA-19])
Legislation Referenced (114th Congress)

– H.R.2694 – Automatic Voter Registration Act (Rep. Cicilline, David N. [D-RI-1])

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July 16, 2014 – Arsenal For Democracy 92

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The Big Ideas for Reforming American Governance episode. Topics: gerrymandering, constitutional amendment conventions, interstate compacts. People: Bill, Nate, Persephone. Produced: July 13, 2014.

Discussion Points:

– How should Congressional districts be drawn?
– Should the states exercise their option to request a national convention to discuss constitutional amendments?
– Can some U.S. policy problems be solved through interstate compacts instead of state-only or Federal-only approaches?

We’re piloting a new concept on this week’s episode for future segments. All three segments this week are examples. Please email us or contact us on social media to let us know what you think.

Part 1 – Gerrymandering:
Part 1 – Gerrymandering – AFD 92
Part 2 – Amendment Convention:
Part 2 – Convention – AFD 92
Part 3 – Sectional Interstate Compacts:
Part 3 – Interstate Compacts – AFD 92

To get one file for the whole episode, we recommend using one of the subscribe links at the bottom of the post.

Related links
Segment 1

– PBS Newshour: Judge rules Fla. Legislature broke laws on congressional district maps
– AFD: Democrats need to focus on state legislatures (or stay doomed)

Segment 2

– AFD: Amending The Constitution: The National Convention Option?
– The Atlantic: “A Real Step to Fix Democracy” by Lawrence Lessig

Segment 3

– Book: “American Nations” by Colin Woodard
– Wikipedia: Interstate compact
– Wikipedia: Compact Clause
– Wikipedia: Driver License Compact

Correction Note: In the third segment, Bill incorrectly listed the states in the Delaware River Basin compact. They are Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York.

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Democrats need to focus on state legislatures (or stay doomed)

It’s weird that there isn’t nearly as much discussion of gerrymandering as other U.S. governance reform problems. In 2012, the share of U.S. House seats Republicans won outperformed their popular vote share in the collective House races (versus number of seats won) by about 6 full percentage points. Had the GOP’s vote share actually gone as high as their seat share they would have received about 7 million more votes nationwide than they actually won.

2012-US-House-Election-Results-Summary-And-Map

Democratic House candidates collectively won 1 percentage point of the vote more than the House Republican candidates yet remained in the minority. This has only happened a few times in the past century. A virtual tie that slightly favored the Republicans in the number of seats would still have been possible under fair districting — but not such a wide margin as we see now.

We’ll talk about the issue of unfair districting on this week’s Arsenal For Democracy radio episode, but there’s another glaring problem: Democrats aren’t focusing enough on taking the steps necessary to correct the districting imbalance that’s hurting them so badly. That would boil down, essentially, to investing a lot of money right now into the state parties of every Democratic-leaning state, swing state, and Republican-trending-Democratic-demographic state in the country to recruit, train, and finance candidates in state legislative races and governor races in 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020.

If executed well, Democrats would be in a position to reasonably expect in 2020 (barring some catastrophic political wave against them that year) to win a lot of majorities in state legislatures all over, to prevent Republicans from extending the post-2010 maps that have been so weighted against Democrats in Congressional races. At the very least, Democratic-led legislatures could implement fairer, nonpartisan redistricting systems that take away the self-serving bias of having legislators redraw their own districts.

When Republican social conservative scolds complain about liberals being hedonists who don’t understand the importance of delayed gratification via strategic present action, the lack of Democratic focus on the problem of gerrymandering and redistricting is the kind of thing that makes them look like they might actually have a point.

Republicans got so mad about Roe v. Wade in 1973 that they hatched and executed an elaborate multi-decade plan to gradually fill massive numbers of lower court seats with hardline but upwardly-confirmable anti-abortion judges, positioning them for future Supreme Court nominations, eventually resulting in a takeover of the Supreme Court a full 32 years later (2005). This patient effort and careful step-by-step strategy is now paying off massively on multiple policy issues.

Meanwhile, Democrats are too distracted by the 2016 presidential horse race to definitively hold the Senate this year, let alone make a play for the House or many legislatures and governorships.

We’re going to panic in October 2020 — right before the election that will determine the next round of post-census redistricting nationwide — when we suddenly realize we needed 3-4 cycles (e.g. starting 2014 or 2016) to ramp back up toward legislative majorities in a lot of states by election night in November 2020. That year will be a presidential year when the Democratic base really turns out, unlike in the 2010 non-presidential cycle. But it won’t make a bit of difference if the state parties all over the country haven’t recruited electable legislative candidates. They’re going to need consistent national Democratic support for the next six and a half years to make that happen.

Without that effort, Democrats can look forward to another ten years of Republican domination on multiple levels or full-stop obstruction of all Democratic agenda points.