(This is Part 8 of a series. Go back to Part 7.)
2) Incumbents become increasingly insulated from the real concerns of the citizenry. Being "safe" in their seat, incumbents see less and less need to address the real problems of the country because they know they won't be held to account. So legislation becomes increasingly political and "for show," another trend strongly seen lately in Washington.
3) Democracy becomes less and less representative, since the votes of citizens become less meaningful the more incumbents are protected. A party in power can win a majority of legislative races, and thus retain power, even when outvoted on a total national level.
In my opinion, the only cure for this affliction is to take redistricting out of the hands of legislatures. It's not enough simply to put the other party in power, because the incentive is still there for legislatures to continue gerrymandering the districts to protect the incumbents.
What's needed, then, is for legislative districting to be put in the hands of bipartisan commissions, perhaps of retired judges, who can draw legislative districts free of the drive towards incumbency protection.
The best way to do this is for such commissions to be guided—but not ruled—by two mathematical goals: First, that the population of each district should be roughly equal to that of other districts. And second, that the measured boundary of the district should be as low as possible. This second provision tends to discourage the partisan distortion of districts into wildly irregular shapes and instead to encourage districts that are compact and contiguous.
The final point is that this reform away from safe-seat redistricting will be very difficult to get through legislatures since it goes against the self-interest of the incumbents. Thus it will require citizen initiatives in each state, and most important, an energized citizenry that understands why this reform is crucial for their democracy and creates an unstoppable groundswell that helps to bring it into being.
—jim sloman, 10.27.06
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