Nate Cohn wrote an interesting piece today, Quit Blaming Gerrymandering for the Shutdown. I think the following excerpt gets to the gist of the piece.
Because the point of partisan gerrymandering isn’t to try and maximize the number of safe districts. The goal is to maximize the number of districts that are merely safe enough by packing as many of your opponents' voters as you can into a small number of extremely partisan districts while safely distributing the rest throughout your own districts. In this way, gerrymandering may actually increase the number of moderate Republicans.
This is true. However, it also is only half of it. But before I get to the other half of it, let me set things up by suggesting that just maybe the article and it's headline are a bit more balanced than what he would have preferred, if he had his druthers. I suspect this due to the way he tweeted a link to his piece.
Don't blame Republican extremism on gerrymandering http://t.co/JrM5mJSrae
— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) October 4, 2013
When I put the article's headline and content together in context with that Tweet, I get more than a sneaking suspicion that Cohn blames the shutdown on Republican extremism. As is my wont, I quickly responded with playful snark, tweaking that slant.
@Nate_Cohn Does that mean we can't blame Democrat extremism on it, either?
— Gerry Daly (@GerryDales) October 4, 2013
As is also my wont, I then thought a bit more. You know the old adage, "Ready, fire, aim!" I realized that, while the mechanics of gerrymandering when redistricting is primarily under the auspices of one party would tend to exert pressure towards less pure ideology for the controlling party (for the reasons Cohn specified), the opposite is true for the non-controlling party. Since gerrymandering involves "packing as many of your opponents' voters as you can into a small number of extremely partisan districts," the effect on the opponents' party is to enable them to move away from moderate candidates. [edited after initial posting to add: Enable might not be a strong enough word. It might make such a move inevitable.] After all, these extremely partisan districts will want candidates who represent their extremely partisan worldview.
As often is the case, the quick snark was wrong. When one party controls redistricting and engages in gerrymandering, the resulting dynamics will exert moderating pressure on that party while simultaneously removing moderating pressure from the other party. Republicans controlled most of the last round of redistricting. Recent gerrymandering may not explain extremism from Republicans, but it sure can explain it from Democrats.
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