Did any precedent have to be set? As far as I know, the Constitution doesn’t even require that there be congressional districts. A state could choose to elect all its representatives at large if it wanted to, couldn’t it?
No, I think it is a structural thing. One party states tend to accrete so much corruption over time that it turns voters off after a series of scandals and etc. Plus at the State level I think the political boundaries between the parties can be a lot different than at a national level. That’s changing a little bit when it comes to State Federal offices (U.S. House / Senate) as many Democrats and Republicans have started to recognize it doesn’t matter what their State’s party is like because the representatives in Washington will be heavily pressure to follow the party line. If you’re okay with the Massachusetts Republican party you still might vote for a Democrat for Senate because you know whoever you send will still mostly vote with the Republicans at the Federal level.
At the Statehouse the parties however still have their historical state independence, so that makes it easier to rebel against one party rule excesses because ideology doesn’t get in the way as much.
I think it’s more a reaction. One party eventually gets control, takes that as mandate to run things in one extreme direction, then they loose complete control in the next election when people vote them out and a split government back in Then they get tired of government not being able to get anything done because the parties are checking each other so they vote in a single party. And the cycle repeats.
Right now in Minnesota the Democrats have complete control, they took that as a mandate to turn citizens into felons just for having a 11 round magazines, taxing and user-feeing everything in sight (including a proposal to toll the St. Croix Crossing), and spend like drunken sailors. They are starting to realize the error of that approach and dialing things back, a lot. Minnesota has a lot of rural Democrats that haven’t become Kansas Republicans and being too liberal on anything other than farm policy and soaking the rich is not good politically.
That’s my extremely general impression, too- especially in recent years. The U.S. is in a constant state of throwing the bums out.
It isn’t in the Constitution, but it has been illegal since 1969 for a state to have at-large districts, given that a state is entitled to at least two reps.
Not here in Georgia we’re not subject to “throw the bums out” cycles. The Democrats ruled securely for decades when they were the party of racism prior to the Voting Rights Act, even lasting a couple of decades beyond that because our voters are just that stupid. Now the Republicans have ruled for decades since they are the party of racism. Funny how that works.
Not quite - ask Alaska, or Delaware, or Montana or the Dakotas or Wyoming and Vermont. Were you thinking two senators?
He’s saying States can’t have at-large districts unless the State only has one Rep. The States you mention all just have on rep.
Yes, I was referring only to states with at least two reps.
Thank you, Simplicio.
That’s what I bet is the most pertinent thing to consider- someone like Hubert Vo (D) here in the Texas Legislature is probably somewhere to the right of a lot of republicans in the MA General Court in the grand scheme of things.
Can you provide a cite? It’s not that I disbelieve you; I’ve seen similar references to the Voting Rights Act lots of places. It’s just that I can’t find an explicit reference to the Voting Rights act where it specifies that. The Wikipedia page on At-large elections even says that Article I of the Constitution requires that representatives be elected from geographical districts, then has a link to a the Constitution itself, which says nothing about that. Perhaps there’s a court case that I’m missing?
It is certainly possible to elect multiple representatives from one at-large district.
And in New York, many more state Republicans supported the SSM bill than one would expect: without their support it probably would not have passed. However, one can overplay their social liberality: fewer than half of the NY GOP congressmen voted for it.
And it’s also possible to elect multiple representatives at-large in such a way as to exclude any minority ones from being elected. In fact, that’s the point of at-large elections.
So, for example, in Georgia, the 56% white population could win all the elected seats fir Georgia, if these were at-large elections. To do that in district elections, it would take carefully-rigged gerrymandering of the districts
I think that possibility is why at-large elections are disallowed, at least in states subject to the Voting Rights Act limitations.
Everything’s better in Canada. The sooner you silly Americans learn this, the better.
There’s a few structural problems I have with Canada but for years now I’ve been praising Westminster style governments for their ability to avoid partisan gridlock, and I’ve been praising Canada’s reasonable approach to its debt and spending problems that it implemented many years ago and resulted in Canada being quite well insulated from the recent economic crises.
One reason I don’t think I’ve seen mentioned in this thread is the concentration of Democrats in large cities. The GOP is currently very popular with rural voters and with suburban voters in some states; in states where these voters outnumber the Democrats in the cities, the GOP can win statewide elections. In the relatively few states with very large cities, the Democrats in these cities tend to outnumber the Republicans in the rest of the state, and Democratic candidates dominate the statewide elections. Other factors, like race, religion, election rules, and the quality of candidates, also affect these results, but I think the large city effect is important.
The urban effect is also natural filibustering. You just cannot combine a portion of the Bronx with Ulster County, for example. That means that downstate districts in my state may bring back 80% majorities for Democrats, but the Republicans are a serious force in the state legislature because they can get 55% of the votes in many upstate districts. In statewide races, however, the Democrats start with a 60% majority. Same for many states.
Gerrymandering is part of it, but the reality is that Republicans always have a fully mobilized base. Rain on election day is bad for Democrats. Voter suppression is good for Republicans. Why? Because everyone who is ever going to vote Republican already does, and does every time. Nearly every marginal voter who may or may not vote if he’s busy that Election Day or only votes in Presidential elections is a Democrat.
I think part of this is also that Republicans, for all of their fantasies about certain scientific and civil rights issues and what have you, actually are a lot smarter about how the federalist political process works, while a good deal of Democratic voters (especially those marginal may-or-may-not-show-up ones) think you vote for the President every four years and he does whatever you want.
Gerrymandering can’t account for current Republican dominance in governors’ mansions.
I think that part of it is that Democrats have proven to be better at governing nationally, while Republicans have been better at running states. Clinton/Obama > Bush/Bush.
Also, I think that balanced budget requirements force Republicans to do a better job than they otherwise would. Republicans at the national level forgot that you can’t cut taxes without cutting spending first, at the state level they have to do it the right way.
There haven’t been that many Governors races since 2010. Almost all (38 out of 50) take place during the mid-terms. The current GOP dominance of Governor’s mansions is almost totally due to the GOP wave in 2010.