Gerrymandering and elections

While I am in the mode, this has just cropped up - I've mentioned primary elections already, and the tendency for parties to get out their base, and for successful candidates to have to pander to the most blue-or-red-blooded members of their party to get nomination. This is especially noticeable with Republicans and the Tea Party movement.

Lost of graphs to gawp at in this article, but the main point is that the primaries are the real contest in the vast majority of safe seats in both the House and the Senate; the actual public "general" election merely rubber-stamps the choice by the party in the safe seat.

Without the party primaries, rational choice among voters, even in gerrymandered districts, would produce more centrist winners. But in the vast majority of utterly safe districts, only one party's primary winner matters in the general. The primary is thus the real election, and a contest only to see who can turn out more of their red- or blue-faced partisan faithful.

The Senate produces figures who are not only closer to the centre but who have the security of a six-year term. Thus many of us can name senators known for crossing party lines, and thus name bills with sponsors from both sides of the aisle: McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, Kerry-Graham-Lieberman... Few of us can name comparable independent House members or truly bipartisan bills. Strict party-line votes have always been rarer in the Senate than in the House.

The re-election rates, especially in the House, are extraordinary and make politicians risk-averse. Useful for G&P students contemplating any question asking about the effectiveness of Congress