“Would you agree that incumbent protection is one of those?” Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito asked Janai Nelson, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, arguing in the congressional redistricting case Louisiana v. Callais.
One of what, you ask?
Alito was referring to the High Court’s 2023 ruling in Allen v. Milligan, where it declared: “A district will be considered reasonably configured if it comports with traditional districting criteria.”
Yes, Ms. Nelson acknowledged: “Incumbent protection has been considered a traditional districting criteria.”
That whopper stood out from the rest of the debate. While it certainly wasn’t the focus of this redistricting case heard by the Supremes on Wednesday, in this political Twilight Zone in which we reside — this crepuscular nightmare — let me submit for your consideration that we have just identified a rather large thumb placed on our electoral scales.
The aim of elections is not to guarantee any particular outcome. Yet, protecting incumbents means seeking a very, very particular outcome.
Elections should make sure that — above all else — the voting public shapes the government.
Definitely not that the government shapes the public.
By drawing fancy lines for districts.
The founders worried most about monarchy and anarchy, kings and chaos. But they realized that three classes were especially dangerous in republics: secure government workers (“job holders”; bureaucrats), factions (partisans; special interests) and protected politicians (incumbents). To hear, from the highest court in the land, that the regular practice of creating and revising legislative districts routinely “and of course” protects incumbents can only lead to one conclusion:
Redistricting needs a full-scale, fundamental change.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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3 replies on “You Have Entered the Incumbent Zone”
Alito, along with Justices Barrett, Gorsuch, and Thomas, dissented in Allen v. Milligan; so my guess is that the purpose of his question now in Louisiana v. Callais was to grab Justices Jackson, Kagan, Kavanaugh, Roberts, and Sotomayor by the backs of their necks and to rub their noses in an implication of their earlier ruling.
But, y’know, when I was a student in the state-run school system, one of the lessons that I was repeatedly taught was that effectively restricting the choices in elections to candidates of just two parties was an important source of strength for the nation. That dogma was accepted by a great many Americans at least until fairly recently. I note that this restriction has much the same quality as giving protection to incumbents. So I can imagine many people being persuaded that this protection too is an important source of strength for the nation.
People need a clear explanation of why incumbent protection is bad. I submit that, as with term-limits, the proper argument focusses upon the incentives confronting politicians.
“Redistricting needs a full-scale, fundamental change.”
Yeah, so does civil forfeiture, slavery, and murder–and every other corrupt thing else that civil governments legalize.
Districting:
– guarantees that some votes will count more than others.
Even if you could (by the way, you can’t) create districts each with exactly the same voting population, they will change tomorrow.
– is unavoidably political.
Who knows and cares enough to help draw these line that has no interest in its political implications?
– is unconstitutional.
The federal government’s handbook of instructions doesn’t mention it all. But it’s not just “extra-constitutional”, it necessarily violates some part of it: count inmates? native Americans? immigrants? children too young to vote?
The redistricting process works to protect the Party as much as the politician. With or without term limits, the incumbent Party candidate is more likely to win. It’s probably even more ensconced than it was as late as the 1990’s, Absent a cataclysm of some sort, we’re not likely to see another election like 1994 anytime in the near future. People of means are moving to states where more people share their interests and priorities. The red states get redder and the blue states get bluer.