The day after the Supreme Court gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v. Callais, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry issued an executive order purporting to halt the state’s House primaries so that the elections would be conducted in redrawn districts. Already, legislatures in several southern states have begun planning to dismantle districts that have protected voters of color from racial voting discrimination for generations.
Democratic-controlled state legislatures face a question: protect voters of color and their incumbent representatives, or maximize partisan advantage with more counter-strike gerrymanders of their own?
There’s actually a clear option for voting rights policy that would guard against racial discrimination while preserving the hard-won gains of the Voting Rights Act: proportional representation.
By amending the Uniform Congressional District Act, Congress could neutralize the gerrymandering arms race and restore equality of opportunity to our democratic process. We suggest amending the law to make three fundamental changes to how members of the House of Representatives are elected.
By amending the Uniform Congressional District Act, Congress could neutralize the gerrymandering arms race and restore equality of opportunity to our democratic process.
First, states with more than one seat should elect members of Congress using multi-seat districts. Second, states should use some form of list ballot structure, where voters choose either a single candidate (as happens now) or a “party list” vote (like the straight-ticket voting used in six states). Third, states should allocate seats to party lists using a fair allocation formula to ensure that votes have equal weight in determining representation.
This type of system minimizes the state’s role in selecting winners and losers. While any method of registering voter preferences requires some state administration, the current system of single-seat districts allows the government — not the voters — to determine the primary basis of representation.
Additionally, this approach would achieve better representation for voters of color. It would preserve the protections provided by the Section 2 framework of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), with additional benefits. Under a single-seat “first past the post” system, the state is forced to arbitrate competing claims for representation among various racial groups. By contrast, our proposal shifts this power to the citizens, allowing voters to identify and organize their own electoral communities.
Under a list system, candidates running for office can choose to run together on a list, and seats are allocated to lists. This allows voters to pool their voting strength, such that every vote counts toward representation: Even if one’s top candidate fails to earn enough votes to be elected on their own, a vote still counts toward the list and the election of candidates from the voter’s preferred group of candidates. Moreover, the list system ensures minority representation. In a three-seat election, any list receiving 25% of voter support is guaranteed a seat.
List systems allow voters to exercise greater agency than does our single-seat, winner-take-all system. By grouping themselves on the basis of the identity that they find salient, voters determine which groups are entitled to representation. Voters of color are free to determine which aspects of their identity matter most to them. Under the Section 2 framework, voters of color are not entitled to representation as political minorities or based on their other identities even though the framework incentivizes a politics of racial-group identity.
Electing representatives throughout the United States via multi-seat list systems, the type used in the majority of other democracies, including Brazil, Norway and South Africa, would also improve substantive representation. List systems facilitate the emergence of different types of coalitions, which can make for more fluid and dynamic politics. Elections are more competitive, coalitions continually shift to attract more voters and party systems are more responsive. Because list systems allow efsmaller groups to gain representation, minority coalitions that do not run on ethnic appeals are likely to emerge, moving U.S. politics away from ethno-nationalist trends. The same mechanisms that facilitate the emergence and survival of racial minority coalitions also allow for small parties running on non-ethnic appeals to gain representation, which can temper racial polarization.
List systems facilitate the emergence of different types of coalitions, which can make for more fluid and dynamic politics. Elections are more competitive, coalitions continually shift to attract more voters and party systems are more responsive.
In the wake of the high court’s Callais decision, both parties may be tempted, tit-for-tat style, to use the redistricting process as a tool for partisan retaliation. This path of mutually assured destruction would further erode voting rights and the foundations of our democracy.
As two of us warned more than a decade ago, the Callais decision was predictable. Civil rights activists might be tempted to double down on the VRA’s race-based anti-discrimination approach by relying on state voting rights acts to do what the federal Voting Rights Act once did. This would be a mistake.
Opponents of state voting rights acts would find it remarkably easy to use the Callais precedent to strike down bills that are mini-replicas of the federal VRA. The core objection of the Supreme Court’s conservatives to the Section 2 framework is that it requires the government to use race to allocate political power — a practice Chief Justice John Roberts famously dismissed years ago as the “sordid business” of “divvying us up by race.”
Reform must protect voters of color and ensure better representation for all Americans — goals that proportional representation is uniquely positioned to achieve. While amending the Uniform Congressional District Act remains the ultimate objective, progress does not have to begin in Congress.
Reformers should champion proportional representation at the local and state levels. With state legislatures reconsidering their electoral laws, this is a perfect opportunity to consider proportional reforms. Local governments with the capacity to innovate should also serve as laboratories for electoral democracy. Voting rights reformers are not left powerless by the Callais ruling. There is an obvious next step. We don’t have to live with political or racial inequality.
The post The best response to the Supreme Court’s Callais ruling: proportional representation appeared first on MS NOW.
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