Congress has evolved so that most seats are safe

Published 12:00 am Sunday, October 25, 2009

If “Congress” were a person, he (or she) would stand no chance at being re-elected. Polls show a fed-up public, awarding “Congress” favorable ratings at 20 percent or lower during the Bush years and through Obama’s first months. With four out of five people believing “Congress” is failing the nation, “Congress” could pack its bags.

Of course, Congress is not a person. It is 435 people in the House of Representatives plus 100 people in the Senate.

Charlie Mitchell is executive editor of The Vicksburg Post. Write to him at Box 821668, Vicksburg, MS 39182, or e-mail.

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Strictly speaking, it is possible that all seats in the House, subject to two-year terms, and 36 seats in the Senate, where six-year terms are expiring or special elections are being held, could have new occupants after voting on Nov. 2, 2010.

But that’s not going to happen, regardless of voices rising from the left and from the right to “throw the bums out.”

There are three main reasons.

First is money in the bank.

In 2008, almost $2 billion was spent on federal campaigns, including the presidential campaign.

Thirty years ago, a House candidate from Mississippi who spent $20,000 on an election bid would have been accused of buying the election. Last year, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi’s 2nd District reported raising $2.4 million and spending $1.4 million. For next year’s voting, Rep. Travis Childers of the 1st District has already raised $700,000; Rep. Gregg Harper of the 3rd District has raised $230,000 and Rep. Gene Taylor of the 4th District has raised $173,000.

Those amounts of cash may or may not dissuade serious challengers, but certainly send a chilling message.

Second is the long campaign season.

In the 1990s when states were imposing across-the-board term limits — an initiative defeated by Mississippi voters — lawmakers responded by setting earlier deadlines to file for office.

The connection here is not self-evident, but is real. It has a couple of manifestations. One is that it confronts any potential rival with a much longer and thus more expensive campaign period. The other is more obscure and works this way: The earlier an incumbent learns whether he or she will have a formidable re-election challenge, the longer he or she has in which to take positions that curry favor with voters and undermine the opposition. The earlier deadlines help party politics, too, because incumbents who have a cakewalk to re-election can steer their personal PAC money to others and, on the floor, take riskier positions because, in “Survivor” terms, they have immunity.

Any person wanting to be on the ballot a year from now only has until March 1 to qualify and then must commit to campaign for eight months and a day. The campaign of Abraham Lincoln — well before radio, direct mail, automated phone calls, TV and the Internet — was three months shorter.

Third is the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

An unintended and perhaps unforeseen consequence of the act has been to create “personalized” House districts, some in which no Republican could win and some in which no Democrat could win.

Before the act was passed, district lines were based on geographical features such as rivers or on county lines or highways. A state that had seven House seats, as Mississippi did at the time, would be divided by the Legislature into seven regions based on topography — Coast, Delta, Piney Woods and such. Insidiously, that approach also perpetuated districts that, like the state, had white majorities. Few black Mississippians ran for office and even if they did their chance of being elected would have been slim. A third of Mississippians were black, but 100 percent of its federal delegation was white.

For this state and all others, the Voting Rights Act was designed to make amends — tacitly requiring the creation of districts where minority voters were in the majority. But a byproduct of drawing lines using census enumeration districts to enhance minority voting clout was to create enclaves of whites. Hence, we have Rep. David Dreier, conservative Republican, representing an affluent area around Los Angeles and Rep. Maxine Waters, liberal Democrat, representing the city proper. Neither ever has to think about the other’s constituency or working for consensus. The districts safely belong to their respective parties and any challenge would be from within the ranks — thus rare.

The largest swings in Congressional seats are normally in midterm elections when there’s no presidential contest on the ballot. Clinton lost Democratic majorities in both chambers two years into his first term. Bush lost his Republican majorities after six years in office.

Today, it seems safe enough to predict the dominance of Democrats in both chambers will be eroded next year, but not in a major way.

There’s no legal barrier, but even with 80 percent of the public unhappy with “Congress,” institutional barriers mean most members will retain their jobs.