What Minority Party?

Much can change in four years. In 2000 the Democratic party looked as if it were on the cusp of achieving dominace in American politics. The Presidency had been occupied by a Democrat for eight years, the democrats had made significant gains in both houses of congress the past two elections, and the popular vice-president was ahead in the polls against a lightwieght challenger whose only claim to fame was his last name. Surely by 2004 the Democrats would have complete control over the levers of government, and send the Republicans into permanant minority status.

Now, four years later, it seems that the tables have turned. It is the Republican party who has earned the right to occupy the White House for eight stright years, and have made gains in the past two elections in both houses of congress. The Republican electoral juggernaught shows no sign of slowing down, and surely that by 2008 the Democrats will be in permamant minority status, never to be a force of opposition again. Right?

The giddy conservatve commentators that are currently predicting the demise of the Democratic party are surely to be just as wrong as those that prediected Democratic hegemony in this decade. The fact is that the United States is split evenly between its two primary parties and any difference in electoral representation is the result of several factors including the appeal of individual canidates, gerrymandering, organization, strategy, and luck. The "Republican dominance" in Washington and in capitols all over the country is extremly overblown. Here are the numbers:

In the last four presidental terms:
50% Democratic
50% Republican

Democratic Senate %
44

Democratic House%
46

Democratic Governers %
44

Democratic State Legistatlures
50%

This picture obviously is not great news for the Democrats. But it is hardly Republican dominance. The Democrats control no less than 44% of any major government body. That's not bad. Surely the Democrats are currently in the minority at every level of government, but the Republican margin is so razor thin at every level that the Democrats are only one election away from a clean sweep of government.

Still, I've claimed that the US is currently 50:50. So if that's true, why are all these numbers closer to 45:55? Well, there are a lot of reasons but chief among them is the unfair election system that the United States employs. The US uses a first past the post (fptp) election system that allows a canidate to win an election without winning a majority of the votes. This system also allows a third party canidate to decide an election by not having a runoff between the top two vote getters, as most nations do. This unfair system is why we have a Republican president, not a Democratic one. Our election system also gives unfair representation to rural states, who recieve more than their share of electoral votes .

Gerrymandering, the process by which legislative districts are drawn, is the greatest reason why elections in America are unfair. In most states polititians themselves draw the lines of the districts in which they will be elected. Essentially, they get to choose who gets to vote for them. This situation has led to a US House of Representatives, the body which the framers wanted to be the most responsive to public opnion, that rarely looses an incumbant. Every year polls show that more Americans want the Democrats to control congress, but every election its the Republicans who win the most seats. This is not democracy, and one can hardly say that the Republicans are the majority party when their electoral victories owe to such tactics.