Obama expressed a common view: that gerrymandering has created a bunch of safe seats for each party, making representatives responsive only to their partisan base and unwilling to forge bipartisan compromises.
It would be nice if this view were true, because it would suggest a clear solution to our polarized politics: draw more competitive districts. But unfortunately it is not true. The most important influence on how members of Congress vote is not their constituents, but their party. This makes them out-of-step not only with the average American — the “broad-based public opinion” that Obama mentioned — but also, and ironically, with even their base. Members are more partisan than even voters in their party.
He offers the following graph that shows that members of parties in Congress are more in step with each other than with their constituents. This throws our textbook definition of representation out the window. It's not about the voter, its about the party.
He can't quite explain what's driving this, but he tries to find an explanation.
All of this begs the question: where did this polarization come from, if not from gerrymandered districts or even from voters generally? That deserves another post, but here are two possibilities. One is that polarization has deep roots in fundamental structural transformations of American politics — the realignment of Republican and Democrats on civil rights and even the rise of economic inequality. Another possibility has to do with who controls local and state party organizations, who play a large role in selecting new candidates to run for office. In research on one of the most polarized state legislatures, California’s, Seth Masket finds that local party organizations have been captured by activists for whom ideological fealty is paramount. In research on one of the most polarized state legislatures, California’s, Seth Masket finds that local party organizations have been captured by activists for whom ideological fealty is paramount.
