Theodore S. Arrington, Ph.D.
Department of Political Science
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Charlotte, North Carolina 28223-0001
(704)547-2574
One Page Summary of Testimony,
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Committee on the Judiciary
United States House of Representatives
23 September 1999
My concern is to further the process of representative government, to make the election system more effective in translating votes into seats on governmental bodies. Single-member district systems may be less reliable in performing this task because of the increase in diversity within this country and the decrease in geographically defined communities of interest. There are three problems with single-member district systems in this regard. First, single-member district elections cannot provide representation for minorities -- racial, partisan, linguistic, ethnic, religious, ideological, or any other kind of minorities -- if they are dispersed geographically. Second, it is difficult or impossible to provide both representation and competition within a single-member district system. And third, single-member districts lend themselves to gerrymandering and other manipulations of the system. Multi-member districts with proportional or semi-proportional election systems might solve some or all of the problems. State legislatures should be given the freedom to experiment with these systems.
Testimony of
Theodore S. Arrington, Ph.D.
Department of Political Science
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte
9201 University-City Blvd.
Charlotte, North Carolina 28223-0001
(704)547-2574
before the
Subcommittee on the Constitution
Committee on the Judiciary
United States House of Representatives
23 September 1999
I am Professor of Political Science and Chairman of the Department of Political Science at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. For twenty-six years I have taught classes in methodology, voting behavior, American political institutions, and Southern politics. For forty years I have been active in politics.
I have published numerous articles and monographs on voting behavior, especially racial and partisan voting patterns and the effects of districting and various alternative methods of voting. I have been an expert witness in over twenty-five cases involving either the Voting Rights Act or gerrymandering. In these cases I have been retained by units of government -- cities, counties, school boards -- voting rights groups, the Republican Party, the Federal Courts, and the United States Department of Justice Voting Section. I have been asked to analyze voting patterns or districting schemes in some of these cases, testified or been deposed in some of them, and drawn districts in many others. I have been retained in cases in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Maryland, New York, and Prince Edward Island, Canada.
Since 1960 I have been active in elections and political party affairs, and for twelve years I was a member of the Charlotte/Mecklenburg Board of Elections, six years as the chairman of that body. Thus I have a great deal of practical experience in politics and elections. I was once active in politics in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Tucson, Arizona.
Many of the points I will make in my testimony are summarized and expanded in an article which I recently published with political geographer, Dr. Gerald Ingalls: "The Limited Vote Alternative to Affirmative Districting," Political Geography, Volume 17, Number 6, pp. 701-728.
My concern as a political scientist, expert witness, and political activist has always been to further the process of representative government. I ask: what can we do which will make the system more effective and accurate in translating votes into seats on governmental bodies? I certainly want the majority to rule, but I believe that minorities are entitled to a seat at the table, a voice in the legislature. When I say "minorities" here I am not necessarily referring to racial or language minorities which are protected by the Voting Rights Act. The minority that needs representation in any particular state or region on any particular governing body may be a partisan, religious, ideological, ethnic, or some other kind of minority. I believe in a full and fair representation for everybody. And when I speak of "representation" I mean simply that voters have somebody they would choose speaking for them in government bodies.
Problems with Single-member Districts
One might ask, "Where's the beef?" The single-member district system has served our country well for over two hundred years. In many cases it continues to provide full and fair representation for the U.S. House of Representatives, state legislatures, and many local units of government. I would be the first to argue against wholesale changes in our methods of election, but the demands of the current era may be different from the demands of the past. Specifically I believe that two changes have made single-member districts less effective in providing full representation.
First, there seems to be increasing diversity of race and ethnicity, life style, living conditions, religion, ideology, language, and values in America. This change may be a product of immigration or perhaps increasing diversity in the media. Second, these diverse groups are often not concentrated geographically. Where once people could be said to identify their interests by where they lived, this is increasingly uncommon. Especially in our urban areas, people with very different values and concerns may be living near each other. Although people may group themselves into neighborhoods based on shared concerns and values, only in the very largest cities can such neighborhoods become most of a congressional district. In most urban areas many neighborhoods must be combined to form a district. Thus the concerns of minorities may be sublimated or submerged.
Single-member districts work well to represent minorities when they are large enough and geographically concentrated enough to win at least one district. But minorities that are geographically dispersed may not be able to win any district in a state and may therefore never be able to elect a candidate of their choice even when they are numerous and cohesive in their voting.
Recent changes in court rulings on the Voting Rights Act illustrate this point. In the original Gingles case (a North Carolina case in which I participated in a small way), which defined the application of the Voting Rights Act, the court gave three "prongs" which must be proven to show that an at-large election system is in violation of the Voting Rights Act. One of these was that the protected minority must be large enough and geographically concentrated enough to form a majority in a single-member district. "Geographically concentrated" was not defined. Initially this was taken to mean that any geographically contiguous area could be a district. Since then, however, the Shaw case (also litigation from North Carolina), and its progeny have further refined what "geographically concentrated" means. In doing so, the courts have declared a number of Congressional districts which were designed to provide representation for racial minorities to be unconstitutional.
The practical effect of Shaw is to make it impossible in many states to provide representation for racial minorities through the drawing of single-member districts. In New York City or Atlanta there are enough African-Americans concentrated in one area to form one or more Congressional districts in which they could choose their representative. In North Carolina, to take a contrary example, this is not the case except perhaps in the northeastern portion of the state. In the Piedmont area of North Carolina there are more than enough blacks to form a majority in a congressional district, but they are dispersed across several geographically distinct urban areas.
I wish to emphasize here that I am only using the example of racial minorities because the Committee members will be familiar with the developments in this area. What is true of racial and language minorities is also true of other kinds of minorities as well.
A second problem is that the single-member district system forces us to choose between representation and competition. Whenever someone complains about the lack of competition in Congressional elections, I remind them that we are electing a House of Representatives not a House of Competitors. Nevertheless, competition for office is an important value, and the lack of competition for Congressional office should be a concern for all of us. If one draws a set of districts in such a fashion as to form districts that are relatively homogeneous, one will provide for a good deal of representation. The representative will be able to know the interests of his or her constituents to a high degree, and to vote in accord with their desires. But such districts will naturally be noncompetitive especially in a partisan sense. Competition within the primary rarely if ever provides a substitute for vigorous two-party contests. On the other hand, if one draws districts to maximize competition, there will necessarily be a very large minority in each district which feels alienated from the system having voted for candidates who consistently lose. Each district would be diverse and it will be impossible for one representative to satisfy more than a large fraction of his or her constituents in voting on controversial issues. The Congressman might, however, serve almost all of them in terms of constituency service, providing information, etc.
A third problem with the single-member district system is that the drawing of districts has such a drastic impact on the process of translating votes into seats that the practice of gerrymandering has become more of a threat. It has become accurate to say that it is the legislators who choose the voters rather than the voters who choose the legislators. Of course, state legislatures draw Congressional districts, but the point is still valid as congressmen have friends and allies in the state legislature and exert much influence there. The art of gerrymandering has been greatly aided by the rapid development of geographic information systems which allow anybody to draw many alternative districting schemes in a short period of time. I define gerrymandering in the traditional way as being an effort to draw the districts in such a fashion as to misrepresent. That is, to distort the process of translating votes into seats so that some group will receive more seats than their votes would entitle them to while some other group would receive less. Gerrymandered districts might not be oddly shaped.
A related problem with single-member districts is that one may be forced to decide which kind of minority one wants to represent. Drawing the districts one way may provide fair representation for urban and rural interests, but provide an unfair partisan balance. Drawing the districts another way makes the partisan divide fair, but might result in having all districts dominated by urban interests. Drawing a set of districts which represent a diversity of cross-cutting interests may be impossible. In other words, the district drawer has to decide what kinds of interests deserve representation and which ones do not. Again, the politicians choose the voters instead of the voters choosing the politicians.
Some individuals argue that one should draw districts without regard to any interests -- use natural boundaries and be a compact as possible. But as Justice White once observed, this can result in districts which are egregious gerrymanders or obviously unfair. He called it a "politically mindless approach." Geography is not destiny. . . at least not any longer in our urban and suburban nation.
Multi-Member Districts
Although there are no multi-member congressional districts, various forms of proportional or semi-proportional election systems are in use in local governments throughout America. Such systems are also in wide -- indeed, almost universal -- use throughout the world. From the examples of these systems in the U.S., I conclude that semi-proportional systems can provide a remedy for some of the problems noted above.
First, semi-proportional systems provide a method of representing minorities that are numerous enough to elect a representative but too dispersed geographically to form a majority in a single-member district. This is a remedy for the "Shaw problem." But it is applicable to much more than providing representation for racial or language minorities. There are many examples of partisan or other minorities in regions of some states that lack representation. In general, we would expect that multi-member districts with semi-proportional systems should provide a more accurate and efficient method of translating votes into seats. Diversity in representation could be enhanced by multi-member districts and semi-proportional voting systems.
Second, multi-member districts with semi-proportional voting systems allow us to combine both representation and competition. It is possible for a far larger majority of the voters to feel that they supported someone who represents them. Yet competition is also increased. Contrary to the myths that many Americans -- including some Supreme Court Justices -- have about semi-proportional systems, they are not characterized by "immobilization." Rather, such systems are more likely to have vigorous competition than single-member districts.
Third, multi-member districts are less subject to gerrymandering than single-member districts, although the problem does not go away completely. Semi-proportional voting systems are "open" in the sense that the voters decide how to group themselves politically in terms of the candidates they support. Voters may decide that they are Republicans, or farmers, or Presbyterians when they vote and combine their votes with others of a like mind.
Semi-Proportional Election Systems
I am sure that the Committee members have an intuitive grasp of what a multi-member district would be like, but may not have an idea of semi-proportional election systems. Proportional methods of election, such as the "single transferrable vote" system have their advocates, and I hope some of them testify today. But I think the American system of government would be better served with two semi-proportional systems that I have studied. I favor these systems for two reasons. First, because they do not require the voter to do anything unusual, allowing a ballot layout which is simple, straight-forward, and familiar to the voter. And, second, existing voting equipment can be programmed to count the votes with these methods easily and cheaply.
The first of these methods is called "limited voting." Suppose a state were divided up into triple-member districts. North Carolina, for example, could easily be divided into four three-member districts. Suppose further that each voter could only vote for two people. This would provide minority representation in each district. This method of election is used by a wide variety of local governments, concentrated in North Carolina and Alabama.
The second method is called "equal allocation cumulative voting." Suppose again that the state is divided into triple-member districts. Each voter has three votes. But if the voter should vote for only two people, each would receive 1.5 votes. If the voter found only one candidate worthy of his or her vote, that candidate would receive three votes. This method was used in Illinois for the lower house of the state legislature until relatively recently, and is used in one form or another in various local elections in the south, especially in Texas. I prefer "equal allocation" cumulative voting to systems which require the voter to allocate the votes two for this one and one for that one. Few voters evidently take advantage of this flexibility, and it greatly complicates the layout of the ballot. I prefer systems which allow voters to do exactly what they already are accustomed to doing: vote for a candidate or don't.
Evidence from systematic scientific studies of these voting systems in use in the U.S. show that voters understand how these systems work. These systems provide meaningful minority representation, while still allowing majorities to form and be elected. Competition is increased as well.
In some countries proportional representation systems produce too much diversity in the legislature with very small minorities controlling policy. This is a problem in Israel, for example. But if the multi-member congressional districts are held to three or four or even five member districts, this problem is avoided. To win a seat in a three member district a minority must be of substantial size and vote cohesively. Very small minorities will not be systematically represented.
Nor am I concerned that multi-member districts and semi-proportional systems will harm our two-party system. The reasons why we have a two-party system and other countries have many parties are not completely understood. In any case, the single-member district system has not produced a two party system in Canada or Great Britain, and is probably not the major factor in producing our unique party system. My own view is that the election of presidential electors by plurality vote within each state is the glue which holds our two-party system together along with tradition and various provisions of state law.
States Rights
I am well aware of some of the reasons for the Congressional mandate that states use single-member districts. In the early 1960s I was living in New Mexico. At that time the state had two democratic congressmen, both elected at-large. It was common knowledge that this was a form of a gerrymander. It was thought that if the state were districted into two, the district with Albuquerque would elect a Republican. Indeed, when the state acquired a third congressional seat and was districted, the Republicans won two of the three seats, and have held at least two since.
However, such abuses can be prevented without restricting the states from experimenting with multi-member districts with proportional or semi-proportional voting methods. I recommend that state legislatures be required to use proportional or semi-proportional voting systems if they choose to use multi-member districts.
I would oppose requiring states to use multi-member districts or any particular form of voting. Our states are the great laboratories for reform. This is one of the most important features of our federal structure. The Congress should free the state legislatures to experiment with these proportional or semi-proportional systems. If the experiment proves successful, other states will follow. If the experiment is not successful it will be abandoned. I recommend that we allow states the right to use a variety of methods to choose Congressmen. No more than this is needed, no more is wise at this time.