Tracing the progress of same sex marriage

Posted on December 14, 2012 by David S. Meyer

Molly Ball’s excellent article in The Atlantic traces the development of the ongoing campaign for marriage equality.  Ball notes that 2012 was a watershed for the gay rights movement; after losing in state referenda 31 times, advocates of gay marriage were on the winning side four times (Maine, Maryland, Washington, and Minnesota).  More Americans now support same sex marriage than oppose it, and the margin among younger people is growing wider.

As the chart shows (from Freedom to Marry), marriage isn’t available to same sex couples in most of the United States, but the progress over the past few years has been extraordinary.  The Supreme Court has taken two cases on same sex marriage this year, and Republicans are debating how much value the strong anti-marriage position in its national platform provides at the polls.

The world is changing and these changes don’t happen by themselves.  Tracing the routes to influence for social movements makes for a complicated tale with many important factors, including celebrity endorsements, cultural products like the tv shows, Ellen, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and Ellen, and the strategy of coming out.

Ball’s tale puts activist lawyer, Evan Wolfson, at the center of the story; it’s a good choice and a compelling case.  A veteran of the Peace Corps, and a former prosecutor, Wolfson has been focused on marriage equality for more than three decades.  Ball reports that he wrote his last student paper at Harvard Law School on the topic.

Wolfson founded Freedom to Marry in 2003, and has spent the years speaking at rallies and conferences, running his organization, talking to the media, briefing politicians, arguing cases, raising money, drafting legal briefs, writing for a popular audience, and meeting with other activists to argue about priorities.  His name doesn’t come up in most reports on referenda, court decisions, public opinion, or the evolution of individual politicians like Joe Biden or Barack Obama, but Ball sees his fingerprints everywhere, in the arguments, images, and events that led up to November 2012.

For Wolfson, the struggle continues.  As a lawyer, he wants to see recognition of the right to marry from the Supreme Court.  As a civil rights activist, he is dubious about subjecting basic rights to the vicissitudes of the popular vote.  Ironically, the larger movement’s successes with public opinion make such a judicial outcome more likely.

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Movement overreach in Michigan

Posted on December 12, 2012 by David S. Meyer

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder blamed the unions when he signed legislation designed to devastate them.  He said that he had no intention of pursuing “right to work” legislation in his state, because it would be controversial and divisive.  The last few days have shown that he is certainly right about the latter claim.

As a lame duck legislature rushed to pass right to work legislation before the newly elected Democratic state representatives and senators could take office, organized labor led massive crowds to Lansing, where they descended on the Capitol Building (at right).  It’s almost reminiscent of the long protests in Madison, Wisconsin in 2011.

The sequence of events is a little different, however, and it tells us something about the politics of provocation.  In Madison, newly elected governor Scott Walker rushed anti-labor legislation through his state legislature at the beginning of a new term.  He hadn’t campaigned on the issue, but it certainly fit the conservative profile he had crafted over his political career.  Activists crowded into Madison, demonstrating, picketing, and bringing national attention to the issue.  After the legislation was passed, activists targeted Governor Walker and Republican senators for recall; most (but not all) survived expensive and divisive elections.  Wisconsin voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama’s reelection, and elected a liberal, Tammy Baldwin, to the US Senate.

In Michigan, labor activists tried to take advantage of the 2012 election by enshrining collective bargaining in the state constitution.   Question 2 was defeated by more than 15 points, in an election where Barack Obama carried Michigan easily and all six ballot questions were rejected by the voters.

It was fairly easy for Governor Snyder and his allies to read the election: Republicans had lost seats in both houses of the state legislature, but organized labor had failed at the ballot box…by a lot.  Republicans may have ideological reasons for supporting right to work legislation, but it’s very clear that this was a political move.  The new legislation will make it harder for organized labor to organize, to raise money, and to participate in politics.  It was an assault on their political opponents that should provide advantages over the long haul.

Unless it doesn’t.  Social movements respond to provocation.  The crowds that turned out in Lansing were incensed by the threat to their welfare (workers earn less money in right to work states) and their political viability.   They responded with a vigor that reflected the magnitude of this threat.

Americans for Prosperity, the conservative group backed by the Koch Brothers, was also in Lansing, on the lawn in front of the Capitol; confrontations were predictable.  The AFP tent was torn down, and there was at least one fist fight (above).  All over the web are videos of the confrontations, many with narration and editing that emphasizes the coarse character of one side or the other.

Organized labor will try to use Governor Snyder as a target for their ire, and will seek other ways to combat the legislation, and to wage a much larger battle about the future of America.  Has a sleeping giant been awakened?  or Has a terminal patient been annoyed?

Efforts to weaken labor in Wisconsin and Michigan were part of a larger national conservative agenda, backed by groups like ALEC and Americans for Prosperity.  Activists attempts at fighting back have generated mixed results.  In Wisconsin, Scott Walker kept his office, and severely weakened collective bargaining remains, but the Democrats have done well at the polls.  In Ohio, citizens overturned anti-labor initiatives at the ballot box; in Indiana, right to work legislation sailed through state government without much visible opposition.

What we know at this point is that neither side is close to giving up.

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Occupy outcomes: community, rhetoric, and law

Posted on December 7, 2012 by David S. Meyer

The influence of successful social movements generally plays out over a longer time than the movements themselves.

What happens afterwards is complicated and contingent, and activists aren’t always quick to claim credit for what they’ve done.

Nationally, Occupy effected a short-term but substantial shift in rhetoric, dramatically encouraging President Obama–and other Democrats–to talk about Occupy issues, including employment, education, and debt.  When Governor Mitt Romney responded to a question with a discussion of the 47 percent (who would never vote for him), he was responding to an agenda Occupy had set.  But the longer term influence of these shifts in rhetoric remains an open question.

Locally, there are already some more concrete results.  A report from the New York Post about the surprisingly low rate of crime in Red Hook after Superstorm Sandy credits the Occupy movement.  Occupy Sandy was completely invested in community rebuilding efforts in this Brooklyn neighborhood after the storm, and local (unnamed) police praise the activists for helping to keep the peace.  The Post reports:

Police sources have credited the drop in crime to an unlikely coalition that included the NYPD, Occupy Wall Street activists, and local nonprofits working together to keep storm victims safe.

“This crisis allowed us all to remove the politics and differences we had to do our job, and come to the aid of the people,” said a police source yesterday. “We all rose to the occasion.”

In Coffey Park, cops worked with Occupiers who set up tents to distribute food, clothes and medicine– and happily went home at the end of the day, rather than camping out. The NYPD blanketed Red Hook with cops, using their patrol cars to light up the powerless neighborhood at night.

For some Occupiers, working with police and local government was a shift in perspective, but one that made sense given their commitment to their communities and grassroots coalitions in support of mutual aid.

Occupy LA

Local police and city officials less burdened with current crises, meanwhile, responded to the memories of the public order crises they remembered from the Occupations in the fall of 2011.  The Los Angeles Times reports that local governments have made it more difficult for activists to stage protests legally.   Frank Shyong reports that:

Occupy protests have prompted cities to tighten restrictions on protesters and behavior in public space in ways that opponents say threaten free speech and worsen conditions for homeless people.

Governments now regulate with new vigor where protesters may stand and walk and what they can carry. Protest permits are harder to get and penalties are steeper. Camping is banned from Los Angeles parks by a new, tougher ordinance. Philadelphia and Houston tightened restrictions on feeding people in public.

Local officials who lived through Occupy have worked to make it harder for an Occupy-like movement to return.

So, what matters most over the long haul?  Shifts in national rhetoric?  Local goodwill and community connections?  Local laws?

Predictions are tough, particularly about the future, but I think the smart bet is always to look at the laws first.  Sigh.

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The Tea Party versus the Republican Party (again)

Posted on December 6, 2012 by David S. Meyer

The Republican Party in Congress is riven between legislators who want to represent their politics clearly and consistently and others who want to govern.  We often score the first group as acolytes of the Tea Party, but it’s a little more complicated, because the Tea Party isn’t so unified.

After an election that disappointed both purists (who lost elections they thought they could have won) and pragmatists (who blamed the Tea Party for costing them elections they thought they could have won), internecine battles are surfacing.  Even as partisans argue about the future of the party and the future of the movement, they are also working to secure their own futures.

In the House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner has purged purists from the important budget committees.   It’s not that all the conservatives lost their seats on Budget and Financial Services committees, but a select few who had defied the leadership on important votes will have a harder time doing so in the future.  The Republican Steering Committee, which makes assignments at the behest of the Speaker, won’t give a public explanation, but the disciplined members have explained that they’re being punished for their zeal in representing their constituencies and refusing to go along with the leadership.

The party leadership can offer (or deny) a variety of perks to induce compliance from its caucus, including committee assignments, office space, and television time, but the ousted members are not likely to suffer in their districts.  Of course, the discipline is targeted more to the rest of the caucus than those who are punished.  The message is clear: members of the House who want to do well have to work with the leadership–even if it means disappointing movements that supported them.

Tea Party Republicans are also looking out for themselves, perhaps at the expense of the movement.  Dick Armey, formerly House Majority Leader and chair of FreedomWorks throughout its life, resigned his position with the activist group.  Although Rep. Armey declined to provide specifics, he was clear about the acrimony within the organization, demanding that his name be removed from everything in any way related to the organization.

At Politico, Kenneth P. Vogel reports that the dispute at the root of the departure was between Rep. Armey and FreedomWorks president, Matt Kibbe, over a book deal that Armey judged to be corrupt and dangerous to the organization.  Armey charged that Kibbe used organizational resources, including staff time, to write a book that he alone would profit from; Kibbe says he wrote the 416 page book on his own, over a Christmas vacation.  For a buyout of $8 million, Armey agreed to postpone public discussion of the matter, as well as his impending departure, until after the 2012 election.  Of course, all of this is now being framed as a dispute about strategic differences within the organization.

And Senator Jim DeMint (Republican, South Carolina), a stalwart Tea Partier in government, dead set and emphatic against compromise with the president, announced his resignation from the Senate, leaving government with four years remaining in his term.  Senator DeMint is leaving to become president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Senator DeMint says that he’ll be more effective as a voice outside of government.  He will also be considerably wealthier.  One of the least affluent members of the Senate, he is leaving a position that pays $174,000 a year; his predecessor at Heritage, Ed Feulner, earns well over $1 million a year.

The potential for tension between looking out for yourself and working for the country, as a legislator or an activist, is always present in movements.  Activists on the left who manage to earn a lot of money are often challenged about the authenticity of their commitment to the cause.

On the right, the problem is somewhat more acute.  If you believe that the country does best when every one is looking out for himself or herself, first, last, and in between, there’s no shame in cashing in–rather than selling out.  It may be the ultimate goal.

But it’s not good for a social movement.

According to conservative blogger, Jennifer Rubin, it’s not so good for Heritage or the war of ideas either:

Let me first explain why this is very bad indeed for Heritage. Even DeMint would not claim to be a serious scholar. He is a pol. He’s a pol whose entire style of conservatism –  all or nothing, no compromise, no accounting for changes in public habits and opinions — is not true to the tradition of Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk and others. By embracing him, Heritage, to a greater extent than ever before, becomes a political instrument in service of extremism, not a well-respected think tank and source of scholarship. Every individual who works there should take pause and consider whether the reputation of that institution is elevated or diminished by this move. And I would say the same, frankly, if any other non-scholarly pol took that spot.

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December 1, 1955

Posted on November 30, 2012 by David S. Meyer

Fifty-seven years ago today, Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama.  When local activists learned about her arrest, they organized a city-wide boycott and filed a lawsuit, kicking an emerging civil rights movement into a higher gear.

Mrs. Parks’s non-cooperation was courageous, but it wasn’t an isolated act.  She had been an activist for most of her life, and was chapter secretary of the local NAACP.  She had taken a summer course at the Highlander Institute, where she read about civil disobedience, the Constitution, and the Brown versus Board of Education decision.

She also wasn’t the first person to defy segregation laws on the city buses; earlier that year, Claudette Colvin (at right), then fifteen, was arrested for the same offense, but local activists were reluctant to organize around her.  She was young, less experienced, pregnant, and not married.  Image matters.

The Montgomery bus boycott spurred similar efforts around the United States and brought global attention to the civil rights movement.  It also introduced Martin Luther King, then a young minister, to national visibility.

Mrs. Parks herself became an icon of the movement–and indeed, in American history.  When I ask my students to list heroes of the American civil rights movement, she is second only to Martin Luther King in mentions.  Often, students know no other names from the movement.

Twenty-five years after her arrest, Mrs. Parks’s celebrity brought her an appearance on a game show, To Tell the Truth.  In the video below, you can watch celebrities question her–and two impostors–about the bus boycott.  It’s bizarre and compelling.  The last questioner is comedian Nipsey Russell, who uses his brief turn to shout out to other important, courageous, and now lesser-known heroes of the movement.

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Naked truth; nude protests and the politics of attention

Posted on November 28, 2012 by David S. Meyer

Obviously, she wasn’t armed.

The story is that Lady Godiva rode through the streets of Coventry naked on a dare some time in the 11th century.  After repeatedly complaining to her husband, Leofric, who had imposed those taxes, she took more dramatic action.  Leofric promised to lower taxes only after she had rode through the streets naked–knowing that she would never do so.  But she trotted through town and became a hero to the people of Coventry.

Probably not, but it’s a good story that started circulating roughly a hundred years after it was supposed to have happened, and it works for our purposes.

Yesterday, as Congress continued to posture–and perhaps negotiate–about a budget deal that addresses the deficit, avoiding the dreaded “fiscal cliff,” seven protesters disrobed in House Speaker John Boehner’s office.  Three women were arrested.  You can see the story here, and with photos, video, and twitter updates here.

They are concerned about federal funds for medical care, particularly for AIDS.  Because the United States spends so much on health care (nearly double what any other rich country spends), budget hawks always look at these unkindest cuts.  Worse, Medicaid, which serves the poor, is a particularly tempting target for cuts because it does not have a strong organized lobby.

So activists disrobed in the lobby.

No reports that Speaker Boehner was there, which is fortunate; he didn’t have to avert his eyes to avoid seeing, uh, their message.  That poor sick Americans might suffer as a result of cuts to spending on medical care is an inconvenient fact for someone whose caucus is far more worried about cuts to military spending–or raising taxes.

But Speaker Boehner wasn’t their target anyway.  By taking off their clothes, they were able to generate national attention, not only to their tactics, but also to their cause.  At least some of the coverage praised the activists for raising the real issues associated with dramatic cuts in what the federal government actually does.

And public nudity remains intrinsically interesting.  In San Francisco, protesters rallied nude to protest—a law that would require them to be clothed.  According to Scott Wiener, who introduced the ordinance, there’s nothing wrong with occasional nudity, particularly in the service of a cause.  When, however, nudity becomes routine, so that a nude protest wouldn’t even be newsworthy, it’s time for government to act.

Unlike Lady Godiva and Speaker Boehner’s visitors, the San Francisco demonstrators were using nudity to draw attention to….nudity.

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Occupy Sandy and mutual aid

Posted on November 26, 2012 by David S. Meyer

Piotr Kropotkin was an anarchist because he believed that absent government, people would help each other.  Born a Russian noble, Kropotkin renounced his title and spent his life as an activist and theorist, and proclaimed his allegiance to poor.  He saw government, which extracted wealth and started wars, as the problem.

The solution was in the people.  Everywhere Kropotkin looked, in Siberia where he worked as a scientist and bureaucrat, and in the animal kingdom, he saw Mutual Aid.  Absent government coercion, people helped each other, building sustainable and humane societies.

For one strain of anarchists, the work to be done was not only to resist government, but also to build alternative networks for addressing social problems.

Occupy activists in New York have worked to rise to the challenges of Superstorm Sandy.  Occupy Sandy is an effort at mutual aid, directed explicitly to the people most affected by the storm.  Occupiers have collected and distributed relief, including food.  And for Thanksgiving, Occupy Sandy organized meals in affected neighborhoods in New York City.  Occupy Wall Street has forged an alliance with the environmental group, 350.org, to organize for action on climate change while providing relief.

Maintaining a presence in Zuccotti Park is simple compared to building the infrastructure needed to take on a large relief effort.  Occupiers have been raising money and building the expertise needed to make these efforts work, organizing meals, entertainment, and fundraising efforts.

In the large wake of Sandy, all of these efforts are welcome, necessary, and possible.  Over a longer haul, it’s hard to see any of this working as an ongoing volunteer effort.  People have jobs outside the relief effort.  Those who stay inside the relief effort will specialize, develop relationships with funders (likely including government at all levels), and find routines to do their jobs more effectively.  It’s hard to balance advocacy and service.

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Occupy and the 2012 elections

Posted on November 23, 2012 by David S. Meyer

Unlike the Tea Party, the Occupy movement wasn’t visibly invested in the elections.  Occupy groups didn’t endorse candidates, even candidates who came out of the Occupations.  Occupy groups didn’t raise money for the elections, didn’t form PACs, much less SuperPacs, and didn’t buy television ads.  While the Tea Party’s showing was a disappointment to its activists–and still a threat to the Republican Party, the elections were more or less a sideshow for Occupy.

But politicians responded to the pressures of Occupy, at least for a while.  President Obama’s speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, in early December as the encampments were evacuated, marked a dramatic shift in focus for the White House.  From a desperate and defensive focus on the deficit, Obama moved to talk about the problem of gross and growing economic inequality.  This was more difficult territory for his Republican opponents to address, as Mitt Romney demonstrated in his unfortunate remarks about the 47 percent of Americans who were addicted to government.  (It turned out that it was Governor Romney who won about 47 percent of the popular vote.)

From time to time, Occupy protesters would turn up at candidate events, including the national conventions.  They didn’t get much attention most of the time, but occasionally a well-choreographed mic check could fluster a candidate, as you’ll see in Michele Bachmann’s response to an unanticipated mic check below.

Unlike the Tea Party, Occupy didn’t divide its support among candidates for office.  Barack Obama was unchallenged for the Democratic nomination, and while Occupiers occasionally challenged him theatrically, they didn’t mount an organized effort to defeat him at the polls.  A few Occupiers ran for office, without much attention or success.  A somewhat larger group of regular politicians expressed their identification with Occupy, most notably Massachusetts new senator, Elizabeth Warren.  But these candidates used Occupy to amplify issues they already cared about, and defined Occupy in their own terms.  Senator Warren, for example, campaigned for strong regulation of Wall Street, not the end of capitalism.

Occupy pushed Obama to the left, and that helped him; indeed, when Romney tried to move a little to the left, that helped him as well.  Occupy may be able to claim some of the credit.

Over at Mobilizing Ideas, Jen Schradie credits Occupy with the formulation and passage of Proposition 30 in California, which provided a temporary tax hike that would forestall even more extensive cuts to public education.  Championed by Governor Jerry Brown, the proposition raised income taxes only on the very wealthy, but also provided for an increase in the sales tax for everyone.  Schradie sees a worker-student alliance that forced the trustees not to raise tuition–this year, and will provide a basis for further action.

I’m not convinced.  Governor Brown negotiated a poll-tested proposal with the California Teachers Union, which spent and advertised heavily.  The victory (54.7%) was significant (maintaining an enrollment of 32 in my daughter’s 3rd grade class), but voters resoundingly rejected a more progressive and more permanent solution to the ongoing California budget crisis for education (Proposition 38, which was trounced).  Proposition 30 was a temporary relief from a crisis in public higher education, but hardly a massive progressive victory.  It was exactly the kind of pragmatic stopgap solution we’d expect from a centrist governor, and absolutely not the kind of visionary change in direction we’d expect from a successful social movement.

But passing Proposition 30–and reelecting President Obama–were still infinitely preferable to the alternatives for most Occupiers.  It’s not really clear how much Occupy had to do with these outcomes.  The higher-than-expected turnout of young voters in one hint of potential influence.

The indirect influence, however, makes it hard for Occupy to enforce claims on the president or Congress.  As the campaign continued, Obama ran against Romney more than for a broad new agenda.  He now has some political space to define just what that means.  If President Obama pushes for strong investment in public goods, including education, and a more progressive tax system, that would support the Occupy case. If instead we hear about grand bargains and cuts in entitlements, well, that’s another story.

And the next question will be whether Occupy can reemerge to maintain a voice for Occupiers’ ideas.

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Workers of the world (at least Europe) unite

Posted on November 14, 2012 by David S. Meyer

For Marx and Engels, “workers of the world unite” was invective.  Today it’s descriptive.  Across Europe, but particularly in countries implementing harsh austerity regimes,

Confrontation in Madrid

workers are taking to the streets, sometimes landing in violent clashes with police.

The global financial crisis that started in 2009 has been much worse in most of Europe than in the United States, and Germany, which houses the strongest economy in the Euro, has demanded strict austerity from economies in trouble.  Governments in Southern Europe, in response to these pressures, have tried to cut state spending, eliminating jobs, cutting pensions and public works, and enacting reforms that have hit working people more heavily than creditors.  The promise is that strict fiscal discipline will save the Euro, help the governments of the richer countries convince their publics to pay for financial bailouts, and ultimately restore economic health.

But most of the people in the countries that have borne the worst of the crash see austerity

protesters throw gas bombs in Athens

as bringing high unemployment, reduced services, including education and health care, and an overall decline in the quality of life.  They see the young people who can leaving the country for better opportunities elsewhere, perhaps never to return.  “Ultimately” seems a long way away, and those who look beyond their own struggles observe that austerity doesn’t seem to be generating jobs anywhere.

demonstrators try to block trains in Belgium

Today, very large numbers have poured out into the streets, including hundreds of thousands in Madrid,  with tens of thousands in virtually every major city in Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Greece, and smaller sympathy demonstrations in France, Belgium, and throughout the rest of Europe.  Although the overwhelming majority of the protesters are nonviolent, there are millions of people in the streets across Europe, and they’re angry.  They’ve shut down mass transit and production; it really is a general strike.

Austerity and anger created the opportunity for protests to spread, but they still have to be organized; the large trade unions have taken the lead in organizing and coordinating activities.  Labor has been much slower to build alliances across borders than business and banking, so these responses to the financial crisis may be a critical turning point for politics and governance.

Will it matter?  How?

The Wall Street Journal cites analysts who say that organized labor, declining in size and power, will have little impact in staving off austerity, that the disruptions will be a sideshow on the way to a better way.  But the San Francisco Chronicle has published a Bloomberg report announcing that the European Commission has promised more bailout aid and no new cuts–at least immediately.

The protests make it harder for elected governments to do what Germany is telling them they must do.  They are also demonstrating–to Germany and the rest of the world–why it’s so hard.  They may well strengthen the spine of politicians (watch France’s Francois Hollande) inclined to stand up against the austerity regime.

One certainty is that what analysts and politicians say is impossible today may be radically different tomorrow–depending upon how long these demonstrators can stay out in the streets.

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The Tea Party and the 2012 elections: part III

Posted on November 14, 2012 by David S. Meyer

Tea Party groups supported Republican nominee Mitt Romney and many Congressional candidates.   They lost the presidency.  They made no new gains in Congress; some Tea Partiers lost their seats, and some–like Minnesota’s Michele Bachmann, barely held on.  It wasn’t a good election for the Tea Party or for the Republican Party.

But this doesn’t mean that the Tea Party hasn’t–or won’t–exercise influence.

Movements, when they’re successful, change the boundaries of the political debate.  The Tea Party couldn’t do much to undo the federal rescue of the financial industry, the auto bailout, or the fiscal stimulus of 2009-2010.  The election means that their prospects of repealing President Obama’s health care reform have evaporated.

But the Tea Party also pushed for rejecting government action to address climate change, limiting taxation, and a forceful response to the budget deficit.  Partly in response to the movement, President Obama made somewhat less than half-hearted efforts to address climate change.  Borrowing Tea Party rhetoric, he cut spending and oversaw a temporary cut in the payroll tax, talking about the deficit and the federal debt almost incessantly.

Now that the election is over, it remains to be seen whether Barack Obama will recover the political courage his most vigorous–and disappointed–supporters imagine.  Superstorm Sandy has given him an opportunity to return to climate change, and the upcoming “fiscal cliff” will force him to negotiate about tax cuts and the deficit.

The bargains he negotiates with Congress will be a clear reflection of the extent of Tea Party influence.  In the past, he has been willing to trade the increased taxes on wealthy people he campaigned on (in 2008 as well as 2012) to keep the government operating.  His negotiating position should be stronger now, and we can watch to see whether the strong efforts have so shifted the boundaries of political debate that he’ll cut government spending without standing strong on the need for taxes.

Social movements can exercise influence even in losing campaigns.

And, mostly, the 2012 elections have undone little done by the 2010 elections.  In fact, Democrats face an uphill struggle in winning Congressional seats because those swept into office in 2010, particularly at the state level, did their best to establish a longer-lasting partisan advantage.  Coming in concert with the 2010 census, they were able to do quite a lot.

In most states, the legislature is responsible for drawing electoral districts for both the state legislature and the Congress.  Partisan legislatures gerrymander when they can, seeking to maximize the payoff from the votes they can mobilize.   With great computer programs, lots of data, and a rather polarized electorate, it’s fairly straightforward to project partisan votes from most populations.  Gerrymanderers pack as many of the other side’s voters into a district as possible.  If you can ensure that a district will vote 80-90 percent Democratic, for example, you have fewer Democratic voters to worry about in

Pennsylvania, Republican districts in red

other districts.  (Democrats do this too, when they have the chance; after the last census, however, the Republicans, having won several state legislatures, had much better opportunities.

So, more voters chose Democratic rather than Republican candidates for the House, but the Republican Party will nonetheless enjoy a majority of roughly 30 members in the next Congress.  In Pennsylvania, above, which President Obama carried by more than 5 points, Democrats carried 5 of 18 House districts.  In Ohio, below, which Obama carried by about

Ohio, Republican districts in red

2 points, Democrats took 4 of 16 House districts.

The electoral maps in many states present a difficult set of obstacles for the Democratic Party, and the Tea Party can claim some credit.  These are among the longer term consequences of political movements.

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