Inaction and partisan bickering have characterized the past four years in the U.S. House of Representatives. Whether you sit on the left side of the aisle or the right, the facts show that the House has been historically unproductive since 2010.
The infamous “Do Nothing Congress” of 1947 passed 395 bills in one year. According to PolitiFact.com, the current congress passed only 79 bills in 2013. Bipartisan bills with immense public support for things like farm subsidies, immigration reform, firearm background checks and V.A. reform have been ignored because of the dysfunctional Congress. The House has, however, voted to repeal Obamacare over 50 times.
Bills with broad public support are dying without a vote in the House. The will of the American people is largely being ignored in the house of Congress that was designed to represent the people’s will. These problems frustrate the American people, and many of them share a single question – why can’t Congress get anything done? The answer to th e question lies in the statehouses of states like Alabama.
In 2010, due to the unpopularity of the new Obamacare, the historic mobilization and grassroots organization of the “Tea Party,” and other factors, the Republicans took control of the House in a huge “wave” election. Often forgotten, however, was the fact that they also took control of many state legislatures. Republicans took control of Alabama’s legislature for the first time in 136 years in 2010, and similar takeovers happened in states all around the country.
Concurrently in 2010, the U.S. conducted the Census. Following the Census, it is the responsibility of the state legislatures to redraw the representative districts in their state to better represent their state’s populations and where they live. Republicans took advantage of this opportunity to dramatically gerrymander some states, and it has resulted in a Congress that does not respond to the will of the people.
In 2012, Republicans comfortably retained control of the House. However, Democratic candidates received over 1.2 million more votes than Republican candidates did.
In Ohio, 47 percent of voters voted for a Democrat, and 51 percent voted for a Republican. However, Republicans won 12 seats to the Democrats’ four. In Pennsylvania, Democrats received 51 percent of the vote to the Republicans’ 49 percent. Republicans won 13 seats and the Democrats won five. In our own state, Democrats won 36 percent of the vote, but only won one seat (Alabama’s 7th district, which is a racially-gerrymandered district with a ridiculous map that stretches from inner-city Birmingham and Tuscaloosa to Baldwin County).
States around the country are unfairly gerrymandered, and the House will continue to ignore the will of the people until something is done.
The 1965 Voting Rights Act required that some states, like Alabama, get redistricting pre-cleared by the Department of Justice or by a federal court. However, Alabama was able to get its gerrymandered districts approved in 2011, so the system seems to be lenient. Many states where gerrymandering is the worst, like Pennsylvania and Ohio, are not required to be cleared by the Department of Justice. In addition, the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act last year, so the problem is only going to get worse.
It is my hope that serious 2016 presidential candidates in both parties address the problem of gerrymandering and the newly weakened Voting Rights Act. It is a rarely talked about problem that undermines the very nature of our republic, and the country needs to address it.
Kyle Simpson is a sophomore studying biology. His column runs biweekly.
