Districting and apportionment are two of the most important aspects in the way parties wield power in congress and the effects of each cannot be overstated. It is, in fact, one of the keys to holding and using power in congress, but seems to be far from the founding fathers intentions. Regardless, it is a product of how the current system operates and has become in some ways essential to its function. In this regard, both sides of the political spectrum are equally culpable, though Republicans and Democrats tend to use each in different ways.
	The first issue is apportionment. The reapportionment of seats in the house is determined every ten years based on the US census, the latest being in 2010 and the next in 2020, meaning that the makeup of the parties and seats in the House of Representatives lags ten years behind demographic changes. The democrats have tended to benefit the most from reapportionment. The 14th Amendment of the constitution states that the reapportionment of seats in the house is based on the number of persons in each state during the census – not number of citizens. While there was much discussion and controversy over they possibility of illegal immigrants voting in the last election, this is largely a smoke screen. The more pressing issue is the how many illegal immigrants are counted for the purpose of reapportionment during the census.1
	Here, Democrats naturally benefit the most, as large blue states such as California are swelled in the census by illegal immigration, though to what extent is hard to say, as their illegal status makes them shy to allow things such as their place of residence to be reported on to the government. One of the many reasons Trump’s election and the control of the Senate and House in 2016 was such a shocking upset was the belief that history and changing demographics were on their side. As minorities groups are a core Democrat voting bloc, it was assumed that it was only a matter of time until their was enough of a demographic change to ensure Democrat control of the House, Senate and even Oval Office, especially as every seat in the House gained by California represents a loss of seats in red States such as Ohio.11 The reliance on changing demographics to ensure political control has led to vexation by Democrats not only over the 2016 election, but also Republican gerrymandering and the power that low immigration, low population States have in the Senate.
	As John Dingell (D-Michigan), longest serving congressional representative opined,
“The idea that Rhode Island needed two U.S. senators to protect itself from being bullied by Massachusetts emerged under a system that governed only 4 million Americans.
Today, in a nation of more than 325 million and 37 additional states, not only is that structure antiquated, it’s downright dangerous. California has almost 40 million people, while the 20 smallest states have a combined population totaling less than that. Yet because of an 18th-century political deal, those 20 states have 40 senators, while California has just two. These sparsely populated, usually conservative states can block legislation supported by a majority of the American people. That’s just plain crazy.”4
	While this may seem underhanded on the part of the Democrats, the Republicans don’t fair much better. While the Senate naturally empowers republicans by giving a voice to smaller, whiter, “flyover” States, the use of gerrymandering benefits the Republicans as well. The current political landscape allows for Republicans, who have until the this last election solidly controlled the House, to carve up most districts as they pleased. This system allows for ‘politicians to choose their voters.’

	There are several problems, however, that make an often grotesque show of partisan power hard to eliminate. First of all, while a state, that is split 49%-51% Democrat/Republican may end up with only one Democrat and several Republican representatives, there is more to the situation than simple percentages. Demographics have concentrated the core Democrat voting block largely into cities, while the Republican voting block is more rural. This is an issue that frustrates redistricting requirements such as compactness. This is coupled with the Supreme Court’s often confusing interpretations of redistricting laws, when they are willing to make an interpretation at all. Many minorities vote along racial lines. However the bottom line so far has been that using gerrymandering to suppress rival political parties is perfectly acceptable, so long as its not being done for racial reasons – it can often be hard to discern between the two.

Unfortunately, the use of gerrymandering is one of the only cures to the equally frustrating problem of reelections. Steve Israel, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign committee complained, “" [I] spent roughly 4,200 hours in call time, attended more than 1,600 fund-raisers just for my own campaign and raised nearly $20 million in increments of $1,000, $2,500 and $5,000 per election cycle.”5 In this regard, gerrymandering is sadly one of the only ways to created safe districts that allow representatives to spend less time worried about campaigning and fundraising, and more time actually focusing on their job. As the adage goes, ‘before you can change the world, you have to get reelected.

	Many States are currently trying to undo gerrymandering in favor of a more fair and democratic processes for determining districts, without having to wait for a Supreme Court ruling on the issue. Chief among them is Ohio, the eight state so far to attempt to avoid gerrymandering with a constitutional independent commission.6 Ohio is a particularly egregious example, as a gerrymandering scheme was concocted by the Republicans before even holding control of the state, and was put into practice immediately in the 2010, bracing for the demographic changes of the census. For nearly the last decade, this allowed republicans to control 75% of Ohio’s seats, despite only ever getting 51% of the vote.7 Making gerrymandering worse is the use of complex computer software and meticulous studies transforming it from an art to an exact science. The scheme to rig the elections involved the gerrymandering all planned in a hotel nicknamed “the bunker” amongst Republicans using personal emails and zero public oversight. Using the Committee to Re-Elect the President to fix a presidential election may be illegal, the Supreme Court has made it so that conspiring to fix the House elections is not.

	Ohio’s constitutional amendment is a good first step in the road to fairer elections and a more representative democracy. It may seem strange to think that the Republicans may cede their ability to gerrymander, but Republicans are fully aware that they are in store for the same treatment come the 2020 census and likely Democrat control of the House. This has allowed the amendment to pass with overwhelming bipartisan support. In the end, however, there will still always be winners and losers, and each side will try to use exceptions and exemptions in the process to benefit them as much as possible. One could hope in the future that progress in software and AI would eventually allow for a truly non-partisan redistricting process, assuming partisan supermajorities are unable to veto the plan in favor of a single-party redistricting plane (something that the current Ohio amendment still allows for in special cases) but how this will play out remains to be seen.



2)	 The relationship between congressman and constituency is a complex and dynamic relationship. There are many reason – as stated above, one of them is that congressional representatives choose their constituency, rather than the constituency choosing their congressional representative. There are other complications related to districting as well, but also with demography of the State as a whole in the case of the Senate, and the understanding what actually constitutes a constituency.

	Each member of congress is a single minded seeker of reelection. To that end, a constituency usually boils down to “will this district or State’s people vote for the Republican candidate, or the Democrat candidate?” These two tents envelope and cover a massively diverse population, and each Senator and Congressmen must balance the individual non-partisan needs of his or her constituency with those of their party, along with maintaining both a persona at home, and a persona in D.C., balancing a narrow tightrope between all these needs.

	In the United States there are many political cleavages that do not fit squarely into the category of Democrat and Republican, Liberal or Conservative. Instead, multiple voting blocks are lumped together under a single umbrella. These voting blocs have tended to favor Republicans as their voting blocs do not often have contradictory interests. The Democrats, by contrast have a highly inclusive group of voting blocs, currently aimed at being progressivist and based around identity politics. This represents a larger number of people than the Republicans, but comes at the cost of infighting, requiring Democratic candidates to run on charisma and against Republicans, rather than running on a platform of policy.11

	By the number of established voting blocs in each party, their should be many more than only two effective political parties in the US political landscape.8 There are however, only two and the third largest party, the Libertarian Party, was only able to capture 1.28% of the popular vote in the House and .7% in the Senate during the 2016 general election.9  Why such a massive discrepancy? Duverger’s Law states that in a first-past-the-post style election, such as all elections in the US are, the political landscape will trend toward only two parties. In addition, the politicians on both sides will trend toward a middle in terms of policy, while their appearance and voting bloc appears more and more partisan. This has some profound impacts on how politicians manage their constituency, which had major repercussions during both the 2016 general election and 2018 midterm election.

	Fenno (circa 1977) identified three rings of constituency that the candidate must appeal to in order to gain re-election. The first, largest constituency is the geographic constituency. This encompasses all registered voters within a specific geographic area that might vote for the member of Congress in either election or re-election. These people will vote in the election, but not much else. Still, they are the largest number of voters and the other circles of constituency are important insofar as they compel the geographic constituency to vote for their candidate.

	Next is the electoral supporters, followed by the primary supporters. These two circles are both active and passionate participants in the election process. The electoral supporters primarily show support simply by voting, but they are a core element of the constituency that is important because they can be expected consistently to turn up to vote so long as they feel their needs and expectations are being met. The primary constituency, like the electoral constituency, are expected voters. The primary constituency goes well beyond, however, as they are passionate enough to get out and do the grunt work necessary to run a campaign. Smaller in number, they are responsible for motivating the larger constituencies to vote in turn.

	Last of all are the candidate’s intimates. These are people such as friends, neighbors, and family that the candidate can rely on. They are also the smallest in number. Knowing the candidate personally allows them to add a personal touch to their support and maintaining the candidate’s home style for reelections. Just as importantly, they are also trusted confidants that the politician can turn to when returning from Washington to get a good understanding of what his other constituents’ needs are, also helping him maintain his home style.

	Home style is the persona a politician maintains when he is at home in his district rather than on Capitol Hill. The distinction between home style and Capitol Hill style is important, as the requirement to be both a legislator of federal law and the need to bring back something for the constituency forces members of congress to walk a tightrope between a split personality. Analysis of these congressional voting reveals a distinct pattern on this issue. When dealing with social issues relevant to the constituency, a member of congress often votes along the needs of the constituency, e.g. LGBT issues or coal mining. On issues of budget, the politician often votes with his or her party (and more often with their party in the House than in the Senate). Lastly, on issues of foreign policy, the politician votes as they see fit. This is known as the politico model of representation.

	On the issue of  foreign policy, for example, their is no correlation between the voting patterns of states and their economic ties to trade with foreign countries. This is because foreign issues have little to no bearing on most American’s lives, and that America’s foreign trade is a smaller percentage of its GDP than any other country10. This allows Congress to act on foreign issues in a bipartisan fashion. While Hillary Clinton and John McCain are poles apart on social issues, they are in lockstep on foreign policy. This is consistent with the they hypothesis that Duverger’s Law posits, in representatives moving toward a center in policy but widening in rhetoric.

	This is not the same, however, when it comes to partisan voting behavior. The politician’s constituency may vote narrowly in favor of his or her party, but may be widely split from the politician’s party’s stance on many important issues. This is where there are so many in-factions in both parties: moderates, blue dog democrats, neocons, neoliberals, teaparty, etc. This is also where home style is critical.

	In order to maintain popularity (and of course, re election) a politician must groom an unwavering public image that is agreeable to the majority of his constituency. To this end, the mannerisms, the way he treats people in private, the clothes he wears, the sports team he roots for, the music he listens too, even the car he drives are all careful considerations that may very wildly against his behavior in Washington D.C. One of the strongest indicators of ensuring a vote is a personal interaction with that politician, and being an agreeable person similar to your potential voter goes a long way towards earning that vote. A constituency wants to feel that their politician genuinely represents them. Doing casework for the constituency generates a good public image in the minds of that constituent, regardless of what legislature the politician actually passes or votes for. While fiduciary representation is important, voters respond better to descriptive representation. African American politicians receive higher approval from African American constituents – but also do prove to pass more legislation that helps that segment of their constituency. How much of this is an act depends on each politician, as well as ones degree of cynicism. Regardless, homestyle is inescapable.

	To that end, there is often disagreement with constituents against their politician when they vote along party lines on some issues. What is paramount to a politician’s reelection and homestyle is their ability to sell their choice to their constituency. This works to varying degrees but when there is little recourse left, blame Washington. This pattern, where a politician takes credit for their achievements but their failings is blamed on congress as a whole was described by Fenno a has come to be known as the Fenno Paradox. This is ostensibly another form of not in my back yard, where one sees politicians being supportive of certain policies on their face, but not when it threatens their own personal constituency – yes, I support green energy and building more nuclear power plants, but not in my back yard.

	Politicians must be acutely intimate with who their constituency actually is. For example, while Congress may appear to be completely dysfunctional, it still manages to serve what is its actual largest voting bloc, the Baby Boomers.12 The Baby Boomers will continue to outnumber the Generation X until as long as 2070, at which point they will be replaced by Millennials as the largest age based voting bloc.11 Even with this in mind, and the safety afforded by gerrymandering and incumbency, a politician is not always safe. For example, Republican Eric Cantor lost his seat in 2014 to a Dave Brat, the first time that a House majority leader would lose their seat in the positions history. Why? Cantor was perceived as spending too much time in Washington and loosing touch with his constituency.

	There are other challenges in constituency that the member of Congress must heed if they wish to be reelected. Redistricting and apportionment occurs every ten years, and demographics can change faster than the census occurs, meaning that a politician’s constituency changes, too. This was evidenced in both the 2016 general election and the 2018 midterm election. In the Case of those baby boomers, a considerable portion of them are turning towards the right wing and populism with age. Millennials, which were assumed to lean left, also have a considerable amount of right-wing voters evidenced in the 2018 midterm election. Millennials are at the age where they are locking in voting habits, and they are by and large turning to populism, regardless of left or right wing. The popularity of Bernie Sanders, the election of Donald Trump, and the upset Joe Crowley by openly socialist Orcasio Cortez are evidence of this.11

Regardless, the choices made in both 2016 and 2018 reflect that the perceived cleavages of the voting blocs that make up core Democrat and Republican voters are drastically changing, in the biggest party shakeup since the 1960s. More than right vs left, it was the issue of rural vs urban as a cleavage that determined party allegiance in 2016. Meanwhile in 2018, changes to campaign finance laws had profound effects on the election, in addition to it being the first election to be truly influenced by social media (if 2016 already wasn’t). In the case of the race between Ted Cruz and Beto O’Rourke, While Ted Cruz did win, it was only by very narrow margins. The changes to donation laws hurt the republicans, but the ability to reach out to voters for small donations via social media – both grassroots and astroturfed – allowed O’Rourke to amass an unprecedented amount of campaign donations.11 Not only was there a blue wave, but also there was change in the guard as many of the moderate Republicans ducked out, replaced by either democrats or fringe Republicans.

What happens next is going to be a major debate from every political scientist, politicians, journalist, pundit and soothsayer. The parties are both reshuffling, swapping, and changing their voting blocs as their voting blocs likewise swap around which party they support. The looming 2020 census will see a considerable change in population demographics and therefore, especially in Ohio and other states where there are amendments seeking to put an end to gerrymandering. Lastly, as the Baby Boomers change voting patters with age and are then replaced by the Baby Boomers, in addition to the influx of immigrants and increase in size of minority groups, voting patterns will change wildly. Many predictions will be made, and most will end up wrong, as they did in 2016, until the dust finally settles. All that can be said for sure is, the next twenty five to fifty years will be interesting.





[1] Camarota, Steven, “Immigration’s Effect on Redistribution of House Seats” Center for Immigrations studies August 1998
https://cis.org/Press-Release/Immigrations-Effect-Redistribution-House-Seats

[2] Hayes, Joseph. Hill, Laura “Undocumented Immigrants in California” Public Policy Institute of California March, 2017
https://www.ppic.org/publication/undocumented-immigrants-in-california/

[3] Murphy, Dennis L. “The Exclusion of Illegal Immigrants from Reapportionment Base: A Question of Representation” Case Western Reserve Law Review Volume 41 Issue 3
https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2054&context=caselrev

[4] Mathews, Dylan “John Dingell: To Fix Congress, Abolish the Senate” Vox December 2018
https://www.vox.com/2018/12/4/18125539/john-dingell-abolish-senate
[5] Drutman, Lee “Yet Another Retiring Member of Congress Complains about Fundraising” Vox Jan 2016
https://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2016/1/8/10736402/congress-fundraising-miserable
[6] Chung, Andrew “Some States Taking Electoral Maps Out of Politician’s Hands” Reuters 2017
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-gerrymandering/some-states-taking-electoral-maps-out-of-politicians-hands-idUSKCN1J3182

[7] Thomas-Ludborg, Alora “Why Ohios’s Congressional Map is Unconstitutional” ACLU
https://www.aclu.org/blog/voting-rights/gerrymandering/why-ohios-congressional-map-unconstitutional

[8] Stoll, H. (2008). Social Cleavages and the Number of Parties: How the Measures You Choose Affect the Answers You Get. Comparative Political Studies, 41(11), 1439–1465.
[9] https://history.house.gov/Institution/Election-Statistics/Election-Statistics/

[10] Zeihan, Peter (2016) Geopolitics and the Future Keynote speaker, Gulf Power Economic Symposium, Florida
[12] Zeihan, Peter (November 2018) America at the Edge Keynote speaker, Kern County Energy Summit. California
[12] Gibney, Bruce “A Generation of Soci