"The royals of Capitol Hill"

[applegrove]

The royals of Capitol Hill

The Economist

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21607878-house-members-have-too-much-job-security-makes-bad-government-royals

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ACCORDING to those who inhabit it, the House of Representatives is the most demotic bit of the federal government. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican who was recently elected as the House majority leader, once likened it to a truck stop. One of the first things Mr McCarthy announced after winning was that he would carry on sleeping in his office, something several congressman wishing to appear frugal claim to do (they shower in the gym, in case you were wondering).

On one measure, though, the House looks positively aristocratic. Since 2012, when its members were last up for election, 30% of Europe’s monarchies have put newcomers on the throne. By contrast, only around 17 out of 435 House seats—less than 4%—will be competitive in November’s mid-terms. Even if one includes members who are retiring, resigning or have lost primaries, the House doesn’t come close to matching the turnover rate of royals in the Old World (see chart 1).

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If gerrymandering is not the main reason for the lack of competition in the House, what is? One idea is that voters have sorted themselves into neat blocks of red and blue, a notion popularised by Bill Bishop, author of “The Big Sort”. There is plenty of evidence for this. A survey by the Pew Research Centre found that three-quarters of people who described themselves as consistent conservatives would prefer to live in a place where the houses are bigger even if schools, shops and restaurants are several miles away. Three-quarters of consistent liberals preferred to live in smaller houses where they could walk around the corner to buy tofu.

Yet this idea does not convince everyone. Bill Frey of the Brookings Institution, a think-tank, points out that most people’s choice of where to live is based on things like the quality of schools or the cost of housing. Also, the number of dedicated partisans on either side is fairly small and unchanging: most Americans hold opinions that are more purple than pure red or blue. Unfortunately the moderates are more likely to stay at home on election day than partisans on either side. In the 2010 mid-terms only 41% of eligible voters found their way to a polling booth, making the country look more divided than it is.


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