[EL] Toobin and House Results -- Re: ELB News and Commentary 11/18/18

[Mark Scarberry]

I'm not sure I'd say that the comparison is completely meaningless, but
otherwise I agree with Jim. (If Republicans won 70% of the seats while
receiving only 40% of the national vote, I'd have to ask whether our system
makes any sense.)

My point was not that the distribution of seats has turned out to be
appropriately proportional, but rather that Toobin's criticism of the
result made little sense. Even if we accepted Toobin's apparent view that
the result should have been proportional to the national vote, it turned
out not to be particularly disproportionate.

I also don't find it particularly unfair that Democrats did not obtain the
disproportionate number of seats that might have been expected.

Mark

Prof. Mark S. Scarberry
Pepperdine Univ. School of Law

On Sun, Nov 18, 2018 at 6:45 PM, <jboppjr at aol.com> wrote:

> I find the comparison between seats won and the total nation vote per
> party to be meaningless. We dont award seats based on the national vote per
> party , but by district, so campaigns are conducted by district, not to
> generate a maximum national vote.
>
> In addition, candidates matter more in District elections while they would
> be substantial less significant if the national vote count determined who
> won. If fact, Tip O'Neill's maxim that all politics is local would be
> repealed.
>
> So judging district-based elections by national proportional results is
> incoherent and invalid.
>
> Jim Bopp
> ------------------------------
> On Sunday, November 18, 2018 David Segal <davidadamsegal at gmail.com> wrote:
> It'd be what you'd want taken in isolation (and I support systems that are
> more likely to yield proportionality than the current one) but Toobin
> should have contextualized the stat in the asymmetry relative to what
> happens under the current districts for Republicans.
>
> Repubs won 50.4% of the two parties' popular vote in 2016 but took 55.4%
> of seats.
>
> 52.9% vs 56.8% in 2014
>
> 49.3% vs 53.7% in 2012
>
> And also could have been spoken to in the context of the longer historical
> norm that Nicholas mentions. (Which isn't necessarily a positive feature of
> our system, and could be corrected for through PR.)
>
> On Sun, Nov 18, 2018 at 8:22 PM Mark Scarberry <
> mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu> wrote:
>
>> Jeffrey Toobin, in the New Yorker article, writes:
>>
>> "Even the good news from the election comes with a caveat, however.
>> According to an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice, Democrats won
>> the over-all popular vote in the four hundred and thirty-five races for the
>> House of Representatives by about nine per cent, but they managed to
>> capture only a relatively narrow majority of seats. This is because the
>> district lines are so egregiously gerrymandered, especially in states fully
>> controlled by Republicans."
>>
>> Assuming my math is correct:
>>
>> A 9% margin would put the percentages at 54.5 to 45.5 (leaving aside
>> third parties). Out of 435 seats, 54.5% would be 237, and 45.5% would be
>> 198. It appears that, with a few races still to be decided, Democrats will
>> have at least 232 seats and Republicans will have at least 198. If the five
>> other raises split evenly, the division will be 234 or 235 Democrats, and
>> 200 or 201 Republicans. Is this particularly disproportionate?
>>
>> Mark
>>
>> Prof. Mark S. Scarberry
>> Pepperdine Univ. School of Law
>>
>> On Sun, Nov 18, 2018 at 4:09 PM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu> wrote:
>>
>> ...
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Jeffrey Toobin Expresses Some Optimism About Voting Rights
>>> <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102371>
>>>
>>> Posted on November 18, 2018 3:17 pm
>>> <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102371> by *Rick Hasen*
>>> <https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>>>
>>> Not so sure I agree with this one
>>> <https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/26/how-voting-rights-fared-in-the-midterms>
>>> .
>>>
>>> [image: Share]
>>> <https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D102371&title=Jeffrey%20Toobin%20Expresses%20Some%20Optimism%20About%20Voting%20Rights>
>>>
>>> Posted in The Voting Wars <https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ...
>>>
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