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

[David Segal]

Agreed that this year's mapping of votes to number of seats is not in
itself unfair.

But it's a problem that the current voting framework means that an R
popular vote victory of similar magnitude would under most scenarios lead
to a much larger majority.

In 2012 the Rs received *fewer* popular votes than the Ds and yet won
almost precisely as many seats that year as the Ds are going to have in
January after a 9 point win.

On Sun, Nov 18, 2018 at 9:59 PM Mark Scarberry <
mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu> wrote:

> 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 repealed.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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