The house that divides us

The Republican party’s control of the house of representatives is maintained by a slim national vote margin. In the 2016 house elections, the national vote margin for the Republican party is just 1% over the Democratic party, 49% to 48%. The other 3% of votes nationally went to other parties and write-in candidates.

With this mere 1% plurality over the Democrats, the Republicans hold a 10% membership margin in the house. For both parties, many house races are decided by a simple plurality (the rules vary by state), which leads to a similar problem of representation as with the contest for president. The outcome does not reflect will of a majority.

Nationally, more people voted against Republican house candidates than those who voted for Republican house candidates.

Electoral map of the house

In every election cycle, there are many electoral maps drawn to represent an outcome. For example, the following depiction of the 2016 results for seats in the House of Representatives, seen on Wikipedia.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_House_2016.svg)

While not meant to deceive, a geographical map can give a false impression of the scale of victory or loss because the size of a state on the map does not correspond the number of residents or house members. A more accurate way to convey the outcome is to draw a map with an equal area used to indicate the outcome of each seat in the house.

With squares for each house district, the map below shows the outcome of the house elections of 2016. Each box represents one house district, grouped by states and roughly placed according to each state’s geographical location.

This map does not indicate the geographical relationships of the districts within a state. It’s impossible to do this with 436 squares of the same size. Also, the District of Columbia elects a non-voting delegate to the house. It is included here to show the voter sentiment for the house, and in other maps, presidential elections.

Same-size squares are used to represent each house district to show a clear view of the party representation in the house. But using only solid colors, the map still does not give clear indication of the voter sentiment. To improve upon that, many shades of red and blue are required.

The unruly house

The Republican party membership of the house is arguably not a true single party. It is more like a coalition of two factions, one large and one small, that operate under a single party banner. The large mainstream faction nominates and elects candidates under traditional party issues and positions, while the small far right faction is comprised of members taking extreme right positions on taxation or social issues which are too disparate to form a truly united faction.

The strategy of factions such as the recently formed Freedom caucus is to bully other Republican house members to vote the far-right positions, by threatening to field candidates to oppose their nomination for the next election. While this may be an effective tactic to gain a few more seats for their faction, it is not recipe for legislative progress. There is a dangerous side effect, it divides the party.

Recently, a similar faction played its hand in the senate, not by threatening electoral opposition, but by requiring certain far-right provisions to be included in the bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

The failure of the false majority

Despite thin (even negative) electoral margins in many house districts, the Republican control of the house is wielded as if it was gained by an overwhelming mandate. A generous explanation would be that both the parties work this way when they are in control of the house. But the recent failure of the Republican congress to pass any meaningful legislation while in control of the house, senate and the presidency underscores the fact the house Republican majority that has been held in the house since the 2010 election never had a purpose or force for governance.

During Obama’s tenure as president, Republicans in the house cast many easy votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which they surely knew would not pass the senate or be signed by the president. For some issues, especially health care, the senate has been a reliable backstop, even after Republicans gained control of that body. In other words, the votes in the house for ACA repeal were easy votes, with the only consequence being the fodder they created for the next election.

When Republicans gained control of the executive branch, there seemed to be an expectation that the senate would rubber stamp any house bill to repeal the ACA. This of course did not happen. It is not hard to understand why repeal by the senate failed, given the very outspoken positions of the few Republican senators who voted against repeal.

Statements of some other Republican senators announcing an intention to vote against ACA repeal, but who ultimately did not, also indicate a tendency to take the easy path on third rail issues. If they know it will ultimately be defeated, Republican members of the house or senate can vote to pass a bill that they know could cause some disaster because they also know it cannot ultimately become law. When it finally came down the votes that mattered, some senators took cover to vote for ACA repeal even after announcing what seemed to be very principled reasons to vote against ACA repeal.

Dysfunction Compounded

Until recently the dysfunction of the house was masked by the fact that it did not really matter what house Republicans did. They only major feat they proved capable of during the Obama administration was to force a temporary budget impasse. That feat arose from non-action, so it was not much of an accomplishment.

Now the dysfunction of the house is compounded by dysfunction of President Trump. The failed ACA repeal is the most glaring example of this. Trump would have signed any ACA repeal bill passed by the congress. For seven years, many Republican members of the congress, particularly in the house, pledged to do this. And it was finally possible, they came up with nothing. No surprise, there never was a real plan within the full Republican membership of the congress. ACA repeal was just cheap election talk.

Recently the president threatened to shut down the government if the congress does not enact legislation for the wall at the border with Mexico, one of his main campaign promises. His message is simple, that’s what the people clearly wanted when they voted for him. The problem with this is that more people voted against the wall, if a vote against Trump could be counted that way. The combination of dysfunction in the congress and the oval office could lead to further nonsense strategies, with the likely outcomes being inaction or a weakening of the power of one of the branches of government.

After Trump’s threat, republican leadership, especially the beleaguered Mitch McConnell, have repeatedly responded that a shutdown can be avoided. Maybe republicans in congress could strike a deal with the president.

Even better, if congress were at all functional, any threat from the president to shut down the government can be avoided, simply by passing a veto proof budget. This of course would require astounding cooperation between Republicans and Democrats in the house and senate. The congress could render the president’s dysfunction irrelevant, by repairing their own dysfunction.

Technical details - the many shades of victory

If every house race was contested by one member from each of the two main parties, it would be easy to assign a shade of red or blue to represent the victor in each race. Simply, 100 shades of blue and 100 shades of red to indicate the vote margin for the winner. But, it’s not that simple.

Some contests include one or more third party candidates. They are not likely to win the election. Votes for a losing third party candidate can be counted as votes cast against the ultimate winner.

Write in votes, either for a real person or sometimes a cartoon character, are protest votes and can also be counted as votes against the winner.

Some states do not hold primaries to narrow the field to one candidate per party, for example Louisiana. There can be more than one candidate from a party on the ballot in the general election.

Because of these factors, a major party candidate can win with a simple plurality of votes. That is, more votes are cast against the winner than for the winner. Here is how the fourthirtysix map assigns shades of red or blue to represent these situations.

In this shaded map, solid blue or red is used into indicate a 100% margin of victory, and very light blue or red to indicate the slimmest margins. This gets slightly complicated when indicating the victor’s margin in contests with more than two candidates.

For example, Alabama’s second district was won by a Republican with a plurality of 48.8%. The Democrat running in that district captured 40.5% of the vote, and write-ins account for the remaining 10.7%. Considering just the top two candidates, the margin of victory in that race is 48.8% - 40.5% = 8.3%. But this impressive margin ignores the sentiment of voters who chose a third-party candidate or write-in. The true margin of victory in that race is negative: 48.8% - (40.5% + 10.7%) = -2.4%.

In 2016, there were nine victors in house races with negative margins, with largest gap of -11.4% in New Hampshire’s first district. So, to color the electoral map fairly, that is, indicating the relative scale of each victory, and lightest shade of blue or red is used to represent the most negative margin, and the darkest shades are used for 100% victory (typically an uncontested race).

Another complication arises in states that do not have a primary contest before the general election. Instead, the general election is an open contest that can include more than one candidate from each party. This is the case for Louisiana, and a run-off election is held if no candidate receives a clear majority of the vote. The two candidates facing each other in the runoff can be from the same party. So, another aspect of a fair map is to use the general election results to calculate the margin of the party that wins the runoff election.