Forget the battle for Congress: the important vote in November could be California’s on gerrymandering

AMERICAN exceptionalism comes in many forms, but one of the odder ones is the way it sets its electoral boundaries. In every other democracy worthy of the name, independent commissions perform the sensitive and vital task of adjusting boundaries to take account of shifts in population. But in no fewer than 44 of America's 50 states, it is state legislatures, composed as they are of party politicians, who decide where the lines should be drawn for seats in the House of Representatives in Washington, DC. The potential for abuse is so obvious that it is a kind of miracle that the system has survived as long as it has. But on November 2nd a big blow could be struck against the ancient practice of gerrymandering.

That is when California's voters will decide whether or not to turn the task over to an independent Citizen Redistricting Commission, laboriously constructed so as to be balanced and independent by a process of screening and random selection. So far only Arizona has anything remotely as good at the congressional level (though some 31 states, including California, have moved in this direction as far as their own state legislative elections are concerned). A further seven states have nominally independent commissions for their congressional seats that are, in practice, partly answerable to the politicians.

The issue is particularly important just now. America is about to publish the results of its decennial census, so 2011 will be a year of haggling over boundaries to reflect the new numbers, a process known as redistricting. That in turn makes November's elections to state legislatures much more important than usual. In most states the newly elected legislators will be the ones drawing or approving the new lines. If the Republicans do seize control of Congress at this year's mid-terms, an important part of the reason will be the ways in which their state-level legislators redrew the lines in big states like Texas, Ohio and Florida after the census of 2000.

Letting state legislators control the redistricting process is wrong in several ways. Most obviously, it tends to give an unfair advantage, which lasts a whole decade, to whichever party happens to be on top at the crucial time. It also leads to electoral boundaries drawn purely to maximise political gain but making no geographical or administrative sense. Most famously, Governor Gerry of Massachusetts in 1812 devised a district shaped like a salamander; but modern times have produced far worse ones, such as Illinois's 17th congressional district, known as the rabbit on a skateboard (pictured).

Worse, politically controlled redistricting helps drive the hyper-partisanship of politics. In turbulent political times, when large swings in the vote are possible, party bosses feel driven to construct safer seats than they once used to need. With fewer seats changing hands on election day, this tends to shift the focus of politics away from the general election itself, and on to the primaries in which the parties select their candidates. The turnout in primaries is tiny, typically only between 10% and 20% of voters, and tends to be disproportionately composed of activists. So those selected tend to be politically slanted to the left or the right extremes.

California's sadly dysfunctional government has suffered from this extremism: it is one reason why the moderate Arnold Schwarzenegger has got so little done (see article). Angry Californians have already voted to change the system for the state legislature from 2012 and they have a history, when stirred, of setting political fashions (good and bad). Most other states don't have the power to change voting rules by popular ballot, meaning that legislatures will, in effect, have to vote to disempower themselves. For all these reasons, the more powerful the message California can send on this issue the better.