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gravitascivics · 2 years

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CRITIQUE OF PAROCHIAL FEDERALISM, IV

The last posting ended with the following,

By addressing these concerns [lack of viable local governance] … one gets at a very fundamental aspect of a parochial view of federalism as that term suggests one should have. That would be a parochialism based on local partnerships across the nation in which a partner comes face-to-face with other partners.

This is not so much a call for the central, federal government not to address national concerns, but to encourage local citizens to make their local governance and governments proactive entities ready, willing, and able to address the array of challenges citizens face. That goes from truly local concerns to such global worries as climate change. Each level of government has not only a relevant role, but a vital one as well.

And before leaving this local concern, one related problem should be mentioned. Local communities are evermore becoming single-political units of advocacy. That is, like minded people are to greater levels living near each other. Liberals live in liberal neighborhoods or sections of towns, and conservatives also live close to like minded people. This has political consequences.

For example, when it comes to districting – or redistricting – Congressional or legislative districts, gerrymandered map-drawings (maps that show how the districts are designated) insure that one party dominates in each of the districts. This makes general elections near meaningless as the choosing of representatives shifts over to primary contests.[1]

Add to that the fact that primary elections draw the attention of only the more partisan voters and one can see that many elections do not fulfill their intended purpose. Ideally, elections should be the time when regular citizens meaningfully involve themselves with others to determine who should represent them in developing governmental policy, yet that is, to ever increasing frequency, not happening. By this development becoming common, it discards how democracy in a republic is supposed to work.

At the heart of this concern is how unfederated these monocultural arrangements – which they usually turn out to be – are. Not only that, but these states of affairs are further institutionalized by the practice of gerrymandering those representative districts. Here’s an idea: what if a constitutional amendment was proposed and ratified in which it stated the following:

· One, since monopolistically determined representative districts undermine the federation of a citizenry, and,

· Two, the US Constitution is a federalist arrangement,

· Therefore, redistricting shall honor, as much as possible, the principle of diversity as expressed by the allocation of voters within representative districts as closely as possible to the diversity of the state’s electorate as expressed in the last election. For example, if the state’s election returns indicate 51% voted for Party X and 49% for Party Y, and then based on information garnered from voter registration distribution, each district will reflect this distribution as closely as possible. Independent registered voters would be considered neutral in this allocation and randomly assigned according to residential addresses.

· Claims that this mandate is not being met shall be subject to civil suits in which the courts will determine if a proposed districting plan shall be enforced.

· This provision should not be considered an obstacle to any third-entity solutions, such as generated by commissions to set up to design districting maps, but instead serve as a standard such solutions need to meet.

As is probably obvious, this blogger is not a constitutional lawyer or scholar, but he feels his intent is communicated by the above bulleted list.

In many states, given the popularity of one party over another, this “reform” would have no practical effect, but in those areas or states in which there is sufficient diversity, it could have an enormous effect. Here is what Eilperin reported earlier in this century:

Political scientists and good government advocates have fretted for years about House incumbents’ reelection advantage. Redistricting has only exacerbated an already disturbing trend. In [recent] … congressional elections, only thirteen seats switched party control, and seven incumbents lost in the general election … As University of Pennsylvania Law School Professor Nathaniel Persily wrote, “current rates of House turnover may equal historic rates of turnover in the Politburo [the policy making body of the old Soviet Union].[2]

The above listed provisions – or some such constitutional change – would encourage people of different ethnic and political standing to start talking to each other, start depending on each other, and perhaps begin interacting more often with each other.

There is evidence that, in general, this is not so popular,[3] but it is a central attribute of federalist thought that citizens should strive to become federated with each other. To achieve the necessary relationships so that they do so, people need to interact, especially politically. With the above amendment or some such provision, the belief here is that a stage would be set for such interactions.

So much for that concern; now back to critiquing the parochial/traditional federalist view. And what follows is the next element of this critique. This element, it turns out, is somewhat related to what has just been stated. That is, another shortcoming in the use of traditional federalism, particularly given the heterogeneity of modern societies and especially in the US, is that it takes no account of ethnic diversity; at best, it tolerates it.

While this nation has a history of diverse European populations, with the addition of mostly the African slave population in its early days, most communities were segregated, and in the ensuing years this included whole states being established by religious/national groupings.[4] But as time went by, communities began to intersperse, and that trend has grown extensively to the present day, particularly in urban centers.

The nation’s larger urban areas, especially, are cauldrons of diversity. There, one finds zones of intermingling peoples. Here is how a recent review of diversity states the situation:

Nearly all of the nation’s largest cities have at least one neighborhood that meets our definition as being both racially and ethnically diverse and mixed income. Three large cities – New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco [–] account for nearly half such neighborhoods, but some smaller cities also rank high in the fraction of their population living in these diverse, mixed income neighborhoods.[5]

This runs counter to what this posting reports above – the prevalence of segregated areas. That means these cities run counter to what seems to be occurring in the rest of the country.

And in these “unusual” areas – the urban areas – there are schools with high levels of diversity. The concern here is to merely state that such a distinguishing and influential factor should be accounted for when districting and other policies are being considered. Surely a construct that would set the priorities of what governmental elements should be studied – as parochial/traditional federalism potentially sets out to do – and what issues will be analyzed should have a component that addresses diversity within the population.

Not only does parochial/federalism tend to ignore these factors, but it also tends to minimize diversity, and, by its sense of priority, somehow attributes an insufficient degree of legitimacy to it and fails to entertain the sort of solutions that this posting offers – be they amateurish. So, as with the state of the nation’s politics running in two opposing directions – known as polarization – one gets a sense of how that has come about.

On the one hand, there is segregated, representative districting and on the other hand, the higher levels of desegregated urban centers. Parochial federalism provides Americans with little to no guidance about how they should address this current day political landscape other than claim that they should federate with each other. Unfortunately, the times call for more guidance.

This critique, it turns out, needs at least one more posting before it is completed. Two more issues should be addressed. They are related to the use of historical documents and a definitional issue – that being the definition of community. And last, a summary statement should be added. The next posting, hopefully, will touch all of these bases.[6]

[1] Juliet Eilperin, Fight Club Politics: How Partisanship Is Poisoning the House of Representatives (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007). While a bit dated, nothing in ensuing reports in the news seems to suggest this situation has been rectified; as a matter of fact, things have gotten worse.

[2] Ibid., 112,

[3] Ibid. This lack of popularity seemingly due to people, as conditions now stand, finding this form of interaction unattractive – it strikes many as having to deal with “them” – the other.

[4] See, for example, Tom Gjelten, “White Supremacist Ideas Have Historical Roots in U.S. Christianity.” NPR (July 1, 2020), accessed July 17, 2022, https://www.npr.org/2020/07/01/883115867/white-supremacist-ideas-have-historical-roots-in-u-s-christianity AND Mark Carnes and John A. Garraty, The American Nation: A History of the United States (Boston, MA: Pearson, 2015).

[5] Joe Cortright, “America’s Most Diverse Mixed Income Neighborhoods,” City Reports (June 18, 2018), accessed July 17, 2022, https://cityobservatory.org/admin/ .

[6] Afterall, tonight is MLB’s All-Star Game.

#districting #redistricting #urban centers #gerrymandering #federation #civics education #social studies

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