Dent vs. Gerrymandering vs. Mayhew's Electoral Connection

            In the midst of the government shutdown, approval of all members of Congress is at risk. Specifically for Charlie Dent, his approval rating for people other than his constituents may be the one at risk. In 2011, Republican’s redrew district lines in Pennsylvania to make the House seats safe (Lehigh Valley Live, 2013). Because of this, Charlie Dent would have to do something insane to lose to Democratic competition. But what could be more of a reality is Charlie losing to a Republican in the primary. In my last post I mentioned this briefly, but it has popped up in the news quite a bit in the past week. After voting against his party leader in relation to the clean bill, strong Republicans could find another strong Republican to fund and run against Charlie in the primary. If the Pennsylvania Republicans are more extreme, Charlie could have a real chance at losing that primary. Fortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case, at least for the moment. Fifty-two percent of Charlie’s constituents support continuing funding for the government, including the health care law (Lehigh Valley Live, 2013). Since this is just over half, this number is subject to change, especially with all the recent press Charlie is receiving.

            Although Charlie’s seat in the House seems relatively safe at the moment, this just shows how much redistricting can impact Congress. It’s obvious that redistricting creates less competitive seats in Congressional elections. This may be true most of the time, but when crucial situations occur in the government redistricting may not be as beneficial for incumbents as it may seem. Even though redistricting is a state matter, this shows how much national politics does affect the redistricting process. In cases like these, it could actually screw over the incumbent if they don’t vote the way the party wants them to. Situations like these prove a really interesting fact about redistricting, especially this current case which is considered the “the worst gerrymander in modern Pennsylvania history” (Lehigh Valley Live, 2013). This is that gerrymandering may make safe seats for the party, but it doesn’t always create safe seats for the actual incumbent.

            This situation created by the redistricting process has interesting connections to Mayhew’s Electoral Connection. In Mayhew’s argument, he claims that the only goal of Congress members is to get re-elected (Mayhew, 1975). He states that they accomplish this in 3 ways: credit claiming, advertising, and position taking. Dent is engaging in all of these activities in the midst of the government shut down. He is blaming the extreme republicans [credit claiming], he is getting his name and statements out through national news [advertising] and he is clearly sticking with his view on what the government should do in order to end this shutdown [position taking]. But whom is he doing all this for? In Mayhew’s view, he didn’t really see parties as a big part of the re-election process; therefore, he assumed Congressmen would be doing all of these things to impress their constituents and be able to ensure re-election through them. But as seen in the case with Dent, he has two groups of people he needs to impress in order to get re-elected: his constituents and his own party. This shows the extreme dual nature of Congressmen. Dent believes that voting on whatever will end the shutdown is good for his constituents, but it may not be the decision that his party wants him to make. His constituents may still like him and his approval rating might stay high, but if his party offers up a more extreme Republican candidate in the primary, Charlie may not even get that far. Therefore, an extension of Mayhew’s view is shown in this situation. Of course Charlie wants to get re-elected, but it’s not just his constituents that he has to impress. In contrast with Mayhew’s time, he now also has a strong Republican party to worry about as well. Like I said earlier, Charlie’s seat may be safe for now, but that could be subject to change in the near future if the extreme Republicans prevail in the midst of this government shutdown.

References:

http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/breaking-news/index.ssf/2013/10/us_rep_charlie_dents_governmen.html

David R. Mayhew, 1975. “The Electorate Incentive” in David R. Mayhew, Congress: The Electoral Connection (Yale University Press), 13-77.