What's inside this chart is thoroughly disgusting.
It's the new CQPolitics House Race Ratings map -- the first take by CQ's in-house experts on the lay of the land for the 2010 campaigns for the 435 seats up for grabs in the House of Representatives.
"Up for grabs," of course, is a euphemism. According to the CQ Politics analysis, unless some bolt out of nowhere strikes, 335 of the 435 seats are considered "safe" for the incumbent.
You read that right -- 77 percent of the seats that will be contested in November 2010 actually won't be contested at all, for all intents and purposes.
"Safe" in the lingo of CQ Politics translates as "The nominee is/will be a strong favorite, and an upset is virtually impossible."
Looking inside the list of 100 seats that ARE considered competitive, one party or the other is favored to win 55 -- that is, "The nominee has/will have a strong lead and appears likely to win, but an upset cannot be completely ruled out."
That leaves 45 seats of 435 -- barely more than 10 percent -- that are strongly in play. And we've still got more than 15 months before the election.
The House of Representatives was meant by the Founding Fathers to be the body of the federal government most responsive to popular opinion and public pressure.
That's why its members were only given two-year terms, as opposed to the four years given the president, and the six years given senators.
But through a slow accretion of perks and privileges -- and judicious use of the gerrymander -- the House is now the most ossified body of the federal government.
Disgusting.
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Question: Should we be repulsed because it's wrong, or because the Democrats now have the majority? I seem to remember Tom DeLay in Texas manhandling the state's districts to ensure a GOP majority. It was not an isolated incident.
This is not a matter of left or right, but a matter of fairness.
But it is infantile to think of people as just shades of various hues of red and blue. The inordinate amount of money that is required in a competitive race would make it all but impossible for any but the well-heeled to run for political office. At least now, with rabidly right and left districts, grass-roots activists have a chance to make a difference.
Are things now out of hand? Perhaps, but electing 435 moderates would probably be deadly.
Posted by: EthanQ
| July 27, 2009 2:45 PM
There are forty five House districts in which the partisan mix is evenly balanced or in which the incumbent is a member of the non-dominant party.
What is wrong with that? Why shouldn't the party which is best organized and which best represents the majority of the constituents be secure in their tenure?
The current house majority represents the urban and near suburban constituencies that form over 2/3rds of the American electorate. This has not happened since the early sixties.
Many of our foreign policy problems and almost all of our domestic problems stem from the prolonged underrepresentation of these constituencies.
If I am going to be shocked at anything, it is at the presumption that the long struggle to elect a House or Representatives that is truly reperesentative should be abandoned or sabotaged.
Posted by: Robert Chapman
| August 4, 2009 10:44 AM
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