Congressional elections are tinged with allegations of gerrymandering done by the party in control at the time of redistricting, whether Republican or Democratic. At the center of this debate is the system of electing the US House of Representatives from single-member districts. Jay K. Dow’s Electing the House: The Adoption and Performance of the U.S. Single-Member District Electoral System tells the story of the development of this system and explores some of its consequences. This is a timely contribution, particularly because the US Supreme Court recently declined to intervene on the issue of partisan gerrymandering as states prepare for redistricting that will follow the post-2020 census reapportionment.
Dow begins by placing the debate concerning legislative districting in the context of broader discussions during the founding era. He reminds us that, despite a tendency to view the founders as unified in their vision of government, strong differences existed regarding the conceptualization of the House of Representatives. As presented by Dow, Federalists were interested principally in electing wise men who would consider the greater good, whereas Anti-Federalists emphasized advancing constituency interests: these divisions reflected the long-standing debates of whether legislators are trustees with a national focus or delegates with a local focus. The appropriate size of legislative districts and the method of election were additional elements of discussion.
The earliest Congresses saw representatives chosen through four methods. Most common was the single-member district (SMD) so typical in contemporary America: each congressman was chosen by and represented a specific geographic constituency. The general ticket elected members of the House statewide, with each person casting a number of votes equal to the number of representatives from the state. A blended at-large and SMD (AL-SMD) system featured representatives attached to specific constituencies, but chosen by the statewide electorate. Finally, states with a single representative chose that person in an at-large election. Each state’s choice of electoral systems for the First through the Seventeenth Congresses is presented. Dow observes that such choices were affected by state histories and political characteristics. More importantly, within a decade, a majority of representatives were chosen from SMDs.
A central concern in Dow’s analysis is the proper interpretation of Article I § 4 of the US Constitution, which grants to the state legislatures authority for determining the regulations governing elections to the House of Representatives, but adds that “the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations.” A narrow interpretation of this provision, favored by Jacksonian Democrats, was that its objective was simply to ensure that congressional elections would occur; states otherwise were the masters of electoral procedures within their borders. A broad interpretation, favored by Whigs, was that its function was to enable the federal government to establish national standards for congressional elections. Conversations regarding the interpretation of Article I § 4 culminated with the Apportionment Act of 1842, which Dow contends is “one of the most important pieces of legislation in US history” (p. 110). Much of the debate regarding the apportionment following the 1840 census concerned the population-to-representative ratio that would determine the size of the House of Representatives. Although no political party found unanimous agreement within its ranks, Whigs, who generally favored a larger ratio and thus a smaller number of representatives, prevailed. For Dow’s purposes, the significant element of the Apportionment Act was mandating SMDs for congressional elections. Both bivariate and multivariate analyses show that partisanship was the significant factor in the choice of electoral procedures, with Whigs strongly supporting the SMD mandate and Democrats strongly opposing it.
The latter decades of the nineteenth century are notable in the evolution of the congressional districting system. During this period Congress’s authority to regulate elections to the House of Representatives became accepted and the use of single-member congressional districts institutionalized. Compactness, contiguity, and equal population as standards for creating congressional districts were applied until the 1920s. Debates concerning apportionment “centered on the consequences of the various apportionment formulas for the party composition of the chamber” (p. 149). Absent were discussions of whether choices regarding districting systems were the prerogative of the states or the federal government or whether SMDs were preferable to the general ticket method used by some states during the republic’s early years. Abandonment of the requirements for compactness, contiguity, and equal population yielded the gerrymandered and malapportioned congressional districts of the mid-twentieth century that led to judicial intervention in the 1960s. In response to challenges to malapportioned districts and to the expansion of voting rights, Congress reaffirmed its preference for SMDs and restored the previously mandated standards.
Having traced the history of SMDs for congressional elections, Dow turns his attention to their assessment. In this he adopts the role of a defense attorney rather than that of a prosecutor. Dow challenges the idea that the American two-party system is the product of using SMDs and plurality elections for selecting members of the House of Representatives; this electoral system, in Dow’s view, benefits the two major political parties but did not create the two-party system. In defending SMDs against allegations that they foster gerrymandering, Dow observes that gerrymandering can be used both for laudable objectives, such as enhancing minority representation, and for brazen political advantage. Regarding the latter, he examines data on the compactness of congressional districts and the translation of vote shares into seat shares in contemporary elections. Interestingly, Dow scrutinizes most thoroughly the districting systems of Maryland and North Carolina, which were the subjects of the Supreme Court’s latest decision not to enter the political thicket of partisan gerrymandering. Analysis of the translation of votes to seats in contemporary elections suggests that bias is present but is not as extreme as critics of modern American politics suggest. Dow recognizes that the system is not perfect, but believes that a fair evaluation demonstrates that it does not merit condemnation. “The general theme of all of these topics,” he concludes, “is that while the SMD system may be rightfully subject to indictment, there is little ground for conviction” (p. 223). The evidence Dow presents to reach this verdict is convincing, and his conclusions for the most part confirm the findings of other research on electoral districting. If anything, the bottom line of Dow’s analysis is that issues relating to congressional districting are more complex and less yielding to simple conclusions than many popular political commentators suggest.
Electing the House will find audiences among both scholars of American political development and students of contemporary American elections. The former will find empirical evidence for assessing the debates of the founding era, and the latter will find discussions of the system’s philosophical underpinnings. The research is thorough, the references meticulous, and the narrative engaging. There are several gems of trivia that enliven the story, such as Patrick Henry’s unsuccessful effort to defeat James Madison by gerrymandering Virginia’s congressional districts (before the term “gerrymander” had been coined) and John Tyler issuing the first consequential presidential signing statement when he signed but questioned the constitutionality of the Apportionment Act of 1842. A likely criticism is that Dow allocates too much space to the evolution of the system through various apportionments and not enough space to the legal, legislative, and political issues shaping contemporary elections. Although this imbalance is present, such criticism is unfair. As Dow correctly observes, the legal struggles of the mid- to late twentieth century are covered thoroughly elsewhere. Dow’s objective is to provide the historical context that is found in very few (if any) assessments of SMDs for congressional elections. Dow’s work is impressive in achieving this objective.
