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ACCURATE POLITICAL REPRESENTATION

Another basic tenet of democratic elections is that the elected government should accurately reflect the people. So hypothetically a voting population where 55% of the population opposed abortion would be represented by a legislature that was 55% pro-life; a population that was 11% gay would have a legislature that is roughly 11% homosexual; and so on.

While we did not do exhaustive analysis of Ohio’s demographics and current representation, the evidence from Ohio suggests that the current political boundaries most underrepresent moderate voters and women. Democrats are also underrepresented, but not to the same extent as moderates are.

Moderates are severely under-represented in Congress:

The 38% of Ohio voters who identify as moderates are represented by less than 7% of the congressional delegation. Many political observers believe that electing more moderates would lead to a legislature that was more likely to compromise and less prone to partisan gridlock. Party leaders would have less of a stranglehold on power as moderates of both major parties broke ranks occasionally. While the point of election reform is not to increase the ranks of moderates for the sake of moderation (there is nothing anti-democratic about voters, or their elected representatives, disagreeing with each other), it is likely that providing fair and accurate representation of moderate voters would have beneficial results.

Both liberals and conservatives are overrepresented in Congress:

n 21% of Ohioans identified themselves as liberals while 33% of Ohio’s congressional delegation are liberal.
n 40% of Ohioans identified themselves as conservatives while 60% of Ohio’s congressional delegation are conservative.

We arrived at these groupings of liberal, moderate, and conservative Congressmen by examining voting scorecards from the American Conservative Union, American for Tax Reform, Americans for Democratic Action, and the AFL-CIO. Representatives in the bottom and top quartiles were rated as liberal and conservative, while those who scored between 25 and 75 were rated moderate.

Am Conservative Union:
Liberal 6
Moderate 2
Conservative 10

Americans for Tax Reform:
Liberal 6
Moderate 0
Conservative 12

Americans for Democratic Action:
Liberal 6
Moderate 0
Conservative 12

AFL-CIO:
Liberal 6
Moderate 3
Conservative 9

Taken together, this produces an average ideological rating of the Ohio congressional delegation as follows:

Liberal 6 (33.3%)
Moderate 1.25 (6.9%)
Conservative 10.75 (59.7%)

Women are underrepresented in Ohio:

51.4 percent of Ohio voters are women. Only 22% of the Ohio House, 15% of the Ohio Senate, and 16% of the Ohio congressional delegation were women after the 2004 elections.

Democrats are underrepresented, Republicans are overrepresented:

n 49% of Ohio voters cast ballots in favor of Democratic candidates for Congress while 33% of Ohio’s congressional delegation is Democrat. 51% of Ohio voters cast ballots in favor of Republican candidates for Congress while 66% of Ohio’s congressional delegation is Republican.
n 43% of Ohio voters supported a Democratic candidate in the 2002 and 2004 Senate elections while 33% of the senators elected are Democrats. 57% of Ohio voters supported a Republican candidate in the 2002 and 2004 Senate elections while 67% of the senators elected are Republicans.
n 48% of Ohio voters cast ballots in favor of Democratic candidates for the Ohio House. Just 38% of candidates selected by these ballots were Democrats (one has since switched parties). 51% of Ohio voters cast ballots in favor of Republican candidates for the Ohio House while 62% of candidates selected by these ballots were Republicans.

All of the top ten safest seats in the Ohio House are held by Democrats, an indication that Democratic voters were packed into a districts to reduce their representation.

African Americans are inaccurately represented at the federal level:

11.5% of Ohio voters are African Americans. 14% of the Ohio House, 12% of the Ohio Senate, and 5% of Ohio’s congressional delegation are African American. However, the packing of African American voters at both state and federal level likely dilutes their political leverage with non-African American legislators.