Norms and Democracy

Part 1: Texas

How can we make sense of the fight over nominations in the US Senate and the fight over redistricting in Texas (and, perhaps, other states)?

I think the key text for these two situations is an excellent item my GP/BP colleague Julia wrote back in Donald Trump’s first presidency, in which she explained that it’s not exactly “norms” that we should be worrying about: “[S]ome norms are more cosmetic and about tradition and convention, and some norms are really about ‘democratic values.’ We care about the latter…Much of the time when we’re talking about norm violations, we don’t so much mean a departure from standard practice as a breach in democratic principles.”

I’ll start today with the Texas situation, and save the Senate for Part 2.

We have a series of things here. First, what Republicans are up to. Political scientist Bethany Albertson explains: “[Y]es, gerrymandering happens. Yes, mid-cycle gerrymandering has happened. This is different. Rs drew the maps. They want to draw them again. This sets a precedent for those in power to consistently redraw lines to maximize power.”

Is the norm – waiting ten years for redistricting unless there’s a reason that doesn’t apply here – a healthy one? I think so, and I’m about as much of an apologist for partisan gerrymandering as anyone. Indeed, part of the reason I think partisan gerrymanders aren’t usually major problems is because there are a number of factors that keep them from being too effective. Including that once set, the lines stay in place for a decade while the world changes; that not only means that sometimes even the most precise gerrymander won’t last, but also that majority parties try to avoid overshooting to reduce longer-term risk, even if it costs them a bit in the short run.

A bigger problem are the consequences of jumping the gun, as Texas Republicans are doing at Trump’s request. Once the norm of waiting ten years (without other excuse) is broken so decisively, the incentives are strong for every other state where partisan advantage can be had to follow suite, and thus we have Republican Ohio, Republican Missouri, Democratic California, Democratic New York, and Democratic Illinois all making noises about doing so.

Yes, parties seek advantages. If the ground rules aren’t tied down, parties are going to attempt to mess with them. Still, it’s one thing to take advantage of unclear rules; it’s another for the party to violate a norm just because they can.

It’s also true that democracy can only work if parties are willing to lose elections. And that’s the decisive context here. Republicans aren’t only breaking the ten-year redistricting norm; they’re also throwing out the voting rights act, attacking freedom of the press, stripping offices they lose of their authority, and of course attempting to overturn presidential elections. And more.

And that’s really the trouble. Taken by itself, messing with district lines is no big deal, and the decennial norm is only modestly a healthy one. But as part of an attack on democracy, it’s a big deal.

So overall, there’s good reason to consider what Republicans are doing a problem.

Then there’s the Democrats’ reaction, which was to flee the state to break quorum. That’s not norm-defying at all; there’s a long history, in Texas and elsewhere, of parties exploiting quorum requirements in that way, which in turn is just a subset of ways that minorities in legislatures have attempted to use the rules in their favor.

It’s also natural for the majority to fight back; they are, after all, the majority, and ultimately in legislatures majorities almost always can win. But it sometimes takes, well, norm-defying behavior to do so. It seems to me that whether the obstacles to such actions are democratic or not needs to be asked on a case-by-case basis, and I’m not nearly enough of a Texas government expert to weigh in very much. What I can say is that democracy doesn’t require simple majority rule. And also that Governor Abbott’s threat to unilaterally throw the dissenting legislators out of office sure doesn’t sound compatible with republican politics. Especially, once again, given the context.

One more thing: It also matters that the president simply announced that Texas Republicans should do this in order to produce five more Republicans in the next US House. There was hardly a fig leaf of fairness over the whole thing. That too, is an important violation of the very healthy republican norm that even the most narrowly selfish goals should be dressed up with reasons that sound universal, or at least less self-interested, in some way. This may sound like simple hypocrisy. But figuring out why others should care about one’s own self-interest is something much more. It forces the group making the proposal to think of the self-intersts of others, which in turn reinforces the equality of citizenship. And for those who hear the proposal, even if they oppose it and are defeated, it gives them reason to believe that the winners must at least to some extent care about the overall welfare of the polity.

In other words: It turns out that what Republicans are doing in Texas is in fact awful for the health of the republic, but not because they are violating a redistricting norm — even though in this case it’s a fairly good norm.