Incumbency Still Rules

With the midterm elections only 18 days away, Democrats are nervously wondering if they could possibly regain control of the US House and/or Senate. Given the political unpopularity of GW Bush andthe GOP Congress, numerous corruption and ethics scandals against Republicans at both state and federal level, the FUBAR Iraq War, and the continued freedom of Osama bin Ladin, there should be no question that change will occur. Democratic activists across America fear another loss due to hesistancy and downright wimpiness from party candidates. What should really concern all of us is that so few incumbents are facing any danger.

The power of incumbency is such that we political geeks are focusing on only about 50 races in the House and 8 or 9 in the Senate. This isn't because of GOP status with voters or their fantastic Get Out the Vote (GOTV) operation. This is because incumbency is the great protection provided to both parties in American politics.

More than 3 decades ago, David Mayhew wrote the first paper examining the decline in turnover of House seats. Political scientists, political journalists and political observers of all kinds have known that incumbency has gotten more and more powerful and fewer and fewer opportunities exist for voters to make dramatic changes in who occupies congressional office. The Senate has a innate check upon voters' efforts in any single election by having only 1/3 of the Senate seats exposed at any one time. The House, however, has 435 elections every two years. The House should be the most vulnerable to an electorate angered by the policy choices and in-office behavior of the party in power. Not anymore.

The largest number of House races I have seen discussed as "in play" is 60. That's less than 14% of the House seats. It is enough to give the Democrats a shot at the majority, but more seats in play would make change more likely and make elected officials more responsive to more voters. The less any politician or party fears the threat of voters demanding change, the greater the likelihood of the kinds of corruption and arrogance that seems to be so prevalent today. Tom Delay and other Republicans cannot start the "K Street Project" and insist on campagin contributions before listening to lobbyists and hold veto power over who is hired as lobbyists if incumbency doesn't provide the protection it provides today.

I'll skip the debate amongst political scientists about how much gerrymandering plays a role in this and go right to answering what can be done. The biggest advantage incumbency provides after name recognition is in fundraising. Incumbents have a huge advantage in raising money, which means they are on TV and radio with ads to reach voters that their challengers struggle to match. Go to opensecrets.org and check out your House and Senate races and see the difference for yourself. Both parties have turned to wealthy candidates, particularly in the Senate, to provide an instant source of funding a challenge. You can figure out for yourselves how this distorts the view from Congress.

The most direct and easiest solution is public financing. With public funds it is completely constitutional to limit how much a candidate spends on a race. This means that the ability to raise the most money from the biggest interest group contributors no longer is the way to win. Elected officials can tell (insert your least favorite interest group here) to take a hike without fearing the loss of neededcampaign funds. This also means incumbents cannot eliminate potential challengers by raising multiple millions that would need to be matched by a competitor.

Public financing alone won't end the incumbency advantage, but it can put a significant dent in the power of incumbency that currently turns winning congressional office once into almost permanent employment.