Raleigh News & Observer: Is gerrymandering to blame for more extremism in US politics?

As political extremism and polarization ramp up in the United States, plenty of academics, journalists and others have tried to pinpoint its exact causes.

Some blame a growth in political spending, particularly on negative ads. Others point to the rise of social media and niche online news sources that allow people to see only news that conforms to their own point of view, regardless of facts or nuance. Others point to a third culprit: Gerrymandering. …

The reason many observers blame rising extremism on gerrymandering is, at its most basic level, the assumption that politicians typically want to keep getting reelected.

If so, then a politician’s stances could depend largely on where he or she faces the most competition. A competitive general election might require reaching across the aisle in hopes of winning votes from the other party. But a noncompetitive election requires no such effort — and in fact could punish any efforts toward bipartisanship, since the party primary might pose the only real threat to reelection.

Turnout rates are low in all elections but especially in primaries, giving outsize influence to the small number who do show up.

“The winner is chosen in the primary and the primary draws, for lack of a better way of saying it, the most extreme and emotional voters,” said Bob Phillips, who leads the redistricting reform group Common Cause NC.

He said he’s heard state legislators on both sides of the aisle complain that their party’s leaders instruct them not to even mingle with the other side when they’re in Raleigh, let alone vote with them.

“We’ve seen it in Raleigh and seen it in Washington,” he said. “Folks that come have no incentive to compromise because they’ll only be punished for it.”

Phillips said House Bill 2, the controversial 2016 law that became known nationally as the “bathroom bill” and ended up costing North Carolina millions of dollars, is an example of politicians supporting polarizing bills. It’s OK for them to pass laws that please their base even if it goes against popular opinion, he said, because gerrymandering insulates them from any fallout.

The state legislative districts in use at the time were later ruled unconstitutional gerrymanders, and Phillips said that looking at those maps, 92% of those who voted for HB2 in the N.C. House either didn’t have an opponent in their previous election or won it by double digits. …

Phillips said he blames gerrymandering in part for this, since it tends to make politicians beholden more to their party’s furthest wings, but he also blames also other factors, including media coverage focused on the most extreme views from either side.

“It may also embolden you to speak in a more shrill, harsh, attacking mode,” he said. “We’ve certainly seen that decline in civility.”