The RFRA became law in Indiana only because we live in a profoundly undemocratic democracy. We have a structural electoral problem. Ultimately, this problem can only be solved by structural changes in the way we vote.
A longer version of this post I originally posted to Medium at: https://medium.com/...
The RFRA only passed in Indiana because our democracy is damaged. This bill passed the Indiana Senate with a 40–10 margin; and the House 63–31. This is despite the fact that more Hoosiers support gay marriage than not (47% to 45%) .
The partisan split in the state’s elected offices similarly does not accurately represent the state’s political split. According to Gallup, party identification favors the GOP by seven points, 44% to 37%. That adds up to 81%, leaving 19% unaffiliated. If you assume the unaffiliated voters split evenly, then you have 53.5% GOP and 46.5% Democratic support. In a political system where the electoral outcomes matched the preference of the voters perfectly, you’d expect the Senate split to be 27–23; House split 53–47, and a 5–4 split in the U.S. Congressional delegation. Instead, the GOP holds 80% of the Senate seats (40–10) and 71% of the House seats (71–29). Indiana’s governor is Republican, as are eight of the state’s nine congresspersons.
We have a system designed to govern without the consent of the governed. A system designed to carefully limit and channel voting to influence electoral outcomes.
Welcome to the undemocratic democracy.
Here’s how it works:
· Partisan redistricting (courtesy of Indiana’s Republican legislators after the 2010 Census) allows the party in power to choose their voters.
· Indiana’s 2005 Voter ID law makes voting harder for the urban poor and the elderly.
· The infamous American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, which launders corporate cash in support of “model” legislation, like the aforementioned voter ID laws, as well as laws allowing unlimited campaign donations (disguised as “free speech”), limiting voter initiatives, and making it harder for college students to vote.
· The voting process itself in Indiana is managed by the Secretary of State, an elected office long held by Republicans.
· The Electoral College’s “winner take all” method of granting electoral votes mean that if one party is likely to win the presidential race in your state, your vote for president in effect does not matter. This means less attention from the national parties in organizing, advertising, and get-out-the-vote campaigns, and fewer voters overall.
This process distorts our politics. Since gerrymandered districts aren't competitive between parties, they’re only competitive within the parties. If you’re a representative from a “safe” republican district, you’re not going to lose the general election, but you might lose the primary. If you vary from the party line to say, support bipartisan legislation, you’re more likely to face a well-funded primary challenger who’s right-wing orthodoxy is more reliable than yours.
The result? In Republican-controlled states like Indiana, there are more Republican elected officials than you’d expect, and those officials are more and more right wing. In this environment, openly discriminatory laws like Senate Bill 101 are easily drawn up, passed, and enacted.
This is not to say all Republicans support laws like the RFRA. The Republican mayor of Indianapolis, Greg Ballard, has been an outspoken critic of the law before and after its passage. The consistent opposition of Mayor Ballard, among others, didn't prevent the law’s passage.
Indiana has faced a national firestorm of criticism since passing the RFRA, and it seems to be having an effect. Governor Pence and Indiana House Speaker Brian Bosma have both repeatedly stated the intent of the law was “not to discriminate” and that they will be “clarifying” the law soon, whatever that means. We shall see.
The reason terrible laws like the RFRA keep coming back isn't merely because of the hateful and discriminatory motivations of those who write, cosponsor, vote for, and introduce these laws. Rather, we have an electoral structure that makes hatred into law.
Senate Bill 101 is a direct result of our undemocratic democracy. Even if Indiana repeals the law it does nothing to prevent the next discriminatory bill. To permanently repeal this and similar laws, as well as to prevent further unrepresentative, discriminatory legislation, we need to do nothing less than fix our country’s broken voting system.