Unchallenging

Elections in Wisconsin are becoming less and less competitive – that was the conclusion of a recent study by the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance.

Why? Newspaper accounts focused on a few possible reasons, but those reasons don’t seem to stack up.

According to the study, 45.5% of Assembly races in 2002 had no challenger – only the incumbent ran. This was a record high – up from 8.1% in 1982.

The report didn’t editorialize (except for one short statement about the lack of choices for voters), and if you read the whole thing, it reads, well, like a factual report.

They did speculate on some reasons why competitiveness is declining, though, and that was the angle the papers chose to follow. A couple of those reasons: legislative redistricting and fundraising advantages.

Redistricting happens once every ten years, following the federal census. The idea is to make sure all the districts are more or less even, population-wise.

It’s a political process. The Legislature has to pass a bill to create the new districts, which means somebody has to draw the lines. Last time, there were two main competing plans – those of the Assembly (with a Republican majority) and those of the Senate (at that time, with a Democrat majority).

In the end, the whole thing ended up in court, and that court drew the lines itself. Was the court influenced by the partisan redistricting plans? Probably. Was the judge, himself, partisan in some way? Maybe.

Fundraising? Absolutely, this is a big advantage for incumbents, but the power of incumbency is far more than just money. It’s also name recognition. Access to the media. Access to the state political parties. While potential future challengers are working and raising their families, elected officials are learning how to design literature, how to effectively argue positions. And how to identify the people who will give you the maximum amount of money.

It’s not impossible, but challengers are much less likely to have this information.

This is an irony of campaign finance reform. Reformers want to limit contributions, to prevent incumbents from locking challengers out with money. But the limits apply to incumbents and challengers both, and incumbents have had years in office to learn where the money is. Thus, incumbency is protected.

This is all moot anyway. Neither explanation – redistricting or fundraising – explains the falling number of challenges for Assembly seats.

Why? For one reason, it isn’t reflected in the State Senate. In 1982, 23.5% of Senate seats went without a challenger. In 2002, 23.5% of Senate seats went without a challenger.

That’s not a typo. The percentage of unchallenged Senate seats rose to a high of 35.3% in 1990, and a low of 11.8% in 1994. In 2002, the percentage was equal to that of 1982.

Now, the Senate is only a third the size of the Assembly, and only half their seats are up for reelection every two years. This makes the Senate much more susceptible to small changes.

So what about local races?

Let’s look at my own home turf. Last year, the Sauk County Board (31 members) had only 7 contested seats, which means 77.4% were unopposed.

School Board? Last election, there were two challengers for the Baraboo School Board – a record in the seven years I’ve lived there. City Council? Only for open seats – no challenges to incumbents.

We did have 3 candidates run for Mayor. Last time, the incumbent had to be talked into running again, because nobody else signed up for the job.

Granted, these are only anecdotes, but I bet they’re far from unique.

Local races aren’t affected by redistricting the way state and federal races are. Local candidates raise and spend a pittance, if anything at all. And locals don’t have the power of incumbency that full-time state officials do.

Redistricting and fundraising are not, therefore, causing low rates of challenge in local races.

What is, then? Perhaps voter apathy? Perhaps the masses aren’t paying attention to the government, because for the most part, the government is staying out of their lives?

Or could it be that campaign finance reformers have seized on this latest report as more evidence of the corruption of government, whether or not the report actually supports them?

I mentioned an irony of the campaign finance reform movement before – that their own efforts to limit spending may have further empowered incumbents. Perhaps there’s another: that their own gloom and doom about campaigning, and the impossibility of defeating an incumbent, has turned the electorate off.

After all, if it’s impossible, why try?