THOSE ENUMERATED AND LIMITED POWERS.

Law and Liberty's John McGinnis correctly notes, "More Government, More Gerrymandering."

Well, yes.  Cold Spring Shops suggests, at least once a week, sometimes once a day, that the best thing for government to do is to go away.

That's at the heart of Mr McGinnis's essay.

As Washington decides more, the cost of losing rises. When losing hurts more, parties invest more to entrench advantages. Redistricting, especially mid-cycle, becomes a rational investment, not an aberration. The more powerful the federal government becomes, the higher the premium on control of the House of Representatives. A partisan majority now moves in lockstep with party interests, serving as a check when the other party holds the presidency or the Senate and as a facilitator when it does not.

Gerrymanders have a cost: they trade electoral safety for the party’s members for their potentially higher numbers. By diffusing support to win more districts in normal times, they reduce the number of truly safe seats and magnify losses in an adverse wave election. Yet when the control of the government is a make-or-break affair and nearly all members of the House vote the party line, the greater probability of a bare majority is worth becomes worth more than the cost of being in a smaller minority.

The federal government’s power has grown in economic and social affairs for a century, with only a brief retrenchment in the Reagan era. The clearest lever is spending. It distributes largesse and, in turn, requires choosing who bears higher taxes. For much of the nation’s history, federal outlays were under five percent of GDP; today, they hover well above 21 percent.

More recently, the stakes of federal control have risen further.

In part, the stakes have risen as high as they have as each party claims a "mandate" to implement its less incremental agenda, when, in reality, voters flip the House or the Senate or toss out a president after one term as a way of applying the brakes.  Which the elected officials do not, and one of these days the real debt ceiling will come crashing in.  Official Washington, though, falsely equates Governing with Landmark Legislation being Enacted in Washington and we'll all be better persons for it.

Psychologically, people are more worried about losing than they are about gaining added resources. Thus, they become even more anxious to wield the axe that government debt will swing in the future to avoid the benefit cuts or higher taxes falling on them. The ballooning debt and endangered entitlements create the inflection point for more intense gerrymandering.

In addition to these fiscal battles, of course, the federal government also exercises control over even more divisive domestic issues. Immigration has now become the most potent and divisive one. Because of past failures in recent enforcement, fourteen million unauthorized immigrants now live in the United States. The federal government has also become more powerful because it will have to resolve its status.

Control of the federal government also affects the resolution of other social issues—from abortion to gender-identity policy. Once, these matters were largely outside Washington’s remit; federalism served as a brake on national stakes. But Congress’s authority under the Commerce Clause is broad, and even when the body cannot regulate directly, it can often push states to do so by conditioning federal funds on their acquiescence. Growing federal spending thus also expands federal influence over social issues.

Yet another matter on the agenda of the federal political branches is control of the Supreme Court. And for the first time in almost a century, the House of Representatives is a major part of that discussion. In the past, the Court’s composition was largely a matter for the President and the Senate. Today, however, one of our political parties seriously talks about court packing and is opposed by the other party. Control of the House of Representatives is key to expanding or blocking the expansion of the Supreme Court.

Those actions to upend the legislative filibuster or subject Justices to terms or to expand the Supreme Court or to add states are all ways to rig the rules to turn a non-mandate into a mandate, and maybe govern permanently, although that never turns out well.

Just for fun, dear reader, offer the following to the next advocate for a Convention of the States you encounter.

Congress could itself eliminate gerrymandering by making state congressional elections not be decided by district, but by proportional representation. But, of course, that change would put the seats of many members at risk and thus has never been adopted. Even smaller reforms, like requiring compact districts, would upset current members.

There were tables run by advocates for that convention at two of the county fairs I visited during the summer.  The promotional material pushes for Congressional term limits and a balanced budget amendment.  I behaved myself, although it was tempting to remind such advocates that there are no limitations on what can be debated at a Convention of the States and something along the lines of proportional representation or enlarging the House by formula or eliminating the House of Lords Senate could be introduced as a motion for debate.

Perhaps, Mr McGinnis concludes, we can do better.

A smaller federal government is a better answer. Reduce Washington’s reach over money and morals, and the incentive to bend lines wanes. Restore federalism’s default, narrow the use of conditional spending, and return cultural disputes to the states. Even if that increases pressure for gerrymanders of state legislatures, citizens can exit states with policies they come to dislike without leaving the nation.

Yes, exactly as the Framers intended.