High levels of public distrust of Congress raise concerns over politics, gerrymandering

It is not breaking news that Con- gress is held in disfavor by more voters than at any time since modern polling began.

But a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll brings a new dimension to that disapproval.

In the past, people tended to dislike Congress as an entity, but they still liked their congressman. That’s not uncommon in polling. For instance, polls commonly find that people disapprove of public education in general, but think their schools or their child’s teachers do a good job.

But in the latest Post-ABC poll, a slim majority — 51 percent of the respondents — disapproved of the job performance of their own congressman. Just 41 percent approved, leaving 8 percent with no opinion.

Now we’ll stipulate that polls have their flaws. This particular poll was conducted by telephone by SSRS of Media, Pa., in late July from a random national sample of 1,026 adults, and the Washington Post reports that three questions were asked.

One of those questions was not, “Can you name your congressman?” Other polls have shown that more than half of the respondents couldn’t even name their congressional representative. How much value does the opinion of how Congress is doing have if that opinion is voiced by a voter (or nonvoter) who can’t name his or her congressman?

SOME WATERSHED RESULTS

But whatever flaws may or may not exist in polling data, some watershed results cannot be ignored. And this is one of them.

It may be difficult to believe today, but over the last few decades, polls showed that most Americans not only approved of the job their own congressman was doing, but they often approved of Congress in general.

The Gallup organization has results from quarterly polls asking about congressional approval dating to 1974. There are ups and downs, but Congress often had approval ratings in the 30-percent and event 40-percent range.

A decade ago, in January 2004, Congress had one of its strongest showings in the Gallup poll, with 48 percent approving, 45 percent disapproving and 7 percent having no opinion. Five years later, as President Barack Obama was taking office, those numbers had dropped to 31 percent approval, 61 percent disapproval and 9 percent undecided.

There was a brief uptick in the first months of the new president’s tenure, perhaps reflecting an optimism that Washington was going to get some work down, but it has been all downhill since then. The latest Gallup Poll showed Congress at 15 percent approval, 80 percent disapproval and 5 percent no opinion.

While the president’s poll numbers are nothing for him to celebrate, other presidents have had bad numbers during their four or eight years in office. This Congress has posted record lows, including approval ratings in the single digits last fall, when 9 percent approved, 86 percent disapproved and 5 percent were undecided.

REASONS FOR DISFAVOR

Political scientists, pundits and Average Joes have varying theories on why Congress is held in such low regard. A Gallup poll last summer showed 60 percent of people attributed their disapproval of Congress to a combination of partisan gridlock, failure to make decisions or putting politics above country.

While no one factor can explain the plummeting approval rating of Congress, we’re going to suggest another, one that doesn’t show up in poll results: gerrymandering.

As some state legislatures — Ohio and Pennsylvania among them — have redrawn congressional boundaries in increasingly partisan fashion, those states have sent congressional delegations to Washington that do not accurately represent the state at large. Consider Ohio, which twice voted for President Obama and has one Democratic and one Republican senator, but has a House delegation that is 75 percent Republican.

It should not be a surprise if, when artificial congressional boundaries are removed and all Ohioans are asked what they think of Congress, that a majority is dissatisfied. They don’t feel their congressman or congresswoman represents them.

This, of course, is of little concern to the congressional representatives — both Republicans and Democrats — who virtually are assured of their re-election thanks to their gerrymandered districts, but it should be.

There is more to governing than just winning elections. There is the need to win and maintain the trust of the electorate.

We are a republic, a representative form of government that cannot survive in the long run when partisans take short-term advantage of weaknesses in the system to strengthen a political party rather than build a true House of Representatives.

Plummeting poll numbers are only a symptom of what ails Congress.