Dear Source:
Almost as precisely as astronomers can predict the earth's orbit around the sun, following each election cycle, Virgin Islanders can envisage, among newly and re-elected senators, the positioning for power in the territory's senate. The perpetual political maneuvering, mostly for leadership positions and chairs of key committees in the Legislature, results in temporary and highly pliable majority and minority blocs. Historically these blocs lack a cohesive political philosophy and usually do not comport with the ideologies of the territory's three political parties (if one is to assume that the relatively small number of Republicans in the VI are represented by a competitive political party). These set of events predictably do not re-occur because of self-serving behavior on the part of all individuals who are elected to the territory's legislative body. Analogous to a planet, in a space-time fabric of a universe, that creates curvatures that determine the realignment of its moons' obits, the current senatorial election system periodically determines the political realignment of members within the territorial senate. This post-election movement, which is often centrifugal in nature, originates within a system that is characterized by inter-candidate competition among an almost infinite number of individuals (many from the same political party) who run against each other for a finite number of seats in one district, or what may be aptly called a multi-member district (St. Croix or St. Thomas St. John).
Multi-member district voting has unintended outcomes which are reflected in distorted election results and less than optimal performance on the part of the Legislature. Rather than encouraging political parties to promote coherent and cohesive sets of policy solutions to the many serious problems facing the territory, multi-member district voting provides an incentive for individual senatorial candidates to simultaneously produce vague statements for mass voter consumption (e.g., I am for improving schools and reducing crime.) and discrete sets of promises directed towards small groups of voters (e.g., I support more government funding for "such-and-such" community organization.). Rather than enhancing healthy competition between political parties, multi-member district voting encourages deleterious inter-candidate competition that ultimately has a negative effect on the performance of the legislative branch of the territorial government.
While it is stubbornly held on to in the VI, multi-member district voting has been all but abandoned and is relatively rare in the rest of the United States. This has been mainly due to court decisions that remedied the dilution of minority voter strength in multi-member districts, which then cleared the way for the establishment of single-member district voting.
This is not to say there is evidence that single-member district voting creates only positive externalities. To the contrary, some studies (e.g., "Local Government Spending and At-Large Versus District Representation: Do Wards Result in More "Pork"? in Economics and Politics) suggest that, compared to those with elected representatives from single-member districts, cities with at-large elected officials have smaller governments and lower government spending, debt, and taxes. However, other research (e.g., "Districts, Spillovers, and Government Overspending" Macroeconomics and Growth, Working Paper 2192, Development Research Group, World Bank) provides evidence that municipalities with multi-member districts are plagued by larger governments and higher spending on a per capita basis. Given the extant scholarly literature on single-member versus multi-member district voting and a jurisdiction's fiscal performance, the results are mixed.
There is more conclusive evidence that "potential" political participation is positively related to single-member districts. The results of a recent study by a political scientist at Rice University suggest that compared to those who reside in multi-member districts, individuals who live in single-member districts register to vote at substantially higher rates. Moreover, numerous studies have found that running for office in a single-member district costs less (per voter) than running in multi-member districts. Therefore, compared to multi-member district voting, single-member district voting limits the influence of wealthy special interest groups on individuals running for legislative seats.
One scholar suggests that the optimal choice between single-member and multi-member district voting may actually be a combination of the two systems. Writing in the December 2005 issue of the Election Law Journal, Paul Edelman, a professor of mathematics and law at Vanderbilt University, approximates the "right" number of at-large representatives as the square root of the total number of representatives. For example, applying Edelman's simple formulaic approach to St. Croix, the "right" number of at-large senators would be about three (after rounding up from 2.64575). The other four St. Croix senators conceivably could be elected from four single-member districts, separately from the north, south, east and west regions of the island.
Despite the often repeated pleas from leaders of the islands' political parties, self-serving behavior and disunity among the territory's legislators will continue at higher than expected levels as long as the current system of electing senators persists. Derived each election and temporarily abated soon after the ceremonial installation of the new members of Legislature, the political competition that was created in the election process continues and contributes to the structural dysfunction that eventually characterizes the legislative body. As if it is strictly adhering to the second law of thermodynamics, the legislative branch of the territorial government then tends to move towards higher levels of political entropy immediately preceding the next election. The cycle continues ad infinitum. Perhaps it may not.
This cycle may be broken if the next VI Constitutional Convention addresses the seriously flawed senatorial election system. Individuals who are considering running for convention delegates should begin to have thoughtful discussions around replacing the current senatorial election system with one that minimizes the effect of political competition, created during the elections, on the performance of the Legislature.
Marvin A. Titus
St. Croix and Raleigh, N.C.
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