- [Schwarzenegger] We've
always thought about
what can we do
(gentle music)
for the state of California
or for the country, for the United States.
- [Young Woman] We come
through to figure out
how to solve some of the
world's toughest issues.
- [Woman Speaker] The
mission of the institute
is to advance post-partisanship,
where leaders put people
over political parties
and political ideology.
- How is it possible for
a closely-divided country,
which has favored the Democrats
in six of the last seven
presidential elections,
how did we leave election day 2006
with the Republicans commanding
69 of 99 legislative chambers,
both houses, and 35 states,
A modern record of 33 governors
and trifectas to both legislative chambers
and the governor's office in 25 states?
We are here because in 2010,
savvy Republican strategists managed
to reinvent the oldest
political trick in the book.
The gerrymander.
The Republicans plotted
their return to power
after Barack Obama's 2008
sweep through redistricting.
The plan worked,
as proven by the Republican
monopoly in Washington
and super majorities in
state houses nationwide,
often achieved with fewer aggregate votes.
But it has also had dramatic
and unforeseen consequences
for our politics, which
have become more extreme,
more polarizing, and most dangerously,
more insulated from the ballot box
then at any time, perhaps, in our history.
And then in 2012, Barack
Obama is re-elected.
Democrats win the Senate and
garner 1.4 million more votes
on the House level, aggregate
for congressional seats.
But in the first election
run on these maps,
the lines hold.
They are the Republican firewall.
State after state after
state, the maps produce
exactly the result the
Republicans imagined.
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin,
Michigan, Ohio, and Virginia
all go for Barack Obama in 2012.
This is a deeply partisan
presidential election
that sees the fewest split
ballots in almost 100 years.
Those states cumulatively
send to Washington
delegations amounting of 47
Republicans and 20 Democrats.
That's more than two to one.
In 2010, gerrymandering
enters its steroids era.
Partisan gerrymandering has
always been a partisan weapon.
The technology makes it much more lethal.
The data sets in our hardened partisanship
makes our voting tendencies
easier to determine.
Mix that with a sophisticated
political strategy,
and you have a recipe for
turning a side with fewer votes
into a super majority.
We have created 400 of 435 districts
where there is no true competition
outside of the party primary.
Uncompetitive districts
have made the government
responsive only to the extremes.
They are the reason
why we can't get action
on issues where the great center agrees,
and they are the reason
why in state after state,
an agenda that a majority of
Americans did not vote for
has clear sailing.
The founders designed the
House of Representatives
to be the part of the federal government
that is most responsive to the people.
Instead, through gerrymandering,
it has become insulated from the voters.
It may take many years and election cycles
for the far-reaching consequences
of 2010 to be swept away.
We want our votes to count, we
want our elections to matter.
When our Democratic institutions
become separated from the popular will,
they cease to be effectively
Democratic institutions.
- I'm a very optimistic person.
I've seen this country go
through major, major problems.
One thing you can count on on America
is that even though it
falls every so often,
as we all do,
but it dusts itself off, gets
up, and gets going again.
This is why this is a winning nation.
Everyone wants to come to America,
because this is the greatest country,
and yes, we are going through
some difficult moments right now,
as we have in the past,
but I guarantee you,
that we will work our way out of this.
Democracy is not a spectator sport.
And I think that all of the
things that we have seen
that are negative, I
think the American people
are going to get up and
do something about it.
And that I think is the bottom line.
This is why I think we will
always be the greatest nation.
The question is not what are the needs
of the Republicans or the Democrats.
The real question is what
are the needs of our people?
If you just stick to
one party's proposals,
you miss half of the good ideas.
