Gerrymandering, Eliminationists, and the Road Ahead
In January 1990, I was invited to a meeting about the redistricting in New Jersey. I had just been hired by a New Jersey Congressman and knew little about the redistricting process.
New Jersey, I would learn, used a computer modelling system to ensure partisan fairness. A number of other states have opted for independent commissions or bipartisan boards to set their legislative and congressional district to ensure that delicate balance of fairness and partisan parity. Since population growth and shifts can change the make-up of a legislator’s constituency, there is a lot at risk.
Redistricting is always a big deal in New Jersey. Although the state is politically moderate as a whole, most of its 21 counties have considerable party registration imbalances one way or another. And each of the state’s 40 election districts has one senator and 2 assemblymen, so every shift in district lines impacts 3 politicians at a minimum.
One of the most important things I learned at that meeting was not so much where the lines were going to be after the current census, but by what Tom Lindenfeld, a Democratic political consultant in New Jersey, called the “road ahead.” It was not so much where the lines were today, but where they were likely to fall in 10 or 20 years.
Although many states try to draw their legislative maps with some degree on non-partisanship or through bi-partisan agreement, other states have opted for drawing their legislative district lines in such a way that Elbridge Gerry himself would blush at their brazenness.
How bad? In the case of Pennsylvania, bad enough to have the PA Supreme Court tell the Republican controlled legislature to redraw the lines for congressional districts or else we will. The GOP in Harrisburg called their bluff and then the Supreme Court did exactly that. In 2018, the congressional delegation went from a 13-5 gerrymander favoring the Republicans to a 9-9- split. Given Pennsylvania’s status as a swing state nationally, the new map made sense. The before and after results of Pennsylvania’s redistricting proved the unfairness of gerrymandering and its raw power.
The redistricting battles in Ohio and North Carolina are not simple being gerrymandered, but gamed to preclude any Democrats from getting elected ever.
Gerrymandering breeds eliminationism. Don’t simple keep your political opponent from gaining political power, eliminate his ability to even get a foothold.
South Dakota is a prime example. The Republicans comprise about 48% of registered voters (Democrats have roughly 27% of registered voters and Independents about 24%). Despite a nearly 2-1 registration advantage, 87% of the state legislature is Republican. There’s no better way to impose reactionary policies than to preclude anyone who is not a Republican from having any kind of effective voice.
What makes Ohio and North Carolina likely to be prime exhibits to expose the anti-democratic purposes of gerrymandering is that both states have open Senate elections in 2022. With Senators Portman (OH) and Burr (NC) retiring, the disparity between their congressional district lines and statewide voting has the potential to expose the GOP’s plan to stay in power with less than majority support from the electorate.
It’s entire possible that a majority of Ohioans and North Carolinians could vote Democratic and only win statewide contests, because of partisan gerrymandering by the Right.
In December 2018, retired Congressman Charles Dent (R-PA) termed his party’s alignment with ultra-conservative polices as a “demographic death march”. The Republican Party today is so out of sync with millennials and post-millennials (when they vote, they vote more than 2-1 Democratic) that without a seismic shift toward the true political middle, the GOP is writing its own epitaph.
And with millennials and post-millennials fast approaching the 50% mark for the U.S. population, the only question is how many decades it will take to repair the road paved by the GOP’s nihilists and reactionaries.