Gerrymandering, the political practice of carving up awkward-looking legislative districts to benefit one party’s political power, has slithered into the public conversation once again.
Some of us remember the history behind this political practice, starting with the governor of Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry. Democratic-Republicans want to shore up their new power in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Federalist opponents of the maneuver mocked one of the serpentine-like districts created by the party, christening the shape with claws, wings, and a razor-sharp mouth, calling the monstrosity “The Gerrymander.”
Why has the discussion roared into the public consensus this time? It started with the Texas legislature’s efforts to redraw its state’s districts after a request from the Trump Administration to review the fairness of the districts.
Yes, there is gerrymandering in Texas, but not the way that liberal reformers want to portray the problem. Consider some of the urban, Democratic Congressional districts in Texas: the 29th, 32nd, and 33rd, for example, are obscenely drawn. These contortions are examples of race pandering, or “race-mandering,” which result from the tortured misuse of the Voting Rights Act and fears of ongoing legal challenges from left-wing legal activists demanding more majority-minority districts. This kind of lawfare recently forced Alabama and Louisiana to create gerrymandered districts.
Texas is not alone in this fight, either. Ohio has to redraw its Congressional districts. This opportunity could create three more Republican-leaning Congressional seats, while the Texas legislature advances a map creating five more GOP seats. Of course, Governor Abbott and the Republican leadership have floated increasing the GOP advantage to six to eight seats if absent Democrats refuse to come back to work in their vain efforts to break legislative quorums. Democrats have not helped their cause by fleeing to Illinois, whose districts are so gerrymandered that even Stephen Colbert poked fun at them.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who bravely pushed through a race-neutral Congressional map in 2021, netting four more GOP seats, has offered to redraw the Congressional districts yet again, in part because the state population has grown due to an increase in migration from failed blue states. DeSantis deserves credit for the current GOP-mandering effort, since he had refused weak maps from the Florida RINOs at the beginning of the decade.
Indiana, Missouri, and South Carolina are also exploring more daring redistricting efforts, not just because of Trump’s leadership and Texas’s fight, but because the United States Supreme Court will be reviewing the “majority-minority” provisions in the Voting Rights Act. Democrats and liberal pundits fear that the court will strike them down entirely, wiping away the need for “majority-minority districts” and ensuring that Republicans gain more seats!
Republicans are fighting back, and Democrats don’t like that the Republicans are using their tactics against them.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, who is running for President even though he won’t admit it, is leading the charge, demanding that fellow Democrats start fighting with fire, although they started the fire, perfecting the art of gerrymandering under the guise of independent commissioners. Newsom urged the California legislature to reform the state’s Citizens Redistricting Commission to create more Democratic-favoring districts.
The problem with this effort, though, is that Democratic-leaning states already have some of the most heavily gerrymandered districts in the country. Maryland had three Republicans as recently as 2003, but has reduced the number with creative redrawing. Illinois is the most gerrymandered state, despite relying on an independent commission. New York State tried to push through one of the most gerrymandered districts possible, but even the all-Democratic New York Supreme Court rejected the naked political grab from Albany politicians. Declining Governor Kathy Hochul wants to jump into the fray anyway. They wear their lawlessness like a dinner jacket.