On Wednesday, Governor Roy Cooper called for a special session of the legislature to re-draw legislative districts that the Supreme Court found unconstitutional. In a twist, the session would run concurrently with the regular session now in progress. Republicans in the legislature immediately denied the governor’s request, calling it unconstitutional. Both sides immediately cried foul.
Republicans say that Cooper doesn’t have the constitutional authority to call the session. They say the court will determine, what, if anything, should be done. Democrats claim that the constitution demands that districts be drawn within 14 days of being found unconstitutional.
The News & Observer sided with Cooper. Carolina Journal sided with the General Assembly. On twitter, the respective sides began their regular broadsides accusing each of other of ill will.
Republicans seemed smug with their quick rejection of Cooper’s demand for new districts. One conservative on twitter even suggested that the districts might not be drawn until the 2019 session of the General Assembly, leaving the current districts in place for 2018. That’s not going to happen since the court says that no more elections can be held under the current districts.
Politically, the move was smart for Cooper. He has nothing to lose. The chance of a special election happening this year is getting smaller every day that passes. Trying to force the GOP to draw districts now would remove one obstacle to an election this year.
More importantly, though, Cooper exposed the Republicans’ insistence on defending rigged districts. The public is increasingly unhappy with Republican rule in Washington and a recent poll shows that voters in North Carolina overwhelming prefer Democrats on a generic legislative ballot. Cooper’s making the GOP appear to defy the Supreme Court to protect an ill-gotten legislative advantage. They are the epitome of the political establishment putting the needs of politicians before the people they represent.
Democrats won in court again last week. Now, Cooper is winning the PR war. The more people are talking about rigged elections, the better for the minority party. We’ve been in a long cycle of throw-the-bums-out elections. That’s not likely to stop as long voters perceive the people in power as corrupt. By resisting fixing a problem of their own making, the Republican legislators are falling into the anti-establishment trap. They’re defending the indefensible.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
People move from place to place. And the population of the United States has grown since 1776 from about 2.5 million people living in the 13 original colonies to more than 324 million people living in 2016 in the 50 states. The movement of people and the arrival of people to our borders and into maternity wards requires a regular counting of people which the government does.
The Founders foresaw the problem of people moving around and planned for political change by means of a decennial census mandated by Article I, Section 2 of the United States Constitution: “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States … according to their respective Numbers … ”
The original purpose of redrawing district maps is clear. Representation and taxation should be proportional, but politics is politics and power is intoxicating. Parties in the majority have taken advantage of that upper hand by gaming the process – drawing unfair districts where they could.
There are clear guidelines as defined by the Supreme Court where the redistricting can be unconstitutional. North Carolina has become the nation’s worst recidivist in violating the Constitution with cases making their way to Washington on a regular basis. Most recently, our legislature offended the Constitution by drawing maps with racist intent. The North Carolina General Assembly’s blatant racism aroused even the most ardent and reliable right wing conservative justice – Clarence Thomas – who voted against the Old North State.
Gerrymandering has been a part of the process forever, but with the 2010 census, the Republicans introduced a new level of malice and unfairness into the mix. The hegemony of computer technology along with massive databases containing vast amounts of personal information about each voter changed the world forever. In 2010, the Republicans refined the art of drawing maps with such surgical precision that the minority has been able to take control of the majority.
By excluding or including a few homes in a few districts, Republicans were able to squeeze out more representation than their numbers justified. The new maps secured seats for members while giving the voters little voice in their own government. It was not proportional representation; it became disproportionate representation. The elected are selecting who will vote for them and who will not be allowed to cast a vote in their elections.
The Supreme Court has ruled against racial gerrymandering, but it has never decided whether or not it is unconstitutional for a majority party to redistrict legislative districts solely for political purposes.
The Founders did not intend for a minority party to dominate the rest of us through trickery, but that is our world today. Republicans represent only 25% of the registered voters in North Carolina but they control 10 of our 13 congressional seats and they maintain a super majority in our General Assembly.
This process has been duplicated in all 50 states. The majority is clearly frustrated. Our voices are not being heard.
Today as most already know, a shooter attacked a Republican delegation in Alexandria VA practicing for a baseball game. The shooter of course is deceased so we will never quite know his reasons for why he did what he did. Some would say, myself included, that no reason justifies the violence by which this individual chose to act with. So while I certainly cannot condone such an attack, it certainly isn’t surprising that it took place. The fact that it was a shooter attacking members of the Republican party is a bit of surprise since I always figured that when this occurred, it would be the other way around.
There is no doubt that this was the last act of a desperate man. No doubt he felt that his desperation and position in life had been brought about by those of the Republican party. I’m sure he isn’t alone, but he turned those thoughts into actions; dangerous and lethal actions. Just like the man that shot Gabrielle Giffords, he lost sight of the fact that change in this country will not come about via a gun barrel. A sad and pathetic reality, alas.
Chris Collins, (R, NY) has already blamed Democrats for the attack on the basis of the rhetoric against Donald Trump et al. Collins chooses to ignore the past eight years of venomous hyperbole and prognostication leveled at the last President and anyone identified as a “Liberal” or a “Democrat.” When you look at the approval rating of Congress, coupled with the constant attack posture and the refusals to work toward consensus and pass legislation that harms the many for the benefit of the few, who didn’t see this as a tragedy in the making?
We have our differences and there is nothing wrong with being passionate about them. But in due consideration of those passions, we need to remain cognizant of the fact that at the end of the day, we are still human beings and Americans. Force of arms was an option once when we failed to have alternative means of redress. Today however, we have guarantees for that redress without force of arms. That is, until those guarantees are subverted or thwarted to the point that the people take the position that they feel only extreme action will work.
Maybe this will open some eyes though, if only in the short term. We need to remember that listening is often the more important aspect of communication. Tragically this man chose to be heard in a different chord.
The NC GOP is very quick to talk about how the “illegals” are destroying our state. The real “illegals” in NC are the members of the General Assembly who sit in illegally drawn districts and refuse to redraw the districts as required by the Federal courts. Let’s just make sure that when we use the term “illegals” in NC we know exactly who we are referring to.
The GOP is the C.S.A. in North Carolina, & easily NC can stand for not conscious. Labor living in expectation that their betters will take care of them, and remembering Billy Graham said thinking otherwise was blasphemous. The arrogance of the GOP is striking.