Gerrymandering districts in North Carolina is old hat. Democrats gerrymandered districts for years to ensure they kept majorities in the state House and Senate and Congress. Now, the GOP has virtually unassailable districts in a state that is evenly divided between between Democrats and Republicans.
Republicans, though, have taken gerrymandering to a new level. With the power of computers and massive data, they’ve drawn confusing districts that make little geographic sense and minimize the number competitive districts. In short, they’re on a mission to stamp out the democratic process.
In the Greensboro News and Record today, Doug Clark highlights the problem. In 2014, seventy-eight legislators had no competition in the general election. But what’s new to gerrymandering is the heavy-handed legislature reaching into city and counties to smash democracy there, too. Clark points out that Republican meddling has left more county and city races in Guilford County without competition.
As Clark puts it, “Lawmakers designed the districts to achieve desired results. They dislike democracy, preferring predetermined outcomes.” That’s called authoritarianism.
Unfortunately, North Carolina has a long history of undemocratic government. Democrats killed democracy in the late 1890s in an attempt to keep African-Americans from voting. Republicans are just repeating history.
We need to fight back. Clark mentions Holly Jone’s (a client of mine) crowdsourcing candidates program. Holly wants to engage people, Democrats in particular, to run for legislative seats. Contesting races is the only way to win them and the best way to hold Republicans accountable.
Republican Representative Tim Moffitt sat in one of those gerrymandered districts. Without fear of competition, he abused his power, meddled in local government affairs, and generally overreached. In 2014, despite the makeup of his district, he lost in the middle of a Republican wave.
There are other vulnerable Republicans. If voters know what they’ve done to our schools, to our universities, and to our local governments, they will make them pay a price. But people need to be engaged to let other less informed voters know the truth.
As Clark says, let’s fight for our democracy. Get involved. Run for office, organize your community, tell the truth on your elected officials, but don’t sit idly by because your side can’t win a gerrymandered election.
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 >
No thanks. I don’t want to fight for a democracy. In a democracy, the masses can tell me what to do. In a democracy, if I earn something, the masses can say it is theirs.
We live and have always lived under a Constitutional Republic — ie the RULE OF LAW. I prefer having the law step in when a mob comes around, and I prefer keeping my money instead of paying fees (on top of taxes) because the masses believe they are entitled to my earnings.
A democracy is not rainbows and sunshine — it sounds nice to the majority, but it is actually a nightmare for the minority. Has this author never drawn the link between “Democrat” and “Democracy” / “Republican” and “Republic” and thought about slavery at the same time? Democrats defend the democratic majority — republicans protect the democratic minority; any questions?
It’s the task of those who believe change is needed to make that change “politically feasible.”
Ebrun — Obviously you were referring to the NC constitution and I was referring to the U.S. constitution as having no districting requirement. For years, members of the General Assembly were elected from multimember districts that were quite large in some cases.
Single-member legislative districts were never, and are not now, a constitutional requirement. They were imposed by the state Supreme Court’s 2002 Barlett v. Stephenson redistricting ruling. The court said that a mix of different sized districts (single- and multimember) meant some voters had access to more representation than other voters, thus violating the state constitution’s “equal protection” clause.
But as long as all voters had access to the same number of representatives, any configuration of multimember districts, including large regional districts, would be constitutional. Baker v. Carr established “one person, one vote” as stipulating that legislative districts have an equal ratio of voters to representatives. Thus, at-large or multimember representation, properly structured, would not violate the 14th amendment’s “equal protection” clause in any way.
Norma — Here’s an article you may find interesting: http://www.fairvote.org/research-and-analysis/blog/single-winner-districts-not-what-the-founding-fathers-intended/
Lee M. Are you suggesting, then, that all members of the NC General Assembly could be elected “at-large” if the legislature passed such a law? That would seem to violate the state Constitution’s requirement for the establishment of districts for the election of state senators and representatives.
You may be technically right about the election of representatives to the U.S. Congress, but it would seem to be legally very difficult to properly structure an at-large election of all of the state’s Congressional reps in such a way as to provide equal protection to all citizens.
Ebrun — I’m not suggesting all 50 state Senators or 120 Representative or 13 U.S. House members be elected from a single statewide “district,” if that is how you define “at-large.” But it would be entirely feasible (and fully constitutional) for a portion of state legislators and Congress members to be elected from local single-member districts and the balance be elected from overlaid regional multimember districts. That way Democrats (or Republicans) who are unrepresented in their local district could elect a candidate (or party) of their choice in their regional district. Not only would that “provide equal protection to all citizens,” it protects those who would otherwise be “represented” by someone they voted against in their local district. The local-to-regional district configurations might be: 100-to-20 state Representatives; 40-to-10 state Senators; and 10-to-3 U.S. House members.
Ok, but doesn’t that approach assume that the unrepresented (losers) in the single districts would be winners in the regional districts? Seems the regional districts would need to be drawn to ensure that the party that loses locally would win at least some of the regional district reps. So gerrymandering would again need to be applied to assure the desired outcome.
There’s no assured outcome except that the single-district “losers” would get a second bite of the apple to try to get someone better than that jerk they voted against in their single district. And just about any multimember district with 5-10 members is bound to elect 2 or 3 candidates from the loser’s preferred party. But using something like limited voting, where voters cast fewer votes than the number being elected, chances are significantly enhanced for more voters to elect their party or even their candidate of choice. Where’s the gerrymandering in that?
Oh wow, that would change the way our legislators are elected. Leaving aside any legal issues, I doubt that would be politically feasible.
Lee, thanks. The site is worth my time. Signed up.
Norma — The site has some good information, but don’t get side-tracked into ranked choice voting. It’s non-transparent, difficult to implement, and there are simpler and equally good ways to accomplish fair representation with multimember elections.
Here’s one example that’s a variation on the system used in Germany, New Zealand and the regional parliaments in Scotland and Wales:
http://www.greensboro.com/opinion/columns/a-better-solution-to-gerrymandered-districts/article_d092fbd6-5b66-11e3-ae53-001a4bcf6878.html
I had this article on redistricting reform in yesterday’s News & Observer:
http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article38976807.html
Thanks. I will read both. Appreciate the additional information.
To Ebrun’s assertions regarding “a Constitutionally required geographic component to representative government” — the constitution says nothing about how the states should choose their members of Congress. The constitution only addressed apportionment and how many representatives each state would send to the U.S. House. Some were chosen from districts, but many U.S. House members were elected as statewide delegations. For the first 50 years, a significant portion of U.S. House members were chosen in at-large, multiwinner elections. Getting out of the gerrymandering morass caused by single-member districts will require a return to some version of at-large/multimember representation.
Thanks. Especially for the historical information about the first 50 years. Interesting possibilities for other ways of looking at the issue.
The NC state Constitution requires that members of the General Assembly, both state Senators and representatives to the state House, be elected by districts. See Article II, Section 3 and Section 5.
While there is apparently no explicit requirement for U. S. Congressional representatives to be elected by districts in the state Constitution, Section 22 (5) (8) makes reference to “districts for the election” of representatives to House of Representatives of the United States Congress.
Any law requiring at-large election of Congressional representatives would face a difficult legal test given the precedent set in Baker vs. Carr, which essentially applied the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the election of Congressional representatives.
Someone can correct me, but my dim memory (many decades ago) of several weeks of history focused solely on the US Constitution is that the federal districts are by established by population without real regard for geography except in the common sense way of making them somewhat contiguous. I don’t know the NC Constitution, but does it specify a geographical balance? Otherwise, I don’t follow the line of argument.
And, I would still say that “one person/one vote” is a better basis for a democratic government. Tilting the balance toward any segment of the citizens is a mistake.
No, but I believe it calls for representatives to be elected based on population. To do so, districts have to be drawn based on where the citizens live. It’s not a question of “geographic balance”, but it does involve geography. Legislative districts have geographic boundaries.
And BTW, legislative district ARE based on one person/one vote. It’s been that way since the Supreme Court ruled, in 1961 in Baker vs. Carr, that each district must be roughly equal in population.
I am more than slightly familiar with Baker vs Carr, and my question was specifically about the NC constitution. I believe that my description of a district as being “somewhat contiguous” was a polite way of saying geography plays a role, but is not a controlling factor. I do not find your response helpful but it is rather annoyingly condescending, as in “legislative districts have geographic boundaries” — of course they do. Who said otherwise?
My initial contention was that legislative districts must have a geographic component. There is no requirement for “geographic balance.” The NC Constitution requires districts be established for the election of senators and representatives to the NCGA.
More overheated rhetoric from the left—“Authoritarianism,” “dictatorship,” “tyranny,” even “Apartheid?” Such vitriol is shameful and inhibits civil discourse.
Gerrymandering is not the primary reason for the left’s political decline in NC. The great majority of liberal voters are concentrated in the state’s major metropolitan counties of the Triangle. the Triad, Charlotte, Asheville and Fayetteville. Republican and conservative independent voters are widely and more evenly dispersed across the state. As long as there is a Constitutionally-required geographic component to representative government, the left will be at a legislative disadvantage in states like North Carolina.
Before the GOP takeover, the Democrats could count on support from moderate and conservative voters to help sustain their legislative majorities. But the leftward surge of the Obama administration combined with the last two politically-corrupt Democrat administrations resulted in the emergence of a GOP legislative majority in NC that is unlikely to be defeated as long at the the Democrat party is controlled by the far left.
All the wailing, flaying and dishonest claims from the left will find approval from liberal bloggers like those who post and comment here, but is unlikely to persuade conservative voters who comprise a majority in most legislative districts across the state.
In 2012, fifty one percent of the voters voted for a Democrat for Congress but Republicans won a 9-4 majority. Against the wishes of local governments, the GOP redistricted county, municipal and even school board districts to get they outcome they desired. That’s authoritarian.
Thanks for the numbers. I had been looking for them as I thought I recalled in general terms that the Dems outvoted the GOP. I guess the conservatives commenting above use math differently than the average fourth grader.
The state’s largest metropolitan counties can vote 100 percent for Democrats, but if all the other counties vote 52-48 Republican, then the GOP will control the General Assembly and elect more Congressional representatives. That’s how representative democracy works, as you well know. To change that arrangement, the Constitution would have to be amended. To wail about it is nothing short of demagoguery.
The districts are divided by population, not county.
Yes, of course. But votes are still counted and reported county by county as well as by legislative districts.
Gerrymander is too kind a word. That was a popular 19th-20th century pursuit. What the NCGA has done in 2011 is to digitize Apartheid across North Carolina.
It is plain old tyranny.
They even vote against st the interests of Republican voters.
“Authoritarianism” — a nicer name than I would use for the GOP’s gerrymandering. Abuse of power is also polite. An attempt at dictatorship is closer to reality. And, I don’t support gerrymandering by anyone at any time, and have not for decades. It was, is, and always will be unethical.
Just curious why the Democrats have not learned their lesson and don’t now pledge never to do it again, but that probably assumes a level of ethics not in that party either. Strange, however, to protest legislation that limits or constrains voting, but not recognize the same impulse is back of gerrymandering.