I’ve been trying to avoid watching too much of the redistricting debate because I know what Republicans are going to do. They will maximize their advantage to rig the elections for themselves. Democrats, who are in the minority in both houses of the legislature, are powerless to do anything about it. It’s not just depressing as a Democrat, it’s a blow to our democracy.
I’m disturbed at the dishonesty of the Republicans’ arguments defending their practice of extreme gerrymandering. They claim that Democrats did the same thing. They claim that Democrats’ clustering in urban areas makes drawing fairer districts difficult. And they claim that they win more counties than Democrats. All of it’s bullshit.
For most of the 20th century, North Carolina was largely a one-party state run by Democrats like the rest of the old Confederacy. The people they disenfranchised to hold those majorities were Black voters and they used poll taxes and literacy tests to do it. White Southerners started leaving the Democratic Party in the late 1940s over racial policies, beginning with Truman integrating the military and culminating with the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts signed into law by Democrat Lyndon Johnson, ending segregation and ensuring African Americans the right to vote.
In 1971, just before the pivotal election that sent Jesse Helms to the U.S. Senate, the first Republican of the century to get elected to that body, 76% of North Carolinians were registered as Democrats and fewer than 21% Republicans. Still, Republicans held four of the state’s eleven Congressional seats, far out-representing their party registration. For the next 40 years of Democratic redistricting, Republicans held seats in Congress that roughly represented their numbers and influence in North Carolina.
So no, the Democrats did not do it first. Not until the GOP redistricting after 2010 did we such distorted Congressional delegations. While gerrymandering may have existed, Republicans took it to unprecedented extremes after they took power in 2011.
The biggest hit, though, is not the Democrats. It’s our democracy. Not since before the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act have we had so few competitive races. The party that claims competition is the best solution to everything from rising prices to education denies competition at the ballot box.
With the urbanization of the state, Republicans could easily draw districts that are highly competitive based on suburban counties. Instead, they’ve chosen to draw districts that imply that land votes. Sure they win more counties, but those counties are losing population and aging. They do not reflect the growing and changing nature of the state. Republicans’ excuses for drawing districts that distort the nature of our evenly divided state are just false. They don’t care about the people. They care about power.
The GOP’s redistricting program is a national scheme to subvert democracy. They know that they can’t win if the will of the people is reflected, so they are putting in place rules that undermine competition and electoral politics. They are passing laws that allow governmental entities elected in gerrymandered elections to oversee and overturn legitimate elections. When Democrats cry foul in the future, Republicans will claim they’re just following the laws that they’ve put in place.
Republicans are right about one thing. The last time democracy was curtailed so blatantly, Democrats did it. They stripped away the right to vote from African Americans and set up one-party states, effectively ending democracy in the South for almost 70 years. They were supported by the Supreme Court and other governmental bodies that had been gained power through rigged elections. The same strain of authoritarians running the Democratic Party in the late 19th century are now the Republicans of the mid-21st century. The gerrymandering of today serves the same purpose as the poll tax of yore–to undermine democracy.
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 >
Thomas is right that Republicans have taken gerrymandering to extreme lengths that didn’t exist in past decades when Democrats held sway. They so vastly outnumbered Republicans in registration and votes that Democratic gerrymandering was almost a passive exercise. But certainly there’s no excuse by either party.
But he’s wrong in asserting that “Republicans could easily draw districts that are highly competitive.” Several congressional plans have been drawn by Sens. Ben Clark and Jay Chaudhuri. Their districts are compact, divide relatively few counties and are geographically logical on the map. But they are far from being competitive.
One plan submitted by Sen. Clark is typical–only three of 14 districts fall into a competitive range of winning margins under 10 percentage points. The remaining 11 districts for both parties have average winning margins of 25 percentage points, based on the plans’ underlying election data. The simple fact is that even when drawn in a “partisan-blind” manner, single-member districts will be lopsidedly Democrat or Republican.
But there is a way Democrats could demand “partisan fairness” (if not competitiveness) in redistricting. Pennsylvania showed how several years ago when their state Supreme Court redrew districts and turned their congressional delegation from 13-5 (Rep-Dem) to an even 9-9 split. Whether anti-gerrymandering advocates in North Carolina will get serious about fairness to political parties in our 50-50 voting state remains to be seen.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/02/the-pennsylvania-supreme-courts-new-map-restores-the-states-democracy.html
It worked for them last round. Rig the game to their own benefit and litigate out the decade while they do what they want.
Oh and we are a Republic. The founding father SPECIFICALLY DID NOT give a democracy. Perhaps a lot of the trouble for the democrats is that they miss this simple fact.
You don’t even know the difference between a “democracy” and a “republic.” Like just about all other modern advanced democracies, ours is a combination — a “democratic republic,” meaning we have a “republic” to which we “democratically elect” our legislative representatives.
Thanks you for that correction. I am so tired of that hogwash.
You claim to be well educated, then try to make noises like you understand how the political system works in this country or at least how it was intended to work. A republic is based on the notion everybody within its political confines has a right to vote.
Republicans have issues with that as that means they lose elections and of course power. Losing elections and power in the minds of republicans means no tax breaks for the wealthy and well to do, no shifting the Lyons share of the tax burden to the middle class (the worker bees). No graft which takes the form of political contributions from the wealthy to protect their preferred tax status. No goodies like fancy house boats and foreign built luxury cars, no more first-class trips to Europe with certain, shall we say amenities.
Democrats wrote the rules years ago. Turn about is fair play.
Stop being stupid commies and maybe you can win elections again.
The country is founded on freedom, The country grew because of freedom. The country is successful because of freedom.
If you are about freedom and not about handouts and cradle to grave “we tell you how to live” crap
maybe democrats will win elections again
Its more than obvious What they people want and its not what they Democrats offer
people do want programs and a hand out. They want to keep their money and make their own wa and be left alone.
So stop offering what they don’t want. Stop ignoring them when THEY TELL YOU THEY DON’t WANT IT. Stop being arrogant knoe it all an haughty “Oh so educated betters” You aren’t.
Also stop whining about “its not fair we are 50/50! Democrats never cared about ratios when they were in charge.
Accept your fate, do some introspection, make a plan, and WORK to earn the votes.
That is what the Republicans did and to the victor go the spoils.
Dump envy, Dump CRT, Dump BLM, DUmp degeneracy.
Worth a try.
You’re pretty angry there…so you believe that our purple state should have 11 to 3 or 10 to 4 representation when it reality it should be 7 to 7. Nice democracy. The GOP has not done a darn thing to win votes other than putting fear and loathing on the table- by your rant I am assuming that you are one of them.
You are completely out of touch with the electorate that is coming up in the state..we have over a 1M young voters who are much more liberal in their views in how people live their lives.
I think the election we just had clearly shows that I am right.
Phoenix, every effort should be made to bar you from participating in any Democratic created program. No social security, no Medicare, no government mandated basic wage, no sick or family leave, no right to taxpayer paid representation if you are charged with a crime and can’t afford to hire representation. No mail delivery, (another commie program, started by that old socialist Ben Franklin) . No nothing, just work, regardless of your age or health or die!