Imagine living in a nation where one political party manipulates elections so that it can maintain power over a majority of voters who support a different party. Then imagine that they are so bold as to publicly brag about what they did and raise money to strengthen their grip on power. How do we describe nations like that?
Now you can quit imagining because you do live in that nation. You can go to the website of those who organized the plan and carried it out; and you can read it in their own words. The Republican State Leadership Committee spent more than $30 million over a period of more than three years to control redistricting and assure Republican majorities in the House of Representatives and State Legislatures even when the majority of voters chose Democrats. They named the project REDMAP and created a website to keep supporters up to date. Here it is: http://www.redistrictingmajorityproject.com/ The excerpts below are direct quotes that show how brazen Republicans are about what they have done.
“Drawing new district lines in states with the most redistricting activity presented the opportunity to solidify conservative policymaking at the state level and maintain a Republican stronghold in the U.S. House of Representatives for the next decade.”
“REDMAP’s effect on the 2012 election is plain when analyzing the results: Pennsylvanians cast 83,000 more votes for Democratic U.S. House candidates than their Republican opponents, but elected a 13-5 Republican majority to represent them in Washington; Michiganders cast over 240,000 more votes for Democratic congressional candidates than Republicans, but still elected a 9-5 Republican delegation to Congress.”
“Democratic candidates for the U.S. House won 1.1 million more votes than their Republican opponents. But the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives is a Republican and presides over a 33-seat House Republican majority during the 113th Congress. How? One needs to look no farther than four states that voted Democratic on a statewide level in 2012, yet elected a strong Republican delegation to represent them in Congress: Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.”
“Republicans enjoy a 33-seat margin in the U.S. House seated yesterday in the 113th Congress, having endured Democratic successes atop the ticket and over one million more votes cast for Democratic House candidates than Republicans.”
In those remarks, Republicans are bragging about rigging elections. Their strategy worked. Here in North Carolina, Republicans used massive amounts of untraceable dark money to target Democratic candidates for state legislature before the 2010 election. After taking control of both houses of the legislature, they obtained advice based on computer analysis of the voting history of demographic and geographic groups in the state then used that advice to re-design congressional and state legislative districts. Their strategy worked so well that they won 9 of 13 seats in the US House of Representatives while 51% of the votes cast were for Democrats and only 49% for Republicans. They rigged the system so that they could win 69% of the elections with 49% of the votes while Democrats won 31 % of the elections with 51% of the votes. It was no accident. In North Carolina it was a carefully executed plan that was heavily financed by Art Pope and organizations which he has supported. Now Mr. Pope is the chief advisor to the Governor for development of our budget.
The Redmap strategy has a racial component, heavily concentrating African American voters into a small number of districts which the Republicans “sacrificed” in order to assure their own majorities in other districts. Lawsuits about redistricting are pending but much damage is already done. I could write about the ill-advised actions of right wing legislators in the congress and the state legislature but those are decisions which can be overturned. The greater damage is the loss of public confidence in our elections and our government caused by this willful sabotage of free and fair elections. Abraham Lincoln, our most cherished Republican President said on the battlefield at Gettysburg, “…we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Today, the government of the people is under attack by those who have manipulated elections and overridden the people’s will. Rigging election processes to maintain power subverts the will of the people and overrules the consent of the governed. It is no less subversive and no less treasonous than an act of war.