Tag Archives: gerrymander

All Posts, Congress, Constitution, justice

REREADING THE CONSTITUTION

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When I’m confused and disappointed by the actions of our elected leaders, I sometimes get the urge to reread our Constitution.  Here are thoughts from a recent rereading.

From Article 1 Section 4: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations…”  Our Congress has the authority to standardize how and when we elect its members.  It seems reasonable to conclude that Congress could prohibit partisan gerrymandering.

From Amendment 14 Section 1:  “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.”  Legislative districts are created by state law.  Here in North Carolina, the Legislature’s stated purpose in gerrymandering the districts was to elect Republicans to 10 of the 13 seats even though nearly half of voters actually vote for Democrats.  They achieved that goal.  The law that created gerrymandered districts seems to deny equal protection to citizens who disagree with Republicans.

From Article 2 Section 4: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”  Bribery would apply if a President accepted a bribe. Would it also be bribery if a Presidential candidate or his team agreed to not implement sanctions on Russia in exchange for information useful to their campaign?

The US Supreme Court has received gerrymandering cases from Wisconsin, Maryland, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.  The lower courts are so politicized that news reports generally include whether the judges were appointed by Democrats or Republicans.  The implication is that a judge is likely to rule in favor of the party that appointed her or him.  That is an awful but sadly credible assumption to make about our supposedly independent judiciary.

If the court rules against gerrymandering, that is likely to result in Democrats gaining seats in the House of Representatives.  In addition to being the body that originates federal budgets, the House is the body with authority to impeach a President – an action which a Republican led House might be more reluctant to consider.

If the Senate had approved President Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, there would be a 5-4 split of Democrat vs Republican judges.  Instead, the Republican controlled Senate refused to even consider the nomination for months – in hopes of winning the presidency and getting a Republican nominee.  They succeeded in that; and with the confirmation of Judge Neil Gorsuch there is a 5-4 split favoring Republicans.  What will it say about our Supreme Court if a Gerrymandering decision is decided by that margin?

The Presidential election of 2000 may well have been swung from Al Gore to George W. Bush by a party-line 5-4 Supreme Court decision that stopped the Florida vote recount.  We’ll never know.  Nor will we know whether the US would have invaded Iraq and Afghanistan after 9-11 under President Gore.  Such decisions change our history in profound ways.

Underlying many of the suspicions, malfunctions and failures of our government is the increasingly bitter partisan divide. Note however, that political parties are not even mentioned in our constitution.  Only individuals, not political parties, have a constitutional right to be on a ballot.  To protect their power (and the President), Republicans are now attacking the credibility of important institutions including our FBI, CIA and Justice Department.  Russian agents have effectively used social media to discredit those same agencies.  How ironic is it to find Republican leadership and Russian espionage agents on the same side?

President Washington warned, in his farewell address, that political parties, “…are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” It’s an apt description of current events.

Nations succeed and become great when most of the people support them and feel fairly treated.  When a large proportion feel mistrust and mistreated, nations fail.  Rather than “becoming great again”, our nation is in jeopardy due to citizen mistrust of elected officials.  My conclusion is that it’s up to voters to save the union. No one else can do it.

All Posts, campaign finance, north carolina, race

MAKING DEMOCRACY POINTLESS

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“Making Democracy Pointless” should be the new tagline of North Carolina government.  The Republican Party has seized  nearly election-proof and court-proof control of choosing the state’s representatives in Congress.  Their methods were mostly legal, but that doesn’t make them ethical.  The harm they have done extends beyond the actions of the officials they elected.  They have confirmed cynical suspicion that our votes don’t matter – that democracy is indeed pointless.  That is a terrible fate for government of, by and for the people.

Here’s how they did it:

  1. Prior to 2010 elections, the Washington DC based Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) contributed $1.25 million to “Real Jobs NC” an organization launched by wealthy Republican donors including Art Pope.  By targeting about two dozen state legislative races for huge spending and attack ads against Democrats, they won both the house and the senate. That put Republicans firmly in charge of drawing congressional districts after the 2010 census.
  2.  The RSLCs map making team, armed with exceptionally sophisticated computer technology and data, were hired by the Republican legislature to draft congressional district maps.  Some work was supervised on-site by Art Pope, who was retained as co-counsel to the legislature.  The map-making strategy was simple – pack large concentrations of Democratic voters and African Americans into just 3 of North Carolina’s congressional districts. The remaining 10 districts would favor Republicans. The maps were tested prior to adoption by checking how voters in each new district voted in the last election.  The tests demonstrated that John McCain carried all ten of the “Republican” districts in the 2008 Presidential election despite losing the state to President Obama.

2012 election results proved the effectiveness of the Republican maneuvers.  With only 49 percent of the votes, Republicans won 69 percent of congressional races and changed the North Carolina congressional delegation from a 7-6 Democrat majority to a 9-4 Republican advantage.  In 2014 they achieved their desired 10-3 split.  Democrats won the  3  districts into which they had been packed with over 70 percent of the vote.

North Carolina is one example of the national Republican gerrymandering strategy.  Their website brags that,  “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 much difference did gerrymandering make? Imagine the last four years with a narrow Democratic majority in the House of Representatives and a Democrat as Speaker of the House.  It probably made that much difference.

Republicans defend their actions by pointing out that Democrats did the same thing when they were in power.  It’s true.  Modern computer technology and data may have made Republicans more effective, but there’s no doubt that Democrats gerrymandered. Recently a few states including California and Iowa have implemented non-partisan or bi-partisan redistricting plans as attempts to assure fair elections.

Meanwhile, North Carolina’s maps have been thrown out by a panel of  federal judges who ruled that the influence of African American voters was unfairly reduced by packing the great majority of them into only three districts.  The US Supreme Court has declined to hear a Republican appeal.    North Carolina Republicans objected loudly to the court’s decision but they were well prepared for it.  They have proudly presented new maps which they say are designed keep their current 10-3 advantage in the congressional delegation.

The court forbade gerrymandering to disenfranchise a race of people.  But gerrymandering for partisan advantage is merely unethical, not illegal.  Republicans intend to select their voters again, rather than allowing voters to select their representatives.  And it seems unlikely that courts will stop them.

We need new redistricting laws at the state or federal level to preserve our democracy.  There are Republicans as well as Democrats who feel the shame of cheating to win  elections and who want fair redistricting.  Now is a fine time time for all who value representative democracy to do what we know is right by creating  districts without unfair advantages for any group or party.