Gerrymandering on Steroids, Race to the Bottom - Rob Horowitz

Gerrymandering on Steroids, Race to the Bottom - Rob Horowitz

Partisan gerrymandering was bad enough as an unfortunate feature of the Congressional redistricting that occurs every 10 years in the wake of the constitutionally required full census count.  The advent of modern computing, which gave party operatives the ability to easily craft congressional and state legislative districts for maximum partisan advantage, has already played a major role in narrowing the number of competitive congressional districts around the nation. This contributes to the polarization of our politics by making most members of Congress far more worried about a potential primary challenger than a general election opponent. The political imperative has become appealing to your political party’s fiercest and most ideological partisans, not the broad middle of the electorate.

 

The all-out partisan gerrymandering battle, triggered by President Trump’s unprecedented demand that Texas upend its Congressional map mid-decade to create 5 more Republican districts, is making an already bad situation exponentially worse.  When Governor Abbott and the Republican-controlled state legislature compliantly fulfilled the president’s wish, Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, responded in kind. Through a ballot referendum, he created 5 more Democratic congressional districts.

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From there, we were off to the races. By another successful ballot referendum, Democrats moved to gain 4 more friendly districts in Virginia, though the Virginia Supreme Court stopped them in their tracks last week. Through state legislative adoptions, Republicans redrew Congressional maps in Florida, Missouri, and North Carolina. (Ohio’s redistricting was a result of an unrelated bipartisan process).

 

At President Trump’s urging, Tennessee followed suit, rushing a new map through the state legislature, breaking up the only Democratic district in the state. The voters in this majority African American and Memphis-dominated district, currently represented by liberal firebrand Steve Cohen, will now be spread over 3 separate Congressional districts, diluting the African American vote.  Alabama, South Carolina and Mississippi are all actively considering eliminating majority African American districts that were established and then protected by Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which applied predominantly to Southern states--ones with a long and well-documented history of abridging Black Americans’ right to vote.

 

Taken together, this year’s redistricting wars will probably end up with Republicans gaining a net 8 to 12-seat advantage. While this is considerable, it is unlikely to be enough for the GOP to surmount all the political headwinds they face and retain control of the House. And if November produces a large Democratic wave --which remains a distinct possibility-- it could even backfire, as some of the Republican incumbents who are now defending districts that are not quite as safe, an unavoidable byproduct of creating more Republican-leaning districts, fall by the wayside.

 

The far larger problem, however, created by this unbounded partisan battle over redistricting is that 2026 will not be the end of the story.  Without a bipartisan Congressional solution, gerrymandering on steroids is in danger of becoming the new normal, with Congressional districts being redrawn every two years and competitive districts all but disappearing.

 

The next Congress must pass legislation making the now-abandoned tradition of redistricting only once every 10 years the law of the land. This legislation should also include severe restrictions on partisan gerrymandering, requiring all states to establish a non-partisan commission to take charge of Congressional redistricting. Except for Court challenges, these commissions would have the final word

This can only happen if both sides decide to mutually disarm or at least limit the parameters of the battle.  At this moment, this may seem unlikely. But the alternative is a continued and perpetual mutually assured destruction. In the end, this is a lose-lose proposition with our democracy and citizens the biggest losers of all.   That is why I am hopeful that in the wake of this year’s debacle, a critical mass of leaders in both political parties, coupled with a sufficient public outcry, will bring about the commonsense reforms we need.