DEMOCRATS AND GERRYMANDERING
If you’re wondering why you’re hearing so much about gerrymandering these days — the Times Free Press published a twopart Associated Press analysis on Sunday and Monday — there’s a reason. And it’s political.
For the majority of the 20th century, Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, most governorships and the majority of state legislatures. Republicans, for all intents and purposes, were locked out. When the Census was taken every 10 years, Democrats were in control of most statehouses and drew the districts to favor their party.
It was that simple.
Now, of course, Republicans control more statehouses and more legislatures. And Democrats only have themselves to blame for governing against the people. But, having tried many other excuses, they now favor not being able to control the drawing of congressional and legislative lines as the culprit for their lack of success.
What they did with impunity — with courts on their side — is now being done to them. And they don’t like it, so they so envision a different solution in the courts, where liberals still rule the day.
Today, using new statistical methods, calculating “average vote share,” “efficiency gaps” or “wasted votes,” the usual suspects — professors, pundits and the national press — are backing the conclusion that Democrats are being denied their fair share of votes by these decennial redrawings of district lines.
The United States Supreme Court recently agreed to decide a case next term involving state legislative boundaries in Wisconsin. In the Badger State, Republicans got 48.5 percent of the legislative vote but won nearly 60 of 99 seats in 2012, then took 52 percent of the vote in 2014 and won 63 of the 99 seats.
In the past, though, the high court has treaded lightly on gerrymandering, named after the district plan Elbridge Gerry signed as Massachusetts governor in 1812 that began the practice of drawing lines to favor political parties.
Between 1812 and now, though, a lot happened. Two things, in particular, have had consequences on the practice of gerrymandering.
› Democrats and minorities have chosen to live in more tightly packed urban areas.
› Liberal judges interpreted that the Voting Rights Act should mandate the creation of majority-minority congressional districts, where lines had to be drawn to concentrate the voting powers of minorities so they could elect a representative of their choosing. After the 1990 Census, 13 additional majority black congressional districts were created.
However, by drawing districts to achieve this end, the electability of minorities in other districts from which voters had to be pulled to achieve the majority-minority districts was lessened.
That and the excesses of the first two years of the Bill Clinton presidential administration led to the historic U.S. House election of 1994, when Republicans won a majority with a 54-seat swing in members from previously Democratic seats. It was their first majority in the House since 1952.
In 1990, with a Republican, George H.W. Bush, in the White House, the GOP controlled only six state legislatures and split control in 15 other states. After 1994, Republicans controlled 17 state legislatures and divided control in 12 other states. Despite national Democratic gains in 1996, 1998 and 2000, Republicans retained enough power so they were able to draw the district lines in a number of states after the 2000 Census.
Democrats regained control of Congress and a majority of governorships in 2006 and had veto-proof majorities for a short time after the 2008 election, but the excesses of President Barack Obama again led in 2010 to Republicans picking up 63 seats to win back the U.S. House, a majority of governorships and 680 seats in state legislatures. (Ironically, Obama had drawn his own gerrymandered Illinois Senate seat to ensure re-election after the 2000 Census.) The 2010 election, in turn, resulted in significant GOP control in the drawing of district lines after the 2010 Census. The GOP then only strengthened its hold in Obama’s last six years in office.
That’s how we got here, where Democrats are now crying “no fair” and asking the courts to grant them the mercy they did not give Republicans in the 20th century.
Interestingly, post-Civil War Republican Congresses repeatedly passed federal statues to require congressional districts to be “contiguous and compact territories containing as nearly as practicable an equal number of inhabitants,” but Democrats opposed the statutes and finally got the Supreme Court to deem the last statute as not binding on state legislatures.
Today, Democrats are in a fix if the Supreme Court rules against them, and maybe even if it rules for them. Many of them live in tightly packed urban areas, where they can win seats, easily be re-elected and have major influence. Diluting their strength there, and/or undoing the Voting Rights Act-mandated districts, brings on additional troubles. And their brand in the minds of voters doesn’t improve by seeking to win only by changing the rules.
We don’t believe the Supreme Court will be too interested in considering political parties alone in the consideration of district drawing, but even if it does we don’t believe it will make much long-term difference in the makeup of Congress. In the end, voters have to believe in the candidate, the party and what they say they stand for (or intensely dislike the one already in power). That’s the more powerful way to achieve political change.