Terminate partisan political maps
Anthony Kennedy: The Terminator.
It’s not a new hit movie. It’s what must happen for Democrats to prevail in a closely watched case out of Wisconsin that could affect elections across the U.S. for years to come.
Republicans did Wisconsin wrong when they gerrymandered the state in 2011. The GOP gave itself a lasting advantage, especially in the state Assembly, by carving up districts to dilute the power of Democratic voters and boost the power of Republicans.
The question of whether that gerrymander was so bad it was unconstitutional — and we think it was — came before the U.S. Supreme Court last week.
Wisconsin Democratic voters sued in 2015, arguing that the rights of its voters had been violated when Republicans, who were in the majority, drew deeply partisan election maps as part of the decennial chore of accounting for shifts in population. The Founders knew that boundaries would need to be adjusted regularly to ensure the principle of “one man, one vote.” Wisconsin Republicans laughed at that idea all the way to the election booth.
Whether the highest court does anything about their handiwork may come down to one man, Justice Anthony Kennedy. There were deep divisions on the court during oral arguments last week, with the usual sides — conservative and liberal — lining up. Kennedy staked out his usual spot in between.
In the past, Kennedy has written that partisan gerrymandering could, at least in theory, violate the Constitution. But he also said that the court didn’t have a credible way to measure how much voters had been harmed, and the court has never struck down a map on those grounds. Based on what justices said during oral arguments, it’s clear the debate over whether such a standard is possible continues.
A test proposed by the plaintiffs — the “efficiency gap” — measures “wasted votes,” or votes beyond what is needed to elect a candidate. When they carved up Wisconsin, Republicans “cracked” districts so that Republicans would have an advantage and “packed” Democrats into other districts to dilute their vote. The result was among the most one-sided set of maps in the U.S.
In 2012, President Barack Obama, a Democrat, easily won the state and Democrats received 52% of all the votes in state Assembly races. Yet, due to the GOP gerrymander, they only claimed 39 of 99 seats. In 2016, there was a similar outcome: President Donald Trump won the state narrowly over Hillary Clinton but Republicans won 64 Assembly seats.
This is not democracy — not even close.
Paul Smith of the Campaign Legal Center told the court: “Politicians are never going to fix gerrymandering. They like gerrymandering.”
Indeed they do, but some moderate Republicans are breaking ranks. Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Ohio Gov. John Kasich have sided with Democrats in this case.
Outside the court, Schwarzenegger mused: “I say it is time to say hasta la vista to gerrymandering, and it is time to terminate gerrymandering.”
If that happens, it will be Anthony Kennedy who does the deed. Anthony Kennedy: Terminator. That’s one remake we’d love to see.