2 Dems lead effort to shift focus
McAuliffe, Pelosi target gubernatorial races, district maps to halt party’s slide
After their party’s shocking White House defeat, top Democrats are shifting their efforts to rebuild political power by focusing on governors’ races and redistricting legal battles.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Rep. Nancy Pelosi have been quietly courting major party donors during weekend trips to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston and New York in an effort to convince them to channel more funding to local and state elections — with a particular focus on the next generation of governors who will oversee redistricting around the 2020 Census — as well as legal challenges to gerrymandered congressional districts.
“I don’t care who the president of the United States is, it doesn’t matter in the sense that, if we don’t have governors to stop these horrible maps, they’re going to pass a lot of this stuff at the state level,” said McAuliffe, a Democrat who finishes his term in January.
“Politically, this is what I’m going to do. I’m obsessed,” McAuliffe said during an interview with USA TODAY. “The more we travel, people get it. I don’t say this lightly, but the future of our party comes down to these governors’ elections.”
The Democratic Party is down to 16 governors and shed more than 900 state legislative seats during President Barack Obama’s presidency. Meanwhile, the Republican Party — supported by deeppocketed business interests and donors including the Koch brothers — has funneled millions into promoting downballot candidates and advancing state laws, including looser gun laws and legislation restricting the right of labor unions to organize.
With Trump in the White House, many of those policies are now being discussed at the federal level, putting on display the consequences of the party’s neglect of state and local elections. Democratic donors instead built infrastructure around supporting presidential candidates and causes, including the environment or think tanks like the Center for American Progress.
“Now our back is against the wall,” said McAuliffe.
In 2020, states will again reconsider legislative maps around the Census. Even if Democrats can’t change the composition of state legislatures in a single cycle, governors have veto power. “If we do not do well with these governors’ races, our party as we know it will be out of the game for a decade. There will be so much damage done at the state level,” said McAuliffe.
The group McAuliffe and Pelosi are promoting is the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, chaired by former U. S. attorney general Eric Holder. It was announced in October 2016 after he and Obama had been discussing the issue for several years.
The goal is to make it the hub for identifying state elections critical in the next round of redistricting around the 2020 Census; fund legal challenges to congressional maps that Democrats say are gerrymandered, or unfairly drawn to limit Democratic votes; and pursue ballot initiatives and referendums to advocate for fairer congressional maps.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU’s School of Law, extreme partisan bias in congressional maps accounts for at least 16 Republican seats in the current Congress, a large portion of the 24 Democrats would need to regain control in 2020.
McAuliffe and Pelosi’s collaboration began a day after the November election, when McAuliffe phoned Pelosi. They then met with Obama to discuss how they could help.
“My responsibility is to elect a Democratic Congress, but I think one of the most important things we can do electorally is to have more fairness in our system,” said Pelosi.
The most recent event was in Washington, headlined by Obama, his first fundraiser since leaving office. According to someone who attended, every question to the former president had to do with redistricting, underscoring the importance donors are beginning to assign to the issue.
Republicans now control the governor’s mansion and both legislative chambers in 25 states, while Democrats control those in five states, and the policy implications have been significant. Before 2010, just two states had voter ID laws; by 2011, such laws were introduced in 43 states. In 2005, only Florida had a pro- gun “stand your ground” law; by 2013, 24 states had similar laws. In the past 17 years, six states have passed a law limiting a workers’ ability to organize through labor unions.
“What people haven’t realized is the systematic, state- level rolling back of issues important to Democrats,” said McAuliffe. “Once you explain what’s happening in the states, boy a light bulb goes off,” he said.
“This isn’t about us getting in charge and letting us do what they did to us,” said Pelosi. “It’s about our country.”