How Republicans Use Gerrymandering To Undermine Democracy And Subvert The Will Of The American People

NC-12, which snakes through the state looking for African-Americans, has a D+26 PVI

Last week, the whole country got a chance to look in behind the walls of the political sausage-making machine known as gerrymandering-- at least for Florida. A judge threw out the Republican Party gerrymander of congressional seats that was in direct violation of an amendment passed by 63% of Florida voters. "They were successful in their efforts to influence the redistricting process and the congressional plan under review here," he wrote. "And they might have successfully concealed their scheme and their actions from the public had it not been for the Plaintiffs' determined efforts to uncover it in this case."

So what about the rest of the country. There are several states much worse than Florida. Over the weekend Charles Babington, writing for the A.P., reported how Republicans cheat to keep an edge in blue-leaning states. Few places, for example, are as bad as North Carolina, where there is a Republican governor and where the gerrymandered state Senate has 32 Republicans and 18 Democrats and where the gerrymandered state House has 77 Republicans and just 43 Democrats. This in a state where there are 2,870,693 registered Democrats (42.3%), 2,052,250 registered Republicans (30.9%) and 1,726,245 (independents and others 26.0%). The Republicans in the state legislature managed to carve up the congressional districts in such a way that the 112th Congress' 7 Democrats and 6 Republicans is now, in the 113th Congress, 9 Republicans and just 4 Democrats. Presto!

Babington wrote that "Republicans and Democrats have engaged in gerrymandering for decades. Republicans refined the practice in 2011, a year after they won control of numerous state governments preparing to redraw congressional maps based on the 2010 census. It's one reason Republicans hold a solid House majority even though Americans cast 1.4 million more votes for Democratic House candidates than for GOP House candidates in 2012."

Republicans haven't controlled the White House or U.S. Senate for more than five years. Yet their House majority - now 234 to 199 - looks safe this fall. Redistricting episodes in Florida and North Carolina help explain why.

Republicans hold nine of North Carolina's 13 U.S. House seats, and they have solid prospects to make it 10. Their nominee is favored to win a district, which Obama lost by 19 percentage points, being vacated by centrist Democratic Rep. Mike McIntyre. [Note: A.P. routinely refers to far right-wing Democrats like McIntyre as "centrists."]

In recent statewide elections, North Carolina has been about as evenly divided as a state can be. Obama narrowly won it once, and lost it once. Voters replaced a Democratic governor with a Republican in 2012. Each party has one U.S. senator, and this fall's re-election bid by Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan is likely to be extremely close.

The House delegation makeup, by contrast, seems more fitting for a reliably Republican state, like Georgia perhaps.

The arrangement lacks "elemental fairness," said state Senate Democratic leader Dan Blue, moments after attacking Republican school-spending cuts at a Raleigh news conference. The nation's founders, Blue said, could not have envisioned congressional representation falling so out of balance with a state's overall political sentiment.

...Americans' mobility patterns also helped, as millions of liberals continue to move to urban areas. This so-called "self-gerrymandering" makes it easier for Republican mapmakers to pack as many Democratic voters as possible into a handful of districts. That helps Republicans win a larger number of districts by smaller but still-safe margins.

In North Carolina, Republican officials drew three House districts that twisted and snaked to include as many black neighborhoods, and other likely Democratic areas, as possible. In the 2012 elections, these three districts recorded overwhelming Democratic majorities. Obama lost the other 10 districts by margins ranging from 13 to 23 percentage points.

Republicans won their 9-4 U.S. House edge even as North Carolinians cast more votes for Democratic House candidates overall.

Democrats are asking the state Supreme Court to rule the redistricting unconstitutional. Black voters were packed so densely into three districts, they contend, that their overall political clout was unduly diminished.

…Democratic Rep. David Price, D-N.C., who has spent 25 years in Congress, sees political chicanery in North Carolina's U.S. House map.

"It's the most extreme gerrymandering, on a purely partisan basis, I think we've ever seen," Price said.

Price is correct that the gerrymandered districts are unfair. If the districts were fairly drawn, North Carolina would have 7 Democrats and 6 Republicans in Congress. But let's look at the other states where the GOP cheating is as bad or worse: Pennsylvania has 4,266,317 registered Democrats (50.1%), 3,131,144 registered Republicans (36.8%) and 1,110,554 registered Independents and others (13.1%). Currently there is a Republican governor and Republican control in both houses of the state legislature. They've managed to severely gerrymander the congressional districts so that the Republicans have 13 seats and the Democrats have 5. In a non-partisan redistricting, the Democrats would have 10 seats and the Republicans 8.

Virginia doesn't have partisan voter registration but Obama won both times, with 53% in 2008 and 51% in 2012. The state had a Republican governor and state legislature and the gerrymander was brutal for Democrats, yielding 8 Republicans and just 3 Democrats. A non-partisan redistricting would mean 6 Democrats and 5 Republicans.

Wisconsin Republicans captured the governorship and both houses of the state legislature in time to gerrymander the state to yield 5 Republicans and 3 Democrats, despite Obama electoral victories in 2008 (56%) and 2012 (53%). There is no partisan voter registration but using an average of the two Obama years, you can extrapolate a fair non-gerrymandered map that would yield at least 4 Democrats and, in a good Republican year, 4 Republicans.

The situation in Michigan is far more grotesque. Again, Republican governor and GOP control of both houses of the legislature. The gerrymandered districts have yielded 9 Republicans and 5 Democrats in a state without partisan voter registration but where Obama won both in 2008 (57%) and 2012 (54%). If you use his average win (55.5%) to extrapolate an ungerrymandered congressional map, Democrats would control 8 seats and Republicans 6 seats-- instead of the current 9 Republicans and 5 Democrats.

Similar story in Ohio where there in no partisan registration but where Obama won both times (52% in 2008 and 51% in 2012), while the Republicans control both houses of the legislature and the governor's mansion and have drastically gerrymandered the congressional districts so that there are 12 Republicans and just 4 Democrats. This is the most egregious gerrymander in America. A strictly unbiased redistricting would yield at least 8 Democrats and 8 Republicans (tops).

A Kevin Zeese/Margaret Flowers post at Alternet Sunday, Crowdsourcing Our Way Out of the Crisis of Democracy, makes the point that Americans are fed up with this kind of political chicanery undermining democracy.

A recent poll found 74% of Americans agree the broken political system needs to be fixed first. The poll found that “corruption of government by big money and frustration with the abuses of the political ruling class: incumbent politicians, lobbyists, the elite media, big business, big banks, big unions, and big special interests unites Americans.”  And, “the battle lines of the new political order are emerging. When presented with the proposition that ‘the real struggle for America is not between Democrats and Republicans but mainstream America and the ruling political elites,’ over 66% of voters agree.”

According to the poll, Americans see the sad reality of the state of the country and are ready to rebel:

•         “Eighty-six percent of all voters believe political leaders are more interested in protecting their power than in doing what’s right for the American people.


•         Eighty-three percent believe the country is run by an alliance of incumbent politicians, media pundits, lobbyists, and other interests for their own gain.


•         Further, 79% believe that powerful interests from Wall Street banks to corporations, unions, and PACs use campaign and lobbying money to rig the system to serve themselves and that they loot the national treasury at the expense of every American.”