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Tag: redistricting
Republican gerrymandering

Trial Reveals GOP 'Lies' And 'Secret Maps' In North Carolina Redistricting Process

In North Carolina, a civil trial has found Republicans and Democrats at odds over 2021’s redistricting process for congressional districts in the state. Democrats, in a lawsuit, have accused North Carolina Republicans of partisan gerrymandering, while Republicans are insisting that their new congressional maps are quite fair. And this week, the Raleigh News & Observer’s Will Doran reported that State Rep. Destin C. Hall — a Republican who oversaw GOP redistricting in North Carolina in 2021— testified that he had used secret maps in the process.

Doran reports, “A political trial that has mostly been dominated by math and academic research erupted in drama late Wednesday, when a top Republican redistricting leader said on the witness stand that he had used secret maps, drawn by someone else, to guide his work. That statement, made under oath, appears to directly contradict what he told Democratic lawmakers at the legislature in November, shortly before the Republican-led legislature passed those maps into law over Democrats’ objections.”

The 34-year-old Hall, who was first elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives in 2016 and is now serving his third term, described the maps as “non-consequential.”

“In the 2021 redistricting process,” Doran reports, “GOP lawmakers drew new maps of the political districts for North Carolina’s state legislature and U.S. House of Representatives seats, which will be used in every election from 2022 through 2030 — unless they are overturned in court, which is what this week’s trial has been about.”

Doran adds, “Republicans have defended their work as the most transparent redistricting process in history, and devoid of any political data that could have helped them tweak the maps to make them as favorable as possible to GOP candidates in the future. But on Wednesday, Hall — a Lenoir Republican who leads the House redistricting committee — said that he would sometimes refer to ‘concept maps’ that his top aide, Dylan Reel, had brought to him…. The liberal challengers in the lawsuit asked if they could see those concept maps — to analyze them, potentially for signs that they used a process that violated the rules the legislature was supposed to be following. But the legislature says those maps no longer exist.”

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, according to Doran, “accused North Carolina Republicans” of “withholding evidence,” implying that they knew the “concept maps” would be destroyed and should have saved them.

According to Doran, “Democratic Rep. Zack Hawkins, a member of the House redistricting committee, testified after Hall did on Wednesday and said he feels lied to. Hawkins also said he thought Hall, as the leader of the committee, could and should have done more at the time to ensure that outside materials with political data didn’t make their way into the process.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Michigan GOP Files Lawsuit To Protect Gerrymandered Districts

Michigan GOP Files Lawsuit To Protect Gerrymandered Districts

The Michigan GOP is making a final attempt to stop the state from implementing an independent redistricting commission that voters overwhelmingly approved in the 2018 election.

This time around, the state’s Republican party is suing to stop the commission. The effort joins a previous lawsuit filed last month by Fair Lines America Foundation, which is affiliated with former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Both groups are working feverishly to ensure that the Michigan GOP retains its hold on power no matter what.

In 2018, 61 percent of Michigan voters said yes to a ballot initiative that addressed the fact the state is one of the most gerrymandered in the country. Previously, Michigan’s state legislature drew districts, which meant that the GOP could keep its illegitimate majority by continuing to draw legislative districts that guaranteed it would win.

Voters approved a measure that created an independent commission comprised of four Republicans, four Democrats, and five independent people. It also barred, for a period of years, people who had been partisan political candidates, lobbyists, and officers of political parties.

To anyone but the GOP, this looks like a sound solution: It takes redistricting away from a partisan body and gives it to a well-formed commission designed to ensure all voices are heard.

However, the Michigan GOP sees this as a violation of their First Amendment rights — specifically, their freedom to associate with who they choose. Their federal complaint says that since political parties can’t pick their own representatives to serve on the panel, it’s a constitutional violation.

Cox gave the Detroit News a rather incoherent explanation for why the GOP opposes a fair and non-partisan redistricting commission. “This also gives the Democrat leadership the ability to knock off our people … that are allegedly Republicans that we haven’t even selected. So it becomes very problematic that we don’t get to have a role in choosing who’s involved”

What Cox seems to be referring to is the procedure by people are chosen to serve on the commission. Anyone who fits the criteria can apply, and they note their political party when they do. Then, there’s a random selection of 60 Republicans, 60 Democrats, and 80 non-affiliated applicants, and Democratic and Republican leaders in both legislative chambers can strike up to five applicants each, for a total of 20. From what’s left, the Michigan secretary of state randomly draws names to get the four Republicans, four Democrats, and five non-affiliated people.

The GOP is mad because applicants can say they’re a member of one of the political parties without having the party verify that. So, they allege, Democrats will designate themselves as Republicans when applying to be on the commission so they can alter the composition of the commission. This ignores that these hypothetical disguised Democrats would have to first make it into the random pool of 60 Republicans chosen from any number of Michigan residents who apply, and that’s a near-impossible task.

Democrats swept every statewide race in Michigan in 2018. The GOP knows the only way they can win in the future is to gerrymander districts so that their minority of votes results in a majority of seats. No wonder they’re so scared.

Published with permission of The American Independent.

Fixing Gerrymandering Could Fix Congress

Fixing Gerrymandering Could Fix Congress

By Hedrick Smith, The Sacramento Bee (TNS)

So far the Republican leadership in the House has found no way to quell or mollify the right-wing rebellion of the “Shutdown Caucus” that toppled a speaker and still roils Congress. But citizen reformers may have stumbled on the way out: Fix gerrymandering.

While media has focused on the demands of the rebel group to weaken the House leadership still further, it has missed a crucial piece of breaking news. Rep. Daniel Webster of Florida, the candidate for House Speaker endorsed by the rebel faction, has just seen his congressional district cut out from under him by a Florida court ruling against Republican gerrymandering.

Gerrymandering? Mention it and most of the current generation of political reporters roll their eyes, dismissing it as an age-old and therefore irrelevant political malady.

But they are missing a central point: One root cause of the mutiny that ousted Speaker John Boehner and blocked House Majority leader Kevin McCarthy is the Great Republican Gerrymander of 2011, which helped elect and now protects the 45 ideological insurgents in the House.

Their congressional districts were engineered so starkly in their favor that in the 2014 mid-term elections, they beat their Democratic opponents by an average 38 percentage points, a staggering margin. Only two had competitive General Election races. Three had districts with such a lock for the Republican nominee that no Democrat even bothered to run.

Those protected monopolies back home give the Republican rebels a rare kind of political immunity. They can overthrow a Speaker or bring Congress to a halt without fear of retribution from either the party leadership or the voters. Partisan gerrymandering and party primaries with shockingly low turnouts, mainly of party loyalists and extremist voters, virtually guarantee their re-election, even if their brinksmanship offends the majority of American voters.

Forty of the rebel band, mostly organized now in the Freedom Caucus, come from GOP-gerrymandered states. All but one or two are very junior members of Congress, from the tea party class of 2010 and from the “RedMap” classes of 2012 and 2014.

“RedMap” is the code name that Republican Party leaders gave to their secret nationwide campaign to dominate the once-a-decade redistricting process in 2011 by capturing majority control of as many state legislatures as possible in the 2010 election.

RedMap was inspired by Karl Rove, the GOP campaign guru, who opined pragmatically, “He who controls redistricting can control Congress.” Adopting the Rove formula, the GOP invested $30 million in legislative races, largely unnoticed by the national Democratic Party, and scored sweeping gains. Nationwide, Republicans picked up 675 legislative seats, gaining control of legislatures in states that held 40 percent of all House seats, versus Democrats, with only 10 percent. (The rest were under split control.)

That set up gerrymandering on an unprecedented scale. Never before had any party implemented gerrymandering as a national strategy. And never before had party tacticians and consultants been armed with 21st century computer software, enabling them to carve up districts with such precision — down to the individual street and house.

The payoff was immediate and palpable. As the RedMap team later bragged, the GOP lost the presidency and the Senate in 2012 and lost the nationwide popular vote for the House, but nevertheless came out with a 33-seat majority in the House.

The key, RedMap’s architects trumpeted, was GOP gerrymandering in pivotal states such as Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.

But there was a catch. The Republicans were about to be hoisted on their own petard. The Great Gerrymander of 2011 that helped cement the party’s House majority also embedded the rump faction of anti-government extremists that toppled Boehner and now faces whoever becomes his successor.

It will take more than a change of faces in the House leadership to resolve this stalemate. Fundamental political reforms are needed, and they need to come from outside Washington — at the state level.

California offers a roadmap, with its independent redistricting commission. But Florida offers a second model. And Florida is a vital testing ground because its Republican gerrymandering in 2010 produced six of today’s House rebels, more than any other state, and its gerrymander system has been challenged by a citizen reformers.

In 2010, the League of Women Voters, Common Cause and other civic groups enlisted enough public support to put on the ballot and then pass a statewide referendum barring partisan gerrymandering “with the intent to favor or disfavor” either political party or to protect incumbents. When the Republican-dominated legislature ignored that mandate, citizens groups filed suit.

This summer, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the Republican gerrymander of 2011 was blatantly partisan and unconstitutional. It ordered the legislature to redraw eight of the state’s congressional districts. Just a week ago, a circuit court in Florida rejected the legislature’s new maps as inadequate and adopted some proposals from citizens groups. Now, the court-approved maps threaten to scramble several Florida districts and unseat at least three incumbents, including the rebel choice for speaker, Webster.

In all, moves against gerrymandering are under way in more than 20 states. California and Arizona have set up independent citizen commissions to do redistricting. Seven more states have set up bipartisan commissions, some led by nonpartisan chairs.

Action is under way elsewhere. In seven states, including Florida, gerrymandering has been challenged in the courts, and in yet another six states, either political leaders or citizen groups have mounted efforts to modify traditional gerrymandering or throw it out entirely.

For the nation as a whole, the question is whether the continuing turmoil in the House and shock over Boehner’s downfall will generate enough popular momentum to alter the partisan bias long built into American elections by both parties. Otherwise, chances are, the House will continue to be crippled by a gerrymander-protected minority.

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ABOUT THE WRITER

Hedrick Smith is a former Washington Bureau Chief of The New York Times and executive editor of the informational reform website reclaimtheamericandream.org. He wrote this for The Sacramento Bee.

Photo: Speaker of the House John Boehner addresses the members of the 114th Congress after being re-elected as the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives at the start of the 114th Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington January 6, 2015. REUTERS/Jim Bourg

Florida Legislature Leaves Town Without Drawing New Congressional Districts

Florida Legislature Leaves Town Without Drawing New Congressional Districts

By Gray Rohrer, Orlando Sentinel (TNS)

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida lawmakers adjourned their special session Friday without drawing new congressional districts, a breakdown between the Republican-led House and Senate that likely will leave the task to the courts.

Democrats immediately slammed GOP leaders for the dysfunction and costs, including the $8.1 million in legal fees spent defending the original congressional maps thrown out by the Florida Supreme Court.

Democratic Rep. Janet Cruz estimated the cost of the session at $2 million. “When are we going to stop wasting taxpayer money?” Cruz asked.

According to state officials, special sessions have averaged a cost of $156,411 during the past 14 years, but most of those were only for a few days. The final cost of the latest two-week session hasn’t been tabulated.

Lawmakers already held a three-week special session in June to resolve a budget dispute between the House and Senate. They will head to Tallahassee again in October for an extra three-week session to redraw state Senate districts.

On Friday, GOP House Speaker Steve Crisafulli said the Senate’s district plan would not be approved by the courts.

“It is without malice toward the Florida Senate that I say I believe their map was flawed,” Crisafulli said.

Although lawmakers have until Tuesday to draw new maps, the meltdown means the courts will likely be forced to draw the 27 districts. Florida Gov. Rick Scott could step in, but a spokeswoman said he would not call lawmakers back into special session to try to force a compromise.

Things deteriorated Friday as each chamber refused to accede to the other’s plan. The dispute culminated in Sen. Bill Galvano, a Republican and lead Senate redistricting negotiator, abruptly walking out of a joint meeting with his House counterpart, GOP Rep. Jose Oliva, before it was adjourned, a serious breach of protocol.

“I think that that probably speaks to the nature that this has taken,” Oliva said after Galvano walked away frustrated because Oliva repeatedly rejected his pleas to begin formal negotiations to resolve their differences.

Galvano was upset at Oliva’s assertion that the Senate’s redistricting plan would be seen by the courts as favoring GOP Sen. Tom Lee.

Lee amended a map drawn by legislative staffers earlier in the week that would keep his area of eastern Hillsborough County within District 15. In the base map preferred by the House, that district stretched into southern Lake County.

“We’re not going to not do an amendment because a member is from a certain region,” Galvano said.

The special session was called by Crisafulli and Senate President Andy Gardiner, a Republican, after the state Supreme Court threw out the previous maps in July. The court ruled GOP operatives used members of the public as proxies to submit maps favoring the Republican Party, in violation of the Fair Districts amendments approved by voters.

Central Florida’s voters were at the heart of the dispute between the chambers. In the House’s map, District 10 is kept entirely within western Orange County, but in the Senate version it is pushed into Lake County, giving up Latino voters in Orange County to District 9.

Latino lawmakers in Central Florida — Republicans and Democrats alike — favored the Senate plan because it kept more Hispanic voters in District 9, creating a larger voting bloc for Hispanics.

Even if state courts draw the congressional districts, federal courts could have the final say.

U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Florida) is suing to stop her District 5 seat, which snakes down from Jacksonville into Orlando, from being redrawn to a Tallahassee-to-Jacksonville district. The Florida Supreme Court ordered lawmakers to redraw the district from east to west instead of north to south.

Democrats, far in the minority in both chambers, took the opportunity to criticize the leadership, especially given the Legislature’s inability to pass a budget in the regular session.

“Don’t forget we were here last month, not for the maps but because of their ineptitude. I mean, it’s the summer of ineptitude at this point,” said Democratic Rep. Evan Jenne, who has filed a bill to set up an independent commission to draw new districts.

Photo: Florida State Capitol, Matt Spence via Flickr