Republican tactics for securing minority rule read like a version of an old Monty Python sketch. Amongst their weaponry are are such diverse elements as: gerrymandering, vote suppression laws, census rigging…blah blah blah.
Gerrymandering will be on tap once again in 2021 in Republican-controlled state houses across the country. Ari Berman spoke with Slate’s Mary Harris about Democrat’s failure to take control of state legislatures in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, and Texas.
And North Carolina.
Having failed to regain control of the legislature there last week, Democrats there face another round of Republican gerrymandering and attempts at vote suppression, and another 10 years of litigation.
A three-judge North Carolina state court in September 2019 finally accomplished what the U.S. Supreme Court refused to: it ruled Republican state legislative maps were partisan gerrymanders unconstitutional under the state constitution and ordered them redrawn. With Democrats holding a 6-1 advantage in the state’s Supreme Court, Republicans gave up the fight. But after last week’s elections, that balance has shifted (pending final vote counts). At best, Democrats will retain a 4-3 advantage if they lose the seat now held by Democratic N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley.
For the last ten years, North Carolina Republicans enjoyed the fruits of ill-gotten minority rule. Even with existing court precedents, expect them to try for another 10 years. As I’ve said before, this is their theory of governance:
1. Find the line.
2. Step over it.
3. Dare someone to push you back .
4. No pushback? New line.
5. Repeat.
Berman tells Slate why legislative control matters:
Statehouses are important in a lot of different ways. They control voting laws. They control health care. They control environmental laws. But if you’re talking just about political power, state legislatures, with a few exceptions, are the ones that draw districts both for themselves and also for the House of Representatives. So the districts that these state legislatures are going to draw in 2021—which is when the next redistricting cycle happens—are going to determine who’s in control of these legislatures for the next decade. It’s also going to determine what the House of Representatives looks like for the next decade. State legislatures don’t get a whole lot of attention, but when it comes to how political power is distributed in America, they are incredibly, incredibly important.
As in North Carolina, Republicans in Wisconsin used the gerrymander to secure minority rule there and — as with Roy Cooper in North Carolina in 2016 — to strip Democratic Governor Tony Evers of executive powers:
The first thing Republicans did after Evers was elected governor in 2018 was strip him of his power in key respects. They said that he couldn’t do all of these things that previous governors, whether they were Democrats or Republicans, had the power to do. That really set the tone for what Wisconsin was going to look like. All throughout his administration, they have not cooperated with him. They’ve challenged his ability, for example, to get COVID under control. They refused to postpone the presidential primary in April, leading to those disastrous images of people waiting in line for hours. And unfortunately, I think that’s a playbook Republicans are going to try to use against Joe Biden. If you paid attention to how Wisconsin Republicans treated Tony Evers after he won, you should not be at all surprised by the way that Republicans are treating Joe Biden right now: to try to delegitimize his election, not cooperate with him, and do everything they can to try to hamstring his ability to govern once he’s elected.
Berman expects Wisconsin Republicans to attempt stripping Evers of his power to veto new maps. North Carolina governors lack that authority already. In Texas, Republicans may draw new districts based on eligible voters rather than on residents. This will exclude children and immigrant communities, especially in Democratic areas.
Trump’s baseless allegations of voting “irregularities” even in places where Republican retained legislative control could provide a pretext for making voting even harder, Berman warns.
There is not a quick fix for this, he cautions. Democrats “have a red America problem.” Many of the seats they need to flip are “in the redder parts of purple states,” in more conservative suburban and rural areas.
You can’t win if you don’t show up to play. And if you do show up, you’d best have game. Democrats’ underperformance in red areas is not as simple as attitudes, but lack of organization, lack of persistent party infrastructure.
Democrats have a “last mile” problem. Getting voters to the polls is not enough. What they do once they get there means winning or losing for local candidates. Undervotes bite.
Me? I am tired of watching Democrats’ early vote leads in the cities evaporate on Election Day when dozens of red counties turn out in places Democrats write off as not vote-rich enough to organize. Maybe build capacity out there to at least shave Republican margins? Just a thought.
Anyone have a line to Stacey Abrams?