Patrick Smyth: Trump has taken a dodgy practice to a new level. So have the Democrats
The term “gerrymander”, the partisan rigging of electoral boundaries, owes its origins to the reshaping of Boston’s Essex County state senate district in 1812. The result resembled the shape of a mythological salamander for which it was lampooned in cartoons. No matter how it looked, it worked to copperfasten the desired political majority. The practice of partisan redrawing became commonplace in the US, as state legislature majorities sought to maximise their seats by manipulating the uneven distribution of population blocks. US president Donald Trump, in his desperate bid to retain control of Congress in this autumn’s midterms, has now taken the dodgy practice to new levels of absurdity following his injunction last year to Republicans in Texas and elsewhere to redraw districts to squeeze out Democrats. Still insisting, contrary to all the evidence, that he won the 2020 election, he has also continued to persecute “responsible” electoral officials and is doing what he can to lower turnout – specifically black turnout – by toughening registration rules. For many years, congressional maps were redrawn once a decade, following census-recorded population shifts. But Trump’s move, followed immediately by Californian retaliation in kind, has precipitated a new gerrymandering war raging across the US, as Democratic-controlled states seek to respond tit-for-tat. The results could be dramatic: no state, for example, holds greater potential for a dramatic partisan swing in its congressional map than Wisconsin, a perpetual battleground state where Democrats are eyeing the prospect of flipping a six-to-two Republican map on its head in time for the 2028 presidential election.READ MORE‘If I didn’t do it now, I would be too old’: Skellig Michael opens to first summer weekend visitorsKen Early: Martin O’Neill’s Celtic salvation act was a victory for the romanticsLiving with IBD: ‘It’s more than needing to go to the toilet’Eoin Ó Broin called once, Ray McAdam and Janet Horner twice – I’ve never been more canvassed in my lifeLast week, in a big setback to Democratic efforts, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that state legislators had violated its constitution with their move to enact a new map meant to give their party 10 of the state’s 11 US House of Representative seats, up from the six it currently controls. Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment to allow for the map in a referendum. Bizarrely, deliberate gerrymandering by state legislatures is not illegal or unconstitutional, the US supreme court ruled two weeks ago, undoing provisions of the landmark 1965 civil rights Voting Rights Act, unless its purpose was to guarantee special protection for black voters.Louisiana has six constituencies electing members to the US Congress. About a third of its population is black, and to ensure fair representation the constituencies should include at least two black-majority districts. After a Republican-driven 2020 reallocation provided for only one black-majority district, the state was sued and forced to add one more. White voters countersued, arguing that that the two black-majority districts constituted racial discrimination against them.[ Fears of a new era of black-voter suppression amid rush to remap US voting districtsOpens in new window ]Before the act, black people could be and were prevented from voting by means of violence, poll taxes, gerrymandering and any other mechanism white people could dream up. But according to the court’s justice Samuel Alito, such have been the advances in black rights that the act‘s safeguards are no longer necessary. In fact, he argues that they now constitute unfair discrimination against whites. That is a judgment on the act’s continued usefulness, outraged critics say, and one that should be for Congress, not the courts. Alito made clear that the court had no problem with non-racially driven gerrymandering.In its latest enabling of Trump’s agenda, specifically his campaign against the redressing of racial bias by positive discrimination, the Trump-packed court delivered what The New York Times called “a mind-boggling piece of judicial overreach” in Louisiana v Callais. [ 'Dummymandering': Republicans and Democrats battle to redraw voting mapsOpens in new window ]But true to form, Florida’s new congressional map – which was enacted on the grounds that the Supreme Court’s recent decision invalidates the state constitution’s prohibition on gerrymandering – now faces serious legal challenges.But new congressional maps have already put Republicans on course to win more than a dozen districts that voted for the now deeply unpopular Trump – but perhaps still not enough to hold control of the House. NYT polling guru Nate Cohen estimates that even with a four percentage point deficit on Democrats in the popular vote, Republicans could still hold the House.Eight states have moved to redistrict since last summer, four more are hoping to do so in advance of the midterms, and at least a dozen more are likely to follow next year. Democratic states where state constitutions inhibit partisan redistricting are preparing to remove such barriers. But that will be no easy challenge: to control redistricting requires control of both chambers of state legislatures and of governorships. With so much more at stake, the electoral battles at state level are likely to be more vigorous – and expensive – than ever. The case for putting election redistricting in independent hands, as it is in Ireland, will be made. But with Trump in total control, the political reality is that such change is highly unlikely. Little wonder that few even bat an eye at Democratic retaliatory use of this undemocratic malpractice.
