The gerrymandering doom spiral is gaining downward momentum, exactly as expected.
Virginia is poised to become the second state, after California, where Democrats will seek to unravel reforms that took redistricting out of the hands of partisans. That’s in response to similar Republican power grabs in other states — especially Texas, where the GOP kicked off the nationwide partisan warfare this summer in a shortsighted attempt to protect its slim House majority.
Democrats currently control six of Virginia’s 11 congressional seats, accurately reflecting the commonwealth’s evenly divided electorate. By calling a special session, Democrats hope to nab an additional two or three districts by aggressively redrawing the map in their favor.
California’s redistricting effort will go before voters as a special ballot initiative on Nov. 4. Democrats there, who congratulate themselves as defenders of democracy, say the only acceptable response to Texas’s “election rigging” is to rig their own elections, too. Polls show that more than 60 percent of likely voters have embraced that backward logic, so Proposition 50 appears poised to pass.
Last month, North Carolina Republicans muscled through a map that they expect will help their party pick up one more seat in next year’s midterms. Missouri Republicans did the same a month earlier.
Despite the overly confident proclamations from partisan analysts about how such redistricting will change the balance of Congress, nobody knows how things will play next November. It was never certain that Texas’s efforts would win Republicans enough seats to stem the tide of a potential Democratic wave in the midterms. Nor has it ever been guaranteed that a Democratic wave would emerge, even if that’s the historical pattern. Anybody who has paid attention to the last decade of American politics should be wary of making firm predictions, especially amid a realignment in which young Hispanic and African American men have drifted toward Republicans.
As it looks now, Texas’s mid-decade gerrymandering could very well end up backfiring on the GOP; after all, California is far bluer than Texas is red. It could also end up as a wash, with broader political trends playing a more important role. It’s also very possible that there could a backlash to such raw displays of partisanship. This could boost Democrats statewide in the Lone Star State, where there may be a competitive gubernatorial or Senate race next year.
The guaranteed losers in all of these changes will be voters. By the time the midterms roll around a year from now, the country will have fewer competitive districts where politicians will have to work hard to win over Americans, especially independents. Credit goes to the Republican legislators of Indiana and Kansas who have admirably withstood intense pressure from national leaders to gerrymander their state’s map, at least so far. It’s a pity that so many others, including Democrats in Virginia, are willing to compromise their principles for perceived, short-term partisan advantage.
— The Washington Post
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