In Gerrymandering Fight, Democracy Is Losing

As Republicans and Democrats continue their mid-decade redistricting grudge match that could determine which party controls Congress after November, Americans may learn a truism about legislative elections. That is, voters don’t really select the politicians who represent them. Politicians choose their voters, resulting in “skewed, unrepresentative maps where electoral outcomes are virtually guaranteed,” as the Brennan Center explains.

The process has long been known as gerrymandering, named in 1812 after Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry. Per Smithsonian magazine, Gerry signed a state Senate redistricting map drawn up by his fellow Democratic-Republicans that shifted from a county-based model to one filled with “carvings and manglings” designed to strip power from the competing Federalists. Critics noted the district looked a lot like a salamander.

It worked, and states with one-party dominance have long had a field day designing districts that guaranteed their dominance. I once lived in a Los Angeles County supervisorial district that meandered from the eastern edges of the San Gabriel Valley to Marina del Rey, with the obvious purpose of consolidating every scarce Republican vote to bolster Democratic chances in the other districts. Both parties do it, but the latest battles are particularly noxious.

The problem with gerrymandering is obvious. It magnifies the political extremes, as candidates are incentivized to appeal solely to a pre-selected group of partisan voters. We can see that in any number of current congressional races after the Proposition 50 redistricting changes. As a result, we elect representatives who have no incentive whatsoever to reach across party lines—but solely to satisfy their political base. It quashes the representation of many voters and undermines the faith people might have in the democratic process.

Recently, Republicans have cheered after the Virginia Supreme Court tossed out heavily gerrymandered, voter-approved maps that would have obliterated Republican representation. Fair enough, but I’ve yet to hear more than a few Republicans criticize Texas and other GOP states that gerrymandered to eliminate Democratic seats. They did that at the behest of Donald Trump, who didn’t hide his raw partisan goals. “Texas will be the biggest one. And that will be five (GOP pickups),” Trump said.

This is more obscene than usual because redistricting typically is handled once a decade. But Republicans triggered this mid-decade war to stop a likely Democratic tsunami in November, which means that states will now constantly redistrict whenever they can secure an advantage. The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in a Louisiana case that tossed aside a majority-black district was ostensibly done to stop one form of gerrymandering. But the court has given red states more latitude to dissolve Democratic seats.

California’s Prop. 50 was defensive and is temporary, so it was understandable. But it still means that voters in conservative, remote Siskiyou County will be lumped in with liberal voters in more populous Marin County outside San Francisco. That assures that their rural concerns will get no more attention in Congress than Black Louisianans will receive in a state dominated by conservative white voters. The whole process is downright un-American.

In this recent round, Republicans are entirely to blame. In the new MAGA-fied GOP, winning is everything, and there’s no quarter given for concepts such as fairness. Frankly, Trump has tapped into Americans’ most divisive instincts, as he puts his short-term zeal for vengeance above the long-term good of the country.

It’s sad, and the success of the GOP’s efforts will cause both parties to continue toward what Rep. Blake Moore (R–Utah) rightly calls a race to the bottom. A few other representatives have likewise called for a ceasefire, but whatever party is on the winning side of this race will never back down, given the current scorched-earth culture. Even more depressing, this scenario essentially puts an end to the good-government experiment in nonpartisan redistricting reform. Democratic states have typically done this, but now that’s a sucker’s game.

I’ve long called for measures that improve representation in ways that don’t attempt to change the partisan balance—but simply better reflect the views of voters and make elected officials more responsive to their needs. One long-dead proposal in California would have expanded the number of Assembly seats given that our current lower house has one representative for every 483,000 Californians. Good luck getting a meeting with your Assembly member in that set up, but I fear that such ideas are nonstarters in the current political climate.

“The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy,” wrote Benjamin Franklin. He feared that poor representation would “create great and violent jealousies and animosities between the people favored and the people oppressed.” Yet here we are—until Americans place their national identity above their partisan loyalties. As the nation celebrates its 250th anniversary, it’s a good time to consider a truce.

This column was first published in The Orange County Register.