Tag Archives: gerrymandering

When The Courts Play Politics

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We need to remember that the U.S. Constitution gives the responsibility of setting the manner of holding congressional elections to the state legislators. That responsibility includes redistricting based on the census. In North Carolina the courts decided that the map of the districts provided by the Republican-led legislature were not acceptable. Then the court appointed three “special masters” to inspect the map and make corrections. That in itself is questionable, but they did it. The redrawn maps do not reflect the political demographic of the state–they represent a serious effort to gerrymander the districts in favor of the Democrats.

The Carolina Journal reported the following on Friday:

Gerrymanders are not always apparent when looking at a map, but the special masters’ gerrymander is clearest when looking at two parts of the state. The first and most obvious is that they cleaved Charlotte in half, grafting one-half of the city to suburbs in Mecklenburg and Cabarrus counties and the other half to Gaston County. That move violated two basic redistricting principles by not creating a congressional district that is wholly contained in Mecklenburg County and by dividing clear communities of interest.

The special masters could have easily preserved communities of interest by drawing central Charlotte in one districting and linking suburban communities of Cabarrus, Mecklenburg, and Gaston Counties. In doing so, they would have created one safe Democratic district and one relatively competitive Democratic-leaning district. Instead, they made two safe Democratic districts by unnecessarily grafting urban and suburban areas in both districts.

State Senator Jeff Jackson (D-Mecklenburg) has already expressed interest in running in the new safely Democratic 14th District. Bob Orr, the so-called “unaffiliated” special master appointed by the trial court in the redistricting case, is a fan of Jackson’s. According to Federal Election Commission records, he donated to Jackson’s campaign committee in 2021. In recent years, the “unaffiliated” special master has also donated to other Democratic candidates such as Joe Biden and Dan McCready.

The special masters also gerrymandered the Wake County districts. They split southeastern Raleigh from the rest of the city to put it in the 13th District. Splitting was unnecessary; the special masters could have easily kept Raleigh whole by adding rural and suburban eastern Wake County to the 13th.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. Unfortunately, this is what happens when a partisan court oversteps its bounds. When we lived in Massachusetts, our voting district was shaped like a sea horse in order to dilute the Republican votes of a conservative area. Gerrymandering, unfortunately, is a way of life in America. However, it should not be done by supposedly neutral courts.

Gerrymandering In America

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Gerrymandering is an American tradition (I didn’t say it was a good tradition–I just said it was a tradition).

According to Wikipedia (which I don’t generally recommend as a source):

The term gerrymandering is named after American politician Elbridge Gerry,[a][6] Vice President of the United States at the time of his death, who, as Governor of Massachusetts in 1812, signed a bill that created a partisan district in the Boston area that was compared to the shape of a mythological salamander. The term has negative connotations and gerrymandering is almost always considered a corruption of the democratic process. The resulting district is known as a gerrymander (/ˈdʒɛriˌmændər, ˈɡɛri-/). The word is also a verb for the process.

Our voting district in Massachusetts looked like a shadow drawing of a sea horse. It was drawn like that to minimize the Republican votes in the area of Massachusetts that bordered northeast Rhode Island. Districts are drawn by state legislators and are usually drawn to give the advantage to whichever party is in power. There are less noble reasons for drawing districts, but the fact remains that the state legislators have the responsibility to draw those districts. Recently a case involving districts drawn by the Alabama legislature was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

On Monday, The Epoch Times reported:

The Supreme Court on Monday halted an order requiring Alabama to redraw congressional districts ahead of the 2022 elections.

A lower court had determined in late January that the new Alabama congressional electoral map disadvantages black voters and likely violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

The lower court’s three-judge panel said the state should have two majority-black districts, instead of one. The congressional map, approved by Alabama’s Legislature last year, has one majority-black district.

Alabama’s delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives consists of six Republicans and one Democrat.

Alabama was given until Feb. 11 to create a new map, but it appealed the district court’s decision instead.

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling (pdf) grants a stay of the lower court’s order to have the districts redrawn.

“The stay order is not a ruling on the merits, but instead simply stays the District Court’s injunction pending a ruling on the merits,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, wrote.

The legislature has the right to draw voting districts. The courts do not have the right to undo those districts and require new maps. The districts may not be drawn fairly in Alabama, but it is up to the voters in Alabama to vote for people in the legislature that will create districts that better reflect the population. There are other states where the courts are trying to control the redistricting process. This is an example of the courts attempting to usurp the job of the legislature. The courts do not have that right.