Gerrymandering panders to wingnuts

In 1994, to the dismay and surprise of most election experts — except, of course, The Shadow — the GOP emerged from 40 years in the wilderness and took control of the U.S. House of Representatives by winning 52 seats. The Shadow's prediction was 54.

Its reign ended when the Democrats recaptured the House in 2006 as public opinion turned against arrogance of Republican rule on Capitol Hill and growing disillusionment with President George W. Bush. In 2008, the Democrats solidified and expanded their grip on the House by adding another 21 seats to their majority. As President Barack Obama took the oath of office, the Democrats controlled the House by a margin of 257-178.

With control of all of the levers of power in Washington, the Democrats were able to have things their own way. They could run roughshod over the Republicans, and that's exactly what they did.

Early in 2009, President Obama proposed both his stimulus legislation and his health care reform legislation. Although he had campaigned on a promise to bring hope and change to Washington, he broke that promise by turning control of both bills over to partisan Democrats on the Hill. Forget hope and change. We will never know the extent to which the GOP would have been willing to work with and compromise with the Democrats on those bills because we do know they never were given the opportunity to do so.

And with a wink and a nod from the president, the Democrats rammed through their stimulus and the health care reform bills. In so doing, they sewed the destructive seeds of the tea party rebellion.

In 2010, the explosive force of that rebellion manifested itself at the polls. Eighty-seven members of the tea party won election to the House, and the GOP gained a net of 63 seats. The House election of 2010 was a classic wave election, in which one party benefited enormously from the public's repudiation of the other. But the wave and its results were a mixed blessing for the GOP. House Republican leader and now Speaker John Boehner soon realized that he was a hostage to the emboldened tea party zealots who had taken control of the House with but a single, uncompromising purpose — the defeat of Barack Obama.

The House is composed of 435 districts. Sadly, as this year's election approaches, fewer than 100 of them are competitive. In upward of 350 of them, only one party has a chance to win. Gerrymandering accounts for this sad situation.

Every 10 years, the national census is used as the basis to adjust the number of House districts state by state as the nation's population increases and shifts disproportionately from state to state. In most states, this process is controlled by the state legislature.

North Carolina is a perfect example of how the census gave one party the opportunity to redraw the borders of its congressional districts to give it maximum advantage. The 2010 census came at the same time the GOP captured control of the N.C. General Assembly for the first time in over a century. And the GOP struck with a vengeance. It gerrymandered the state's district lines in a way that has put Democrats in jeopardy in four districts, including our district here in the mountains. Its rationale, deficient but simple, was that it was only doing what the Democrats had done to it for over a century.

These gerrymandered districts are the breeding grounds for the wingnuts in both parties. This is the most important single reason that the House of Representatives simply doesn't work. The two political parties have become homogenous. The Republicans in the House are dominated by right-wing conservatives, and the Democrats are dominated by left-wing liberals.

They share the same objective, and it isn't passing laws that address America's problems. The objective they share is getting re-elected. And each of them knows that demonstrating unyielding fealty to the zealots who dominate their gerrymandered districts is the way to stay in office. Gerrymandering has made a mockery of the House and contributed significantly to the nation's decline.

Finally, a word about the race in the 11th Congressional District here in Western North Carolina is in order. In late August, Times-News op-ed columnist Mike Tower and I decided we would try to interview separately the two candidates for this district, Mark Meadows and Hayden Rogers. It was our intention to write a joint column that would be published in October based on those two interviews.

Both men were told that we wanted to complete the interviews by Sept. 21 in order to allow adequate time for the preparation of our column. That date gave them several weeks to find a time to meet with us. Mr. Meadows agreed, and we interviewed him for over an hour and half on Sept. 7. A staffer for the Rogers campaign told Mike that Mr. Rogers had our request and that a prompt reply would be forthcoming. Although Mike made multiple attempts to elicit a response from Mr. Rogers, the deadline of Sept. 21 came and went. Neither of us has received any response from Mr. Rogers or his campaign.

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