Stuffing
the gerrymandering geenie back in the bottle
By
LeRoy Goldman
Guest Columnist
Citizen-Times
November 2, 2015
The
stars were aligned for the GOP in the 2010 election when opposition
to Obamacare enabled the Republicans to take control of the House of
Representatives and also win control of many state legislatures and
Governor's Mansions. All of this occurred as new census data mandated
the redrawing of congressional district boundaries. Predictably the
Republicans seized the opportunity to indulge themselves in a
gerrymandering orgy.
But
gerrymandering dates back to the dawn of the 19th century. It
has become as American as apple pie, and has been practiced with
increasing vengeance by both political parties. Carried to its
current extreme, it is a bipartisan evil that has contributed
significantly to the stalemate in the House of Representatives. While
it will never be possible to expect politicians to relinquish the
opportunity to draw district lines in ways that advantage themselves,
gerrymandering has now turned democracy upside down. Instead of
voters choosing a Congressman to represent them, gerrymandering has
enabled incumbent Congressmen to choose the voters who will assure
their reelection. At the heart of this undemocratic abuse lies the
Majority-Minority district.
These
districts are ones in which a majority of its residents are racial or
ethnic minorities. Most all of them are represented by
African-Americans or Hispanics. The vast majority are Democrats. In
1982 there were 35 such districts. By 2014 the number had skyrocketed
to 118.
But
the explosive growth of these utterly safe Democratic districts has
had a counter intuitive, boomerang effect. Remarkably they have
advantaged the Republicans and helped them maintain control of the
House. The GOP figured out that packing districts with minorities who
vote overwhelmingly Democratic made it possible for them to win in
many more neighboring districts. Thus the GOP took control of the
House in 1994 for the first time in 40 years and has steadily
strengthened it grip ever since.
The
Democrats suffer in silence for fear that challenging the necessity
for such districts will subject them to cries of racism by the
minority groups who benefit from these sinecures. The GOP is
similarly silent, gleefully knowing they have become the unintended
beneficiaries of reverse racism.
And
there you have it. Political correctness, reverse racism, and both
political party's obsession with maintaining partisan advantage and
exacting retribution have combined to emasculate the House of
Representatives. Any realistic hope of reform must be external to
those who have been responsible for and who perpetuate this mess.
The
courts, ultimately the Supreme Court, could put this matter right. In
fact the Supreme Court came within a single vote of doing just that
in 2001. Let's look at how breathtakingly close it came to rectifying
this problem.
In
two landmark cases, Baker v. Carr in 1962 and Reynolds v. Sims in
1964 the Supreme Court thrust the judiciary into a determination of
the constitutionality of a state's voting districts. In his opinion
in Baker v. Carr Justice William O. Douglas said, “if a voter no
longer has the constitutional value of his right to vote and the
legislative branch fails to take appropriate restorative action, the
doors of the court must be open to him”.
Throughout
the 1990s Duke Law Professor Robinson Everett, a Liberal Democrat,
was the driving force behind three law suits that were decided by the
Supreme Court that challenged North Carolina's two Majority-Minority
congressional districts as unconstitutional racial gerrymanders.
Everett believed these districts violated the Constitution's Equal
Protection Clause. The Supreme Court in 5-4 decisions agreed with
Everett in the first two cases, Shaw v. Reno in 1993 and Shaw v. Hunt
in 1996. But Everett lost the third and decisive case, Easley v.
Cromartie, in 2001 when Justice Sandra Day O'Connor switched her
vote.
Justice
O'Connor's volte-face was especially disappointing given the fact
that in writing for the majority in one of the two earlier cases she
had said, “a reapportionment plan that includes in one district
individuals who belong to the same race, but who are otherwise widely
separated by geographic and political boundaries, and who may have
little in common with one another but the color of their skin, bears
an uncomfortable resemblance to political apartheid”.
Robinson
Everett passed away in 2009. But his legacy lives, and, more
importantly, a Supreme Court decision overturning racial gerrymanders
is all the more urgent. A new case brought by a lawyer intent upon
completing what Judge Everett began is the way to put the evil
gerrymandering genie back in the bottle.
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