Gerrymandering

Quick comments on two issues of the moment before I get into the post I mean to write this morning.

One: Molly White maintains an up-to-date digest of all the payments made by, and favors done for, cryptocurrency players interacting with the Trump administration. The PAC donations bug me but are legal because of Citizens United; the outright payments to inaugural and library funds and purchases of Trump family tokens frankly look like bribery. And all those payments have offered good returns, with lawsuits dropped, pardons delivered, regulators caged.

Two: Late last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics published jobs numbers for the current and trailing months. They were bad! Employment gains are the worst since the pandemic, reversing the trend under Biden and signaling a serious slowing of the US economy. President Trump responded by firing the head of the BLS and claiming manipulation of the numbers to make him look bad. There's no evidence of that, of course, and the revisions are in keeping with expectations by economists concerned about chaotic policies and high global tariffs. This is, of course, the same President who responded to soaring COVID numbers in 2020 by demanding that testing cease.

Reality always wins in the end.

Now, to gerrymandering ahead of the midterm elections:

Texas Republicans have, at the urging of the President, announced plans to redraw Congressional districts in the state expressly to flip Democratic seats to Republican seats by slicing and dicing the electorate, isolating opposing voters. There's no new demographic or census data to consider. This is expressly because the party knows its policies are unpopular and is concerned that voters will reject Republican candidates when they go to the polls next year.

Democrats in the chamber have left the state, using a procedural rule that requires a quorum for the legislature to hold a vote at all. Texas governor Abbot has threatened to fine, fire and imprison them for that act. My bet is that the Democrats' gambit will generate some headlines but ultimately fail to prevent the blatant partisan gerrymander.

Gavin Newsom, California's governor, has announced plans to respond in kind, turning most or all of the red districts in the state blue in order to neutralize or even swamp the move in Texas.

I think he ought to do it. I'll push my state legislators to embrace the move, if it happens. If Texas or other states move ahead with new maps to favor Republicans, I think that Democratic governors and legislatures across the country should do so as well.

Some time ago, I wrote about a wonderful essay about restoring honor to American politics. I said I meant to do that in my writing here.

So how can advocating this kind of tit-for-tat be honorable?

Democrats must be very clear that this is an odious strategy, clearly unfair whether pursued by either party. Legislatures make these moves to disempower voters, isolating contrary voices in their states to guarantee that the party in charge cannot be challenged in an election. Allowing the tactic to succeed would harm Americans, and that would be dishonorable.

California should only do this if Texas and others use the strategy to create electoral advantages for Republican candidates. California should urge other blue states to do the same. We must make the tactic not just ineffective, but downright dangerous, for Republicans to pursue. What if Democrats, in aggregate, win the gerrymandering wars?

Even this Supreme Court would find it difficult to rule that Republican legislatures, but not Democratic ones, could legally pursue the tactic.

The Democratic party has been far too supine for the past two decades. Democratic leadership has been weak or absent altogether (looking at you, Chuck Schumer). Republicans in the Congress and in the White House have used hard-ball tactics to disenfranchise centrist and liberal voters. Democrats have howled, cried, whined, but haven't articulated policies, haven't taken actions, that effectively counter those moves.

We're in a tough fight for the soul of the country. We are literally contending against the rise of authoritarianism in the US. We cannot cede the artillery to the other side. We must respond effectively.

I believe that the tactics I advocate are honorable, carried out in this way, in a struggle of such importance.