Gerrymandering Threatens Our Democracy

I tried without success to reverse the gerrymandering of Greenwich. Our bipartisan apportionment process is controlled by the legislative leadership of both parties who, despite large Democratic majorities, split appointments to the commission. Their object appeared to be to protect incumbents of both parties in configuring legislative districts.

With no Republican congressman, the Republican commissioners had no incumbents to protect so they tried to reconfigure the Fourth District to remove Bridgeport and take away support for Jim Himes and then tried to redistrict New Britain out of the Fifth District to enhance the Republicans chance to retake the seat being vacated by Chris Murphy. The Connecticut Supreme Court has already indicated in its instructions to the Special Masters that it favored as little change to the existing districts as possible so drastic change is unlikely in Connecticut.

In other states the apportionment process is directly controlled by the legislature, which means the majority party, and too often the dominating object is to enhance electoral strength of the majority party at the expense of the minority party. In 2010 a well-funded centrally directed redistricting project by the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) unveiled the Redistricting Majority Project (REDMAP) in 2010 to target Statehouse races and put Republicans in charge of redistricting efforts following the election. So far these efforts have been sucessful in redrawing district maps to favor GOP candidates in states where Republicans dominate the legislatures, often by gerrymandering districts along racial and ethnic lines.

Texas is the poster child for gerrymandering after the 2010 census. Texas enjoyed a 4.3 million increase in population, 66.6 % of the increase in the Hispanic population and 11 % among African-Americans, and will gain four congessional seats. The plan adopted by the Texas Legislature would create four new districts that favor Republicans and disperse the minority voters into existing minority districts. An interim plan adopted by a federal court would have favored Hispanic voters in three districts that would favor Democrats, but this plan was recently vacated by the Supreme Court. Another court will rule on whether the legislative plan violates the 1965 Voting Rights Act and will have to be revised.

The 2010 election transferred control of the U.S. House of Representatives to the Republicans and transferred control of many statehouses, particularly in the south and midwest. The Republican majorities in state legislatures have adopted racially based strategies designed to accellerate the strategy that propelled the party into control of many southern states. Minority voters are concentrated into minority districts represented by minority congressman and siphoned away from swing districts represented by white Democrats that have the effect of increasing the number of minority congressmen while taking away the political base of white  Democratic candidates. The long term goal is to marginalize the Democrats as the party of people of color and promote the Republicans as the party for the white majority. This is not a new idea. Richard Nixon conceived of the "southern strategy" and Ronald Reagan unabashedly ran on it to victory and transformed the south from "Dixiecrat" to Republican.

For more detailed analysis of this problem I recommend "How The GOP Is Resegregating The South" in the February 20, 2012 of the Nation:

http://www.thenation.com/article/165976/how-gop-resegregating-south

Whether this same strategy will secure the next Congress for the Republicans remains to be seen. If so, we will have even more gridlock or a government pulled hard right in its policies. Gerrymandered districts lead to hardline congressmen who are concerned only about primary voters because they are insulated from electoral challenge in the general election. This past congressional session demonstrated how uncompromising ideologues can gridlock Congress and stymie the agenda of a president elected by substantial majorities in 2008.