Since
leaving office, former President Obama and his attorney general, Eric Holder,
have made congressional redistricting reform a top priority. Saying that “protecting” democracy requires
“rethinking the way we draw our congressional districts,” President Obama has
lashed out at Republicans for supposedly gerrymandering themselves into control
of the House of Representatives.
Gerrymandering
involves manipulating the boundaries of districts represented by members of the
U.S. House, state legislators and local officials to favor one political party
over the other in elections. By this
practice, the Democratic former president asserts, the GOP “moves our debate
from the rational, reasonable middle, where most Americans are, to the
extremes. And that makes commonsense policies that most Americans support less
likely.”
Then in a
burst of typical self-righteous sanctimony, Obama argues that Republican dominance
in redistricting is “not good for our children and regardless of our party
affiliations, it’s not good for our democracy.” The former president asserts
each party should get representation roughly equal to its share of the
congressional popular vote. To achieve
this, Obama and Holder argue, Americans should elect more Democrats (how
remarkably convenient) to state legislatures and create appointed states
commissions to handle redistricting.
California
and Iowa already have commissions like this in place. Voters in Colorado,
Michigan, Missouri and Utah approved creating such commissions in the Nov. 6
midterm elections. There are more
problems with this than just the typical, stale attack on Republicans as “not
good for our children” and “not good for our democracy.” The results of the November midterms show
that the former president and his attorney general are inaccurately describing
the role of Republicans in redistricting.
As the Cook
Political Report’s David Wasserman reported this week, Democratic U.S. House
candidates received 53 percent of the total midterm popular vote. So if you
follow President Obama’s thinking, this should entitle Democrats to 231 House
seats, while giving Republicans 204. As
of Tuesday night, Fox News pegs the new House as having 233 Democrats to 199
Republicans, with three seats undecided – all currently held by Republicans. So
right now Democrats are holding slightly more seats than their share of the
popular vote and will continue doing so even if Republicans win the three seats
yet to be decided.
The results
of the November midterms show that the former president and his attorney
general are inaccurately describing the role of Republicans in redistricting. That doesn’t mean that gerrymandering isn’t a
factor. But if the measure of gerrymandering is one party getting a much bigger
share of seats than its share of the popular vote, then it’s Democrats in
California and Iowa who are getting more seats than they deserve. And – irony of ironies – both states have
supposedly nonpartisan commissions that draw their congressional district
boundaries.
In
California, Democrats received 65 percent of the popular vote in congressional
races while Republicans received 34 percent. Yet Democrats won 45 of the
state’s 53 U.S. House seats and lead in the remaining race not yet declared –
for an 87 percent share of the state’s congressional seats. In contrast, Republicans won only seven seats
for a share of 13 percent of California’s U.S. House delegation. But rather than splitting the delegation
between 46 Democrats and seven Republicans (assuming Democrats win the one seat
still undecided), President Obama’s popular vote standard would point to split
of 35 Democrats and 18 Republicans in the state’s congressional delegation –
more than twice the number of Republicans who were elected.
California
is not alone. In Iowa, Democrats received 50 percent of the popular vote and
Republicans 47 percent, yet Democrats won three – or 75 percent – of the
state’s four House seats while Republicans won one seat – or 25 percent of the
House delegation. President Obama’s
popular vote standard would suggest that Democrats should get two seats and
Republicans should get the other two. A commission also does Iowa’s
redistricting.
Here’s a
good-faith test for Obama and Holder: Will they now strongly denounce the
gerrymandering of California’s congressional seats and urge reforms that lead
to Republicans gaining a proper share of the state’s congressional delegations? If not, Americans can assume that the former
president and his attorney general aren’t really trying to improve our
democracy – they’re trying to advance the interests of the Democratic Party.
Should we be
surprised?
**************************************************************************
No Karl, we
definitely should not be surprised. If
the names “Holder” or “Obama” are attached to something you can rest assured
that there is evil afoot, because true democracy is the last thing they want.
Once again
our republic is surreptitiously under attack by the wicked Left. The promise of a “non-partisan commission” to
draw redistricting lines probably sounded like a swell idea to unsuspecting
Californians and Iowans and to the voters of the other four states that have now
tragically doomed themselves to democrat domination, because the average voter sadly
still does not understand who leftists really are. They still believe what the leftists say, rather than learning who they are
by what they do. Too many Americans do not understand that the Obamas and the
Holders of the world are criminals at heart.
Their mission is to steal your power in whatever ways they can, whether
it be the piece by piece dismemberment of the Constitution (your Constitution!), the brainwashing of
America’s youth through their control of our educational institutions, or the
creation of “non-partisan commissions” (kind of like the “non-partisan” Mueller
investigation) to decide voting districts which – just by coincidence mind you –
dilute the voting power of Republicans who are a threat to the Left’s criminal ambitions.
The leftists
count on Americans to be too busy raising their families and trying to make a
living to notice that we’re under attack.
It’s guerilla warfare at its best, and the Left is quietly winning. When Americans wake up and see what’s going
on, it will be too late. Please open
your eyes NOW.
~CW
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