‘Mr. Holder wants to repeat this across any state where he can promote a liberal judicial majority if he can’t elect a liberal Legislature or Governor…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Despite a new Supreme Court decision that ruled the federal courts had no jurisdiction to decide partisan gerrymandering cases, former Attorney General Eric Holder, now in charge of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, has pledged to continue pushing his agenda through the courts at both state and federal levels.
However, his supposedly nonpartisan effort to end gerrymandering through the courts is widely regarded as bid to make it more partisan by simply realigning red states to his liking while ignoring the blue states altogether.
Holder published an op-ed piece in The Washington Post on July 3 that outlined his intention to press forward with the well-funded initiative, aiming to undermine the maps drawn by voter-elected Republican state legislatures and replace them with those mandated by often left-leaning, unaccountable judiciaries.
The NDRC ” will continue to bring racial gerrymandering claims in the federal courts and partisan gerrymandering cases in the state courts,” he wrote.
Astoundingly, that includes an effort to reverse the high court’s decision by pressing the very same lawsuit at the state level in North Carolina that was just defeated by the Supreme Court at the federal level.
Common Cause, the activist group that attempted to undo the state legislature’s maps in the failed federal case Rucho v. Common Cause, is now attempting to plead its case to the state Supreme Court, which holds a 5-2 majority of liberal to conservative judges.
There, rather than try to force a redraw of the federal congressional districts, the group—which Holder calls an NDRC “affiliate”—is hoping to redraw the state districts and flip the legislature blue prior to the next round of redistricting so that Democrats can enact their own gerrymandering.
Ironically, the activist group already succeeded in forcing the maps to be redrawn once in North Carolina, which resulted in Republicans losing a super-majority in the state legislature, although they were still able to hold the majority in both chambers.
That was not enough, however, for the Left’s “sue till blue” effort to be a success, so Common Cause is now declaring its own previously endorsed map to be unfair and partisan.
NC state Senate President Phil Berger called out the blatant political ploy—modeled after a case that succeeded in Pennsylvania prior to the 2018 midterm election.
There, the liberal Pennsylvania Supreme Court was able to carve up the regions surrounding Philadelphia and add three additional blue seats once held by Republicans—thus helping the Democrats to retake the U.S. House of Representatives last year.
“That’s not democracy. It’s judicial usurpation of democracy,” Berger said. “Mr. Holder wants to repeat this across any state where he can promote a liberal judicial majority if he can’t elect a liberal Legislature or Governor.”
In addition to targeting North Carolina, the NDRC has 11 other states in its cross-hairs—all traditionally conservative-leaning or toss-up battleground states where Republicans are vulnerable to be hurt politically by Holder’s election-meddling efforts.
“For too long, the Democratic Party has failed to focus on the state and local elections that impact the lives of American citizens on a day-to-day basis and determine who has a seat at the redistricting table,” Holder wrote in his op-ed.
Not included on the NDRC’s hit list is Maryland, where a conservative-based companion case to Common Cause’s North Carolina lawsuit originated. In that instance, a left-leaning legislature attempted to redraw the maps to eliminate one of the state’s few red districts.
Despite having one branch of the NDRC designated for IRS purposes as a tax-free, nonpartisan nonprofit (another wing is designated as a trust, and a third is a political-action committee) Holder has made patently clear that the group’s core objectives are entirely partisan rather than principled in nature.
The aim, ultimately, is not to end the practice of gerrymandering when it benefits the Left, but simply to establish permanent Democratic majorities that will block out any opposition efforts.
“Democrats must invest in—and win—state and local elections in 2019 and 2020 to make sure that Republicans do not retain total control in the remaining states and manipulate the process again during 2021 redistricting,” Holder wrote.
Republicans dominated the previous round of redistricting, following the 2010 census, largely due to a backlash of then-President Barack Obama’s highly partisan policies, including the March 2010 passage of the Affordable Care Act along party lines.