The Democratic Party’s leaders, with the corporate media’s collusion, have positioned themselves as anti-gerrymandering, even as Democrat-controlled state legislatures in Maryland and New Mexico have carved up their congressional maps to exclude the last remaining Republicans, The Hill reported.
Former President Barack Obama said this week that Democrats must ensure “that the redistricting process concludes in a way that ensure fairness, and reduces partisanship and polarization,” CNN reported.
Former Attorney General Eric Holder said Democrats have already “leveled the playing field” by “backing litigation, supporting reforms, and electing fair-map Democrats.”
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan vetoed the congressional map that the General Assembly devised, but the Democrats, with their legislative supermajority, overrode his veto.
Hogan promised to challenge the map in court.
Maryland has eight seats in the US House of Representatives. Seven currently belong to Democrats and one to a Republican, but the new map, with lines that carve up counties and cities, threatens to expel the lone Republican, Rep. Andrew Harris.
Harris’s district presently encompasses eastern Maryland on Delaware’s border, and the proposed district includes the same area, but with the inclusion of the urban Anne Arundel County on the western side of the Chesapeake Bay.
The Princeton Gerrymandering Project analyzed the new district and concluded that it now has a 51 percent Democratic majority.
“This isn’t about fair representation. It’s basically trying to create an 8-0 map with very grotesque districts. You can’t do it with a straight face,” said state Sen. Justin Ready, a Republican who represents Carroll County. “It’s one thing for a map to be more favorable. It’s another for them to pass this Rorschach test.”
The New Mexico state legislature has also drawn a new congressional map that will almost guarantee that the state’s last Republican, Rep. Yvette Herrell, loses her seat.
New Mexico has three US House seats, and Democrats currently control 2.
Herrell repesents a rural New Mexico district, but Democrats have shifted her district so that it includes enough urban Albuquerque voters to dilute the rural population’s voice.
The Prince Gerrymandering Project reckons that the new congressional map leaves zero competitive districts.
“I don’t think it’s fair to say that [Democrats are] just responding to Republicans,” said Doug Spencer, an associate professor of law at the University of Colorado who runs the All About Redistricting website. “Despite all the rhetoric, they have shown themselves to be equally thirsty for power.”
