Eric Holder's 'Democracy' Con - WSJ
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
To understand the political con that is the Democrats' "voting rights" push, look at the bait-and-switch that preceded it. Eric Holder this week cemented his party's ruthless and partisan gerrymandering victory over Republicans—all in the name of "democracy."
The left is at full pitch on its voting "reform" campaign—accusing Republican states of "rigging" elections with laws to suppress the minority vote. They insist Democrats' proposed federal takeover of state elections is the only thing that will save the country, the Constitution, justice and the cosmos. They claim the stakes are so high that it is necessary to blow up the Senate filibuster and strip all 50 states of their longtime power to set election rules. They also declare anyone who isn't on board a racist.
Where have we heard this before? In 2016 Barack Obama’s former attorney general, Mr. Holder, started a new activist group, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. He explained the GOP had “rigged” the redistricting system to entrench its control, resulting in “voter suppression.” Republican maps had “broken” our democracy, produced “racial gerrymandering,” and served to “manipulate” the vote, he wrote in 2017. The only cure was to strip GOP legislatures of the ability to draw districts, handing the job to “nonpartisan” commissions or courts. It’s a new cure, one conveniently invented by the Democratic Party.
Gerrymandering is older than dirt. Both parties regularly exercise this raw power, which until recently was viewed as the straightforward prize of winning state elections. Democrats saw it that way for decades. In the 1980s and ’90s they controlled nearly twice as many state legislatures as Republicans—and gerrymandered like bandits.
Mr. Obama’s unpopular governance changed that, losing Democrats some 1,000 down-ballot seats over his tenure and handing the GOP a distinct advantage in the 2010 redistricting cycle. It was a bitter pill, and Mr. Holder was tasked with developing an antidote. He mounted an effort to recapture state legislatures, but his bigger contribution was in litigation and in reframing the debate. He cloaked his party’s brass-knuckle effort as a fight for truth, racial justice and the American way. GOP redistricting: racist, undemocratic, rigged. Democratic redistricting: goodness, light, frolicking puppies.
In theory, Republicans should also be crushing the 2020 redistricting process. Voters over the past decade fled blue states, and Democrats failed to break the GOP’s state dominance. Instead, with this week’s completion of New York’s redistricting map, Mr. Holder’s long “justice” con proved a stunning success. Despite all the GOP’s structural advantages, Democrats may be headed into this year’s midterms on even footing, or even with a slight leg up.
How? Mr. Holder’s success rests in his “sue to blue” strategy—his vigorous litigation of the last round of GOP maps—coupled with an aggressive public smear campaign. He’s spent years squeezing GOP candidates who failed to sign his “fair districts” pledge and accusing Republicans of minority voter suppression—both publicly and in court documents. Any number of state and federal judges intervened and redrew maps to favor Democrats.
The result is that some state Republican parties are pulling their punches. Tired of getting dragged into drawn-out litigation, sick of being branded Jim Crow, and wary courts might choose to impose their own maps, many GOP state lawmakers this round chose to focus on shoring up their own districts, rather than pushing into Democratic territory. That didn’t stop Democrats from litigating those maps anyway, as well as more aggressive GOP products—pulling courts into fights in North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and even Alabama.
This has cleared the field for blue states to gerrymander the bejeesus out of their maps. New York’s map (which even the senior counsel at the left-leaning Brennan Center’s Democracy Project called a “master class” in gerrymandering) will likely allow Democrats to seize four to five of the GOP’s current eight seats. Illinois snatched another two. Oregon Democrats created a new district and promptly handed it to themselves. Add partisan advantages in California, Maryland and New Jersey. And the courts in these blue states are so relentlessly partisan, Democrats face no risk of a judge striking down their efforts.
Not that Mr. Holder is involved in any such litigation. For all his sanctimony about his mission to “rebuild a democracy,” Mr. Holder’s group has never challenged a Democratic gerrymander. And he uttered not a peep this week about the New York map.
There’s a lesson here for Republicans, now getting hammered for their state voting reforms. Just as with Mr. Holder’s redistricting march, the left’s federal voting takeover is about juking the rules in a way that will advantage them in future elections. Their goal isn’t justice or fairness; the goal is to win. Democrats are swindling voters with their “democracy” claims. Republicans shouldn’t let them get away with it.
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It's not about voting....It's about taking power.