Just when it seemed responsible parties across the country were opening the door to important reform in the way congressional lines are drawn, some southern Republicans are looking to abuse the process. Again.
Let’s take a step back and look at political history for a moment. Every state legislature in the Union takes up redistricting plans after the once-a-decade census is completed. In the 1800s, legislatures would reconsider drawing district lines if the other party seized the majority. This created havoc and instability, and states quickly realized that taking on redistricting once a decade was the only real solution. Both sides agreed; relative comity reigned.
The first real fight to change this was in 2003 at the hands of Tom DeLay, who orchestrated an outrageous re-redistricting stunt. Under his plan, hatched after Republicans gained a majority in both chambers of the Texas state legislature, the state GOP abandoned the 2002 lines, replacing them with congressional districts drawn by DeLay’s staff to maximize Republican success.
It worked — Republicans redrew the lines and got rid of five House Dems on Election Day 2004. Were it not for DeLay’s stunt, Republicans would have lost House seats in the 2004 cycle.
The stunt, which is still the subject of ongoing litigation, was the kind of abuse that disgusted all but the most ardent, right-wing partisans. Unfortunately, many of those partisans are considering a plan to do the exact same thing all over again, this time in Georgia.
Republican leaders in the Georgia state Legislature are set to meet this week to decide whether they will take up the politically explosive task of redrawing Congressional district boundaries later this year.
Democrats were quick to warn that the GOP could be opening a Pandora’s box, and hinted that they could retaliate in kind in states where they control the Legislature.
The seven Republican members of the Georgia delegation have signed off on the redistricting plan and a new map has already been crafted, GOP sources confirmed Friday.
This is one of those painfully stupid stunts that invites an intense partisan war.
Republicans really don’t get it. Georgia already did redistricting, along with the rest of the country, two years ago. If the state GOP believes it can revisit the issue whenever it pleases — as it apparently does — it creates an unpleasant scenario whereby Dems will start retaliating in kind.
Right now, their only focus is on expanding their majority.
[T]here is little doubt that a redraw of lines will also produce political gains for the GOP, an outcome that [Rep. Lynn] Westmoreland acknowledges.
“Georgia went overwhelming for George Bush,” he said. “It has elected two Republican U.S. Senators. And if we get fair maps on the Congressional side it would just stand to reason that we may pick up seats.”
Maybe so, but it would also “stand to reason” that if other states where Dems control the state government — including Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Washington, among others — decided they wanted to jump into re-redistricting now, Dems could pick up seats as well.
Which would no doubt prompt other “Red” states to do the same thing for Republicans again, leading Dems to retaliate again, and so on. This is what led to once-a-decade redistricting in the first place.
Republicans who know no limits and have no shame believe partisan warfare is a welcome development. As far as they’re concerned, we’ll tear the country in half and see who has the bigger chunk. More than just ridiculous, there’s no precedent for this in modern American political history.