Our View: Republicans, Democrats scheming on mid-term elections

Yahoo

2 days ago

Two wrongs don't make a right.
It's wrong that at the urging of President Trump, Texas Republicans are scheming to redrawn political boundaries to dilute the power of minorities and Democratic voters in next year's mid-term elections.
It's wrong that California Democrats, led by Gov. Gavin Newsom, now are scheming to usurp the will of California voters and reshape the state's political boundaries to block Texas Republicans from gaming the congressional elections.
For many, this may seem like boring insider political baseball. But the scheming shows how politicians care less about the people they represent at home and more about retaining the power of their political parties — Republican and Democratic — in Washington. The scheming we now see is a shameful corruption of democracy and the electoral system politicians claim they support. At its heart is control of the House of Representatives.
The House of Representatives has 435 members — each representing about the same number of constituents. Every 10 years, after completion of a U.S. Census, allocation of a state's share of House seats is decided and the political boundary lines of congressional districts within the states are adjusted.
In most states, such as Texas, state politicians and their donor buddies scheme on adjusting district boundary lines to protect incumbents and assure a political party's election. That's called gerrymandering.
Texas Republicans are not waiting for the next 10-year census to redraw district lines. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has called the Republican-dominated Legislature back into a special session to consider a new political map that shifts district lines and is designed to elect more Republicans to Congress.
If all goes as the schemers hope, Texas Republicans could pick up five additional seats in next year's mid-term elections. That would be a big deal in the House, where Republicans now hold a slim majority.
Democratic takeover of the House would apply the brakes on Trump's controversial agenda.
And that's where California Gov. Newsom comes in.
He's scheming on a plan to fight fire with fire. Redraw California's political boundary lines before next year's mid-term elections to advantage Democratic candidates. That could shrink California's nine-member Republican delegation to three or four.
But there is a catch. In 2010, California voters, who were fed up with self-dealing politicians, overwhelmingly passed a ballot measure that created a bipartisan independent redistricting commission. No longer could the state's politicians draw their own district lines. In 2011 and 2021, the commission drew district lines, with a focus on creating competitive districts, within coherent geographic areas, containing voters with shared interests, and providing representations for minority communities. Both Democratic and Republican parties, refusing to quietly give up their power, strongly opposed creation of a bipartisan independent commission in 2010.
To accomplish his mid-term scheme, Newsom would have to quickly call a statewide special election — at a cost of what some estimate to be $200 million — and ask voters to return redistricting power to self-serving politicians. Fat chance voters would go along with that.
As an alternative, Newsom and his co-conspirators are considering crawling through an imaginary loophole in the law that created the bipartisan independent redistricting commission.
They reason that since the law voters created only called for an independent commission to set political district lines after a U.S. Census every 10 years, the Legislature is free to undo the commission's work in the years between — drawing legislators' own self-serving lines. Good luck with that. Let the lawsuits begin!
Warning: This threatened gerrymandering war — which could expand to other states — may blow up in both Democratic and Republican party faces. Voters are not as dumb as politicians think they are. They can spot election cheating when they see it.
Like it or not, the balance of power in Washington should be decided by voters at the ballot box, not schemers in the backroom. If we believe in the electoral system that is the foundation of our democracy, we must trust voters.
California's legislators will return to Sacramento after a summer break in a couple of weeks. Hopefully Democrats then also will return to their good senses.