How the Grinch stole Congress.
Democrat election strategist Marc Elias has been busy rigging Congressional districts for Democrats.
Redistricting is process that happens every ten years based on the census, which occurs over the same timeframe. The most recent census was completed in 2020. Once the results are certified, State legislatures draw congressional districts for the congressional seats allocated for their respective State. Based both on the migration of Americans to “red” states and the Republican advantage in State legislatures, Republicans were expected to gain an electoral advantage in House seats via the bipartisan practice of gerrymandering.
This premise is unremarkable. You can find ample examples of Democrats complaining that Republicans improperly would rig the elections for Congress to their advantage. Here is the New York Times claiming Republicans would obtain an advantage. Similarly, here is the Guardian making the same point.
To date, however, the supposed Republican advantage has not materialized in large part due to the efforts of Democrat election strategists like attorney Marc Elias. Mr. Elias served as general counsel for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and for John Kerry’s 2004 one. In the lead up to the 2020 Presidential election, he spearheaded the Democrat efforts to loosen voting rules to favor Democrats by such things as permitting voters to vote by mail or vote harvest, for example. He accomplished this in several swings States by using either favorably inclined courts or Democrat Governors in “red” States without involving the individuals State’s Republican Legislature, even though the Constitution requires that State legislatures set voting rules. There is little doubt that these efforts likely tilted the election result towards Biden.
Now, Mr. Elias has turned his attention towards redistricting using a similar formula to achieve mostly the same results. Even though the Supreme Court has cautioned that courts should not be in the business of supervising the Legislatures’ creation of districts, he has proven quite effective at having Republican favorable districts thrown out in favor of those that tilt toward Democrats. Again, his strategy is much the same as the one he employed prior to Election Day in 2020. If a State has a Republican Legislature and a Republican leaning Supreme Court, he will seek to find a Democrat appointed Federal judge in the State to challenge the redistricting plan. This he did in Alabama, although this decision ultimately was stayed by the Supreme Court. Alternatively, if the “red” State’s Supreme Court leans Democrat, he files his lawsuit in the State system and has the Supreme Court declare the Republican Legislature’s map declared illegal and replaced with a Democrat one. This he has done in North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
As a result of Elias’ activism on behalf of Democrats, to date, they now have picked up approximately 12 seats in the House. Of those picked up, 7 formerly were “competitive” seats and 5 formerly were “Republican” leaning.
This does not translate necessarily into Democrat Congressional victories in the fall of course. Democrat leaning districts could still elect Republicans and are especially likely to do so during an off year election where the party of the President typically loses seats. The overriding point, however, is that the system has been gamed, yet again, in the favor of Democrats by surreptitious and likely improper means.
Given how far into redistricting we are, Democrats are all but certain to have obtained an advantage using Elias’ strategy and in a year that should have favored Republicans. If this is the case, then more action will need to be taken by the Supreme Court to restrict partisan gerrymandering. In addition, Republicans, indeed all voters, should be awakened to the fact that Democrats judges are prepared to be openly partisan in helping Democrats secure election victories with inappropriate judicial activism and, considering that voters saw fit to elect more Republican legislatures, to overturn the will of the people. Remember this the next time you hear a politician proclaiming that Democrats are the party that believes in “democracy.”