On Aug. 12, the U.S. Census Bureau released data from the 2020 Census, a count carried out during the lockdowns and social distancing brought on by the coronavirus pandemic – and attempts by the Trump administration to manipulate the outcome for partisan advantage. Every 10 years, census data is used to determine the allocation of federal funds, and draw new congressional and state district maps across the country.
In 2010, the Republican Party executed their REDMAP project, that targeted key states to win enough state legislative seats to give the GOP control over a majority of state House and Senate chambers. This enabled Republicans to use the census data to draw up new district maps, effectively gerrymandering state and federal districts that gave the party a decisive advantage in elections over the next decade.
Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Walker Bragman, a reporter with the Daily Poster, who in his recent article titled, “Republicans Are Poised to Gerrymander Their Way Into Long-Term Power,” warns that the Democrats’ failure to pass voting rights protection legislation, gives the Republican party a green light to gerrymander their way to another decade of minority rule.
WALTER BRAGMAN: Now Democrats had — from when they took office post-2020 Congress and August 12 — to pass something that would ban partisan gerrymandering. That didn’t have to necessarily be an entire comprehensive package like The For the People Act, although The For the People Act has a lot of good stuff in it. You know, understandably, you want to get that done, but they had eight months really with which to act and pass something because, if you pass a law banning gerrymandering after the maps have already been adopted, after states have drawn them up, it complicates things. If it does apply, there will be legal challenges, first of all. And if it is found to apply, you’re going to have to move primaries back, you’re going to have to shift elections, probably have to go back into session to redraw the maps.
It’s going to be a very complicated process. That’s not to say it’s impossible. They could still pass something, but it’s much less likely that it will apply to the 2022 races or apply before frankly, 2031, when the districts are redrawn.
So Democrats really needed to act in this period of time and they didn’t. The reason that they didn’t is, they did put The For the People Act up, tried to get debate on it twice in the Senate, but it was, it was beaten back every time by Republican filibusters. And for some reason, the Biden administration has not tried to sort of force party unity in the Senate, you know, to get (Sens. Joe) Manchin and (Krysten) Sinema on board to try to get this through. I think what really troubles me is that it seems as though there’s a lack of urgency or even understanding in the White House about just how serious this is. And it will hobble his agenda he has the same way that the Republican House crippled the Obama presidency for the remainder after 2010. I mean, we needed this to pass.
Democrats should have looked at what happened after the 2010 midterms and thrown everything they had into planning for the census year election so that they could retake Congress. Because, if we are going to deal with the problems we face. We face historic inequality, unprecedented inequality. Today, we face an existential climate crisis. And on top of that, we also face a rising, mobilized far right and, of course, a pandemic. So if we are going to address these issues, we need the power of the legislature. We cannot do it through executive order. We need the power of government. I hope that they pass it. August 12th really was the deadline. We’ll see what happens going forward. I’m not super hopeful and I don’t really know what the plan is at this point for any progress in the next decade.
SCOTT HARRIS: Well, Walker, what is your guess as to why the Biden administration, particularly in those in Congress, don’t really manifest the urgency of this, where they could potentially be locked out of power for 10 years, and more importantly, really degrade our majoritarian democracy, where more people are voting for candidates that aren’t going to win because of the way the system is rigged by the Republicans here.
WALTER BRAGMAN: You hit the nail on the head. There is this erosion of our democracy that is serious. It’s fundamental. It gets really to the core of “Will this Republic hold together?” And I think that should weigh more in the minds of everyone in Washington. I think the reason that it hasn’t, and this is just speculation, but I believe the reason that it hasn’t is that there is still within the Democratic party and particularly, you know, and Biden has a part of this, an element that does not fundamentally believe that government should take an active role in resolving problems.
For more information, visit the Daily Poster Investigative News site at dailyposter.com.
