In the early 19th century, Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry signed a bill he reportedly didn’t like. Gerry had been a prominent figure in the American Revolution, even later serving as Vice President under Pres. James Madison; he was held in high regard by many. He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a supporter of limited government, and an opposer of political parties. Gerry became governor in 1810, representing the Democratic-Republican party, and was re-elected for a second one year term the following year. In his second year he was presented with the unfavorable bill.
The Bay State was adopting new electoral district boundaries. The party with most power attempted to craft the proposed districts in a way that benefitted their party. So much so, a local paper likened the new map to the shape of a salamander, thus wittily referring to the electoral reshuffle as a “Gerry-mander.” While Gerry was said to have been unhappy with the highly partisan districting, for some reason, he still signed the bill, even though it wasn’t his party. We are since blessed with the word “gerrymander.”
Simply put, to gerrymander is to manipulate the boundaries to favor one party. Let us be simply clear: the Intramuralist espouses nothing that includes the word “manipulate.”
The issue has come to the forefront of the nation’s current events as Texas is currently in a 30-day special legislative session with redistricting on the agenda. Republican lawmakers have proposed a new congressional map aimed at creating up to five additional GOP-leaning districts. A state House panel advanced the redrawn map along party lines. Note that redistricting is typically done soon after the Census is calculated; this is happening in the middle of the decade.
In response, no less, dozens of Democratic state lawmakers have fled Texas in an attempt to deny Republicans a quorum and prevent the adoption of the new map. This has thus far prevented a vote on the redistricting plan as the House lacks the necessary number required for official business.
As one might expect in our sadly, highly polarized, political state, every action has had a reaction, escalating in both magnitude and publicity. Suffice it to say, communication between all the adults involved has been painstakingly poor.
Here once more, therefore, we come to a reason why this semi-humble current events blogger has difficulty in wholeheartedly, fully supporting either primary political party.
Both parties gerrymander. In other words, both parties manipulate. They each justify their manipulation with either the elementary playground retort that the other did it first or the ratcheted-up cry in need of saving our democracy.
Don’t let us act that all sides enact this underhanded process equally. From the fact that Republicans have more control in state governments across the country, they have more opportunities to gerrymander, making the manipulation seemingly more frequent in the GOP.
That’s just it. It seems that those who have the opportunity to manipulate do so, even though the process is self-serving and unfair. One party claims “foul” when the other engages, knowing deceitfully full well that they would do and have done the same thing under similar circumstances.
I laughed last week when the Republicans began employing their manipulation tactic in Texas. Please, represent the people fairly and well.
I laughed still more when the Democrats fled to Illinois, a state where after the 2020 Census, the Democrats significantly redrew the state’s congressional districts, resulting in Republicans holding only 3 of 17 seats, the fewest number of Republican seats since the Civil War.
The problem with gerrymandering is that both parties track records are laced with hypocrisy. They point fingers at another without transparently acknowledging their own shortage of scrupulous behavior. My sense is they hope we will conclude one is so much worse than another, and thus be blind to their holey track records.
We deserve better and more, friends. We deserve more noble behavior in all of the elect.
Respectfully…
AR