Obama and other top Democrats are focusing efforts on state-level
races and ending the reconfiguring of voting districts through the
politically-laden process known as gerrymandering -- a combined effort
to end “Trump-ism” and help their party regain control of Congress and
legislatures across the country.
Obama indicated before leaving the White House last
fall that his short-term, post-presidency focus will be on General
Assembly races and redistricting after the 2020 Census.
And 2016 presidential candidate former Maryland Gov.
Martin O’Malley has become the most recent high-profile Democrat to take
up the cause.
“America needs non-partisan redistricting
commissions,” O’Malley said at Boston College Law School, where he’s now
a visiting professor. “This simple reform … must become the new norm of
American democracy. … How can we expect people to vote if their voice
has been carved into irrelevance by a political map ahead of time?”
An early test for Democrats trying to win state-level races and stopping the Trump wave arrives this weekend.
Delaware is holding a special election for an open
state Senate seat that will decided whether Democrats keep their roughly
40-year hold on the chamber.
"If we lose, a new Republican majority will take
power and rubber-stamp every single one of Trump's hateful policies,"
the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee said in a recent
fundraising letter. "They'll grind all our progress to a halt."
Voting districts are redrawn after a federal Census to reflect the changes in population and other demographic.
Much of the redistricting across the country is done by the political party that controls the state legislature.
However, critics argue the process, known as
gerrymandering, has run amok, with the majority party drawing districts
in crazy-quilt patterns to help protect incumbents and their party win
more races.
“There’s one district in Virginia where you have to
take a boat on the James River to get to another part,” Jared Leopold,
spokesman for the Democratic National Redistricting Committee, told Fox
News.
The tax-exempt group is leading Washington Democrats’
major effort to erase the majorities Republicans have in Congress and
statehouses across the country.
The Republicans wave election of 2010 handed them the
House majority and control of 20 additional state House and Senate
chambers, giving the party broad authority in redrawing district maps
after the Census that year.
Twenty-three legislatures are primarily responsible
for that task. And the situation has only helped Republicans retain
their seats and add to 2010 gains.
Leopold cited three main objectives: help Democrats
win more races in the next few election cycles to “put them in a better
situation before redistricting in 2020,” embark on legal efforts to
“undo some of the more egregious redistricting” after the 2010 Census
and push ballot initiatives that will lead to “fair maps.”
He described the NDRC as a “super group” that brings
together the efforts of the Democratic Governors Association, the
Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee and House Majority PAC.
The group’s chairman is former Attorney General Eric
Holder, whose support, along with Obama’s, will give the group bonda
fides and fundraising clout.
"We heard a lot in this past election about rigged
systems,” Holder said last month in announcing the group’s start. “But I
want to say the biggest rigged system in America is gerrymandering.”
However, the group is not championing non-partisan redistricting commissions, as O'Malley and others are.
O’Malley, who is continuing efforts to lead the
party’s progressive wing, has also made clear that his call to end
gerrymander speaks directly to what he fears is a rising, anti-immigrant
sentiment and other policies associated with Republican President
Trump.
“I want to speak with you today about the immediate
challenges facing our nation,” said O’Malley, who also equates Trump’s
beliefs and polices to fascism. “We must frame a principled opposition
to Trump-ism.”
Beyond the Delaware contest, the real bellwether races will start next year in Virginia, North Carolina and New Jersey.
Virginia, a battleground state that has voted
Democrat the past three presidential elections, next year is having
state House races and a gubernatorial contest to replace outgoing
Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
The governor’s race already has heavyweights from
both parties including Democratic Rep. Tom Perriello. The Republican
slate includes Corey Stewart, an immigration hawk and former Trump
campaigner, and Ed Gillespie, a former Republican National Committee
chairman who nearly upset Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner in 2014.
Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee spokeswoman
Carolyn Fiddler told Fox News that the Democrats’ recent efforts are a
“smart refocus of efforts,” more than a reckoning and that related
fundraising has been “astronomical.”
She also said Trump’s victory has indeed sparked a
lot of interest -- from potential canvassers to candidates. “But it has
also crystalized some social and political priorities for people in ways
they had not before.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/02/25/obama-democratic-super-group-unite-to-end-gerrymandering-win-state-races-reclaim-majorities.html
