A Look at GOP Gains Through Gerrymandering

In its April 16, 2018 issue, "The Nation" magazine presented some very troubling statistics on how democracy has been distorted by GOP gerrymandering. The redrawing of districts has been augmented by restrictions on voting that make voting  more difficult for Democratic Party supporters. North Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan are particularly bad examples of subversion of democracy; however, this virus is found in other states in which Republicans control the legislative and executive branches of government.

In North Carolina, a wealthy businessman named Art Pope helped bankroll an assault on Democrats, which targeted 22 legislative seats and took 18, winning control of both houses of the General Assembly for the first time since 1870. This Republican-controlled legislature drew up a state electoral map with the express purpose of electing Republicans, culminated in 2016, with the GOP taking 10 of 13, or 77 percent of the House seats on the ballot, even though Republican candidates won just 53 percent of the vote statewide. The Republicans realized that they didn't need to win over a majority of Americans; they just needed to rig the game so that an ever smaller, older, and whiter pool of voters could consistently prevail.

Overall, in the 2010 election cycle, 22 state legislative chambers changed control -- all from Democratic to Republican. Nationwide, the GOP won 720 seats that year, counting special elections, to control 54 percent of the chambers -- more than they had since 1928.

In Wisconsin, Democrats went from a 50-45 edge in the State House of Representatives to a 38-60 deficit in 2010, and lost both the State Senate and the governorship. The GOP-gerrymandered maps drawn the following year meant that, while Republicans got less than half of Wisconsin's U.S. House votes in 2012, and while Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney in the state by seven points, Democrats wound up with only three of Wisconsin's eight U.S. House seats.

Looking next at Pennsylvania in the 2012 election cycle, a GOP-drawn electoral map resulted in Democratic candidates winning more than half of the state's votes in U.S. House elections and Obama winning reelection easily, Republicans took 13 of the 18 House seats being contested. Michigan saw much the same result in 2012, as although Obama carried the state by almost 10 points, and Senator Debbie Stabenow won reelection by more than 20, Republicans took 9 of the 14  U.S. House seats up for grabs.

Switching now to restrictions on voting, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, 23 states passed new restrictions on voting after the GOP's state-house takeover in 2010: 13 have more restrictive voter-ID laws in place, including six with strict new photo-ID requirements; 11 have laws making it harder for citizens to register; six have cut back on early voting; and three have made it harder to restore voting rights for people with criminal convictions in their past. Of the 11 states with the highest black turnout in 2008, seven put new voting restrictions in place (although North Carolina's law was blocked by a federal court).

ADDENDUMS:
*The anti-labor laws in GOP-run states have diminished Democratic voter participation -- by design. Since 2012, six states -- Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, West Virginia, and Wisconsin -- have passed new "right-to-work" laws that allow workers to benefit from union representation without having to pay union dues. Some of  these same states, like Wisconsin, have also limited public-sector unions' bargaining power; in 2017, Iowa made that move when the GOP returned to power.

James Feigenbaum, Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, and Vanessa Williamson of the Scholars Strategy Network, estimate that right-to-work laws decreased the seats held by Democrats in state legislatures by 5 to 11 percent.

*Perhaps the most reactionary new policies have come in the realm of abortion rights. In the years from 2011 and 2016, states passed as many abortion restrictions -- 288 -- as they had in the 15 years prior. In fact, the limits enacted in those six years amount to a full quarter of the abortion restrictions passed in the 43 years since "Roe v. Wade." According to the Guttmacher Institute, of the 10 states that adopted at least 10 new abortion restrictions in those years, which accounted for 60 percent of all new restrictive laws, all 10 were run by Republican governors with GOP statehouse majorities.

GOP Vote-Blocking Tactics

One - Tougher Voter ID Requirements
Some time ago, only Georgia and Indiana required photo IDs. Since then, 34 states have introduced photo ID laws, five enacted them; governors vetoed five; and other states are considering them. A 2006 Brennan Center study found nearly one in five citizens over 65 -- 8 million -- lack a current, government-issued photo-ID. Some people over age 65 were born before recording births was standard practice. 3.2 million voters in Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin would find voting more difficult.

Two - Create Hurdles to Get Required ID -- Even Charge For It.

Three - Intimidate Voter Registration Groups
Seven states tried to add restrictions on voter registration groups and such laws passed in Florida and Texas. Florida has a rigorous schedule for turning in applications and errors result in fines.

Four - Try to Eliminate Same-Day Registration
The citizens of Maine shot down an attempt and Ohio had a referendum on it.

Five - Curtail Early Voting
This is done mostly by reducing the number of days.

Six - Ban Felons From Voting
Florida is notorious for erroneous lists. Iowa has joined Florida. A total of at least 5.3 million ex-felons are denied the vote across the nation.

Seven - Bleed Election Administrators' Budgets
Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin have limited the operating hours of, or closed state offices where residents can get required photo IDs. In the three states above there are a total of 34 counties with no Department of Public Safety offices, including four where the Hispanic population is more than 75 percent. Alabama closed Motor Vehicle Division offices in counties with heavy concentrations of minority voters.

CAUTION: The listing above may be as much as six years old, so it should be taken as more of the ways that voting can be restricted, rather than relying on the number of states and counties that restrict voting in some way. The Alabama action is a more recent one.

ADDENDUMS:
*States adopted 63 new abortion restrictions in 2017. The number goes up to 71 if restrictions on family planning, like defunding Planned Parenthood are included.

*The Pennsylvania state House and Senate sent $1 million to anti-choice efforts like "crisis pregnancy centers." Crisis pregnancy centers also got funding in North Carolina.

*Minnesota state legislators passed a bill to place licensing requirements on abortion providers. The bill was similar to Texas's HB2.

*Three quarters of a federally chartered board advising the National Park Service abruptly quit, frustrated that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has refused to meet with them or convene a single meeting last year.

*In a Reuters interview on January 17, President Trump said the bipartisan DACA deal was "horrible" on border security and "very, very weak."