Sunday Strategy: Redistricting, And Wouldn't Start From Here

Will Democrats Fight Back?

On Sunday, a report from Chicago came out claiming that there is a provisional Congressional map being passed around Springfield, which would change the state's delegation from the current 13/5 Democrat/Republican composition to a 14/3 split, after the loss of a seat in the recent apportionment. The news is unsurprising, but still represents a boost to the chances of a Democratic House majority after 2022 - at least, it should be.

The conventional wisdom is that Democrats are in trouble in 2022 for two reasons - the Midterm Penalty, and redistricting. I've written at length about the problems with the idea of a Midterm Penalty killing Democrats this cycle, but I've avoided writing as much about redistricting, because we will soon enough get the new lines, and we can do all our analysis once that is the case. That said, I've said often that the net effect of redistricting will be mostly a wash, a take that infuriates many. But, as this Illinois news shows, Democrats aren't bringing a knife to a gunfight, and they're willing to fight like hell for their majority.

Obviously, gerrymandering is a blight on democracy, and should be abolished in favour of independently drawn districts in the way it happens in Canada, Australia, and (when they eventually redraw the lines) the UK. Gerrymandering makes voters less important, and there are very clear ways to ensure this sort of partisan redrawing can't happen - because, unlike the myths many Americans have peddled before about the fact that this is inevitable, this sort of failure of democracy is a solely American problem. And yet, without that national solution, we will have lines drawn by the states, and the question of how Democrats should respond is paramount.

There's an old joke about a visitor to a place seeking directions, usually Scottish or Irish in nature. "How do you get to Aberdeen?" asks the visitor, before the local starts to laugh. "If I were trying to get to Aberdeen, I wouldn't start from here," the local replies, as the joke goes. And yet, I can't stop myself from thinking about that answer without any of the comedy. Obviously gerrymandering is bad, but the actual goal of the Democratic Party needs to be to hold the House majority and govern with a trifecta for all four years of a Biden Presidency, and if that means they have to gerrymander their states to do it, so be it. Is it ideal? Of course not. But I wouldn't start from here.

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Illinois is looking to draw out two Republicans and it looks like New York Democrats are going to be very aggressive with their map, endangering up to 5 of New York's 8 current Republican incumbents, so Democrats will be able to at least partially offset the GOP gains coming in Texas and Florida (amongst others). The GOP will probably make a few net gains with their ability to crack Nashville, Kansas City, maybe one of the two Indiana seats, but it won't be massively slanted to the GOP like 2011's redistricting was - in large part because the low hanging fruit is gone. You can't get anything new out of Alabama or Mississippi, because the only Democratic seats left are overwhelmingly Black seats designed to serve both a VRA interest and a partisan one for the GOP.

Oh, wait, I lied, because I left out California. The actual story of this redistricting cycle is what will California's "independent" redistricting commission do, because of their role in creating new maps in the most populous state. If the new maps are actually drawn in a independent, partisanly-blind manner as the law prescribes, Democrats will not find their salvation in the state. If, however, the commission - where Democrats are in the wide majority - decides to ignore that and draw a Democratic map, the GOP could lose a half dozen members in the state, which would render the GOP's much vaunted redistricting advantage moot.

The lesson from today's report out of Illinois, and the noise out of Albany, is that Democrats are willing to engage in practices that they find reprehensible to stop the GOP from maintaining power, and given that, I have no reason to believe loyal Democrats will find it within themselves to unilaterally disarm in California. Put more bluntly, anyone who suggests that the constraints on the California commissions mean that the GOP will only lose one seat - as Dave Wasserman has suggested in the past - are living in a fantasy land of their own delusion, built around the idea of ineffectual Democrats and ruthless Republicans. Is it uncomfortable to advocate for a process that is antithetical to the proper functioning of democracy? Of course, but I wouldn't start from here, and now that we are here, any Democrat who is not willing to do everything in their powers - and within the law, obviously - to defeat the fascist opposition is neither a Democrat or a democrat. Thankfully, all indications so far are suggesting that Democrats understand that fact, and there is no reasonable case as of right now that redistricting will cost Democrats the House in 2022.