Ratfucked - book reviews - (Unrigged the book)
Drawing the Line
How redistricting turned America from blue to
red.
Much of “Ratf**ked” is devoted to a Republican scheme optimistically called redmap, for Redistricting Majority Project. redmap was created in early 2010, at a point when the country’s electoral map was largely blue. In twenty-seven states, Democrats held the majority of seats in both houses of the legislature, and in six more they held a majority in one house. The Presidency, the U.S. Senate, and the House of Representatives were all in Democratic hands. To describe their own party, Republicans were using words like “wounded” and “adrift.”
And, as bad as things looked at the time, the G.O.P.’s prospects down the road looked even worse. In 2011, new census figures were due to be released, and this would trigger a round of redistricting. Republicans, Daley writes, were facing “a looming demographic disaster.”
The idea behind redmap was to hit the Democrats at their weakest point. In several state legislatures, Democratic majorities were thin. If the Republicans commissioned polls, brought in high-powered consultants, and flooded out-of-the-way districts with ads, it might be possible to flip enough seats to take charge of them. Then, when it came time to draw the new lines, the G.O.P. would be in control.
“People call us a vast right-wing conspiracy,” Karl Rove told potential donors to the project at an early fund-raiser in Dallas. “But we’re really a half-assed right-wing conspiracy. Now it’s time to get serious.”...
...Two of the most common gerrymandering techniques are “packing” and “cracking.” In the first, the party in charge of redistricting tries to “pack” voters from the rival party into as few districts as possible, to minimize the number of seats the opposition is likely to win. In the second, blocs of opposition voters are parcelled out among several districts, to achieve the same goal...
Drawing the Line How redistricting turned America from blue to
red.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/06/27/ratfcked-the-influence-of-redistricting
'Gerrymandering On Steroids': How Republicans Stacked The Nation's Statehouses
It was never a secret. In 2010, the conservative political strategist Karl Rove took to the Wall Street Journal and laid out a plan to win majorities in state legislatures across the country.
"He who controls redistricting can control Congress," read the subhead to Rove's column.
The plan, which its architects dubbed REDMAP for Redistricting Majority Project, hinged on the fact that states redraw their electoral maps every 10 years according to new Census data. REDMAP targeted states where just a few statehouse seats could shift the balance to Republican control in the crucial Census year of 2010.
That plan worked spectacularly. It's why today Republicans have a majority in nearly two-thirds of the country's state legislative chambers. And it's why in 2012 Democratic statehouse candidates won 51 percent of the vote in Pennsylvania, which voted for Barack Obama in the presidential election, yet those candidates ended up with only 28 percent of the seats in the legislature.
Here & Now's Robin Young learns how this happened from David Daley, editor-in-chief of Salon and the author of "Ratf**ked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America's Democracy."
Interview Highlights & Book Excerpt: David Daley https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2016/07/19/gerrymandering-republicans-redmap
Book Review: 'Ratf**ked, Why Your Vote Doesn't Count'
Ratfucked! A raw epithet that goes back to the 1920s. Five decades later, it became a favorite of Richard Nixon’s dirty trickster Donald Segretti. During Tricky Dick’s re-election campaign in 1972, Segretti was busy plying political pranks on behalf of a president who would resign two years later in the wake of the Watergate scandal. In service to Nixon, Segretti would “ratfuck” opponents with sleazy shenanigans. One such ploy involved Washington state’s longtime Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson.
For a period during that campaign season, Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine was a strong candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. Segretti managed to steal “Citizens for Muskie” stationary. On it was written a dissembling letter, which was then distributed, supposedly with Muskie’s endorsement. The false missive accused Sen. Jackson of siring a baby with a teenage girl. That and other difficulties forced Muskie to drop out of the race. But Segretti had demonstrated his skill at ratfucking.
The term has gotten a new lease in a book by former Salon Editor-in-Chief David Daley entitled “Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count.” Barack Obama’s victory in 2008 sent a shiver throughout the ranks of the Republican faithful. A sea change seemed about to engulf the nation’s political milieu that would relegate the GOP to an anachronism. Then a savvy Republican operative Chris Jankowski stepped to the fore and spied an opportunity.
Jankowski proved the mastermind of a contemporary version of ratfucking, commingling the old practice of gerrymandering with new technology. In many parts of the country the result has been preposterous reconfigurations of voting districts that have given advantage to Republican candidates at all levels of government, even when the majority of voters favored Democrats — a brilliant, cynical yet not illegal maneuver. According to Daley, this political environment essentially nullifies votes submitted by millions of Americans. An article in the American Prospect calls it “a major threat to representative democracy.”
Gerrymandering takes its name from the early 19th-century governor of Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry. In 1812 he legalized a redistricting scheme that on the map looked like the outline of a salamander. A cartoonist for the Boston Gazette portrayed the district as a monster dubbed the “gerrymander.”
In 2014 La Salle University political science professor Mary Ellen Balchunis ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 7th District. She memorably describes the Rorscharch-like Republican-drawn district: “I see Donald Duck kicking Goofy.” She stated further, “When I teach gerrymandering to my students, I think of the salamander. This is much worse than the salamander.”
Early in 2010, in a 5-to-4 decision, the Supreme Court decided Citizens United. It unleashed opulent players to lavish obscene amounts of political donations however they wished. Super pacs swelled with unfettered contributions, “much of it ‘dark money’ impossible to trace back to the donor.” The midterm elections that year were a disaster for Democrats.
Every 10 years after the national census many state legislatures and governors have the prerogative to redo voting districts. Prior to the 2010 midterms REDMAP — Redistricting Majority Project — was the name for the Republican State Legislative Committee’s strategy to take as many legislatures as possible. Executive director Jankowski used sophisticated technology called Maptitude, which allowed mountains of data to be finely incorporated in analyzing ethnicities, class composition and political leanings of any area. In urban settings it could provide an accurate snapshot block by block.
This was not old-fashioned guesswork, fiddling with paper maps and pens. With precise algorithmic ease a district could be “packed and cracked,” meaning that one party could be segregated into neatly demarcated and more populous enclaves — mostly Democratic — while the other party could garner votes from wider-flung, less populous districts and predictably obtain more seats — mostly Republican.
What bullshit!
This slick maneuver was not a secret. Republican operative Karl Rove wrote a piece in the March 4, 2010, Wall Street Journal announcing REDMAP, understanding whichever party controls the way districts are drawn could more easily control who gets elected. Daley states: “The assertion is so bold, yet so sensical, that one does not know whether to stand back and admire the audaciousness, indict the Democrats for gross negligence and lack of imagination, or simply howl over the undemocraticness of it all.”
About a dozen states have independent redistricting commissions, which presumably bring an element of nonpartisanship into this process. Still many aspects of electoral abuse remain in place. Organizations like FairVote — where “Ratfucked” author David Daley now works as communications director — are at work to remake the way politicians are elected and that will result in greater representation for all citizens at all levels of government. They envision forms of proportional representation through “ranked-choice voting” and “instant runoff voting” that can level the political field and yield constructive discussion on exigent matters such as climate change, national debt, housing and homelessness, civic education and citizen participation. Recently FairVote held an invigorating summit in Washington, D.C., which brought together activists from around the nation.
In another momentous development, the U.S. Supreme Court is currently deliberating the question of extreme gerrymandering and the disenfranchisement of voters. Judges are considering a formula that could ensure a more egalitarian way of drawing district lines. Justice Anthony Kennedy may be the decisive vote in this most important case. Says Daley: “It’s not hyperbole to suggest that Justice Kennedy’s vote is the last bulwark against authoritarian minority rule.” The court’s decision is expected sometime next spring. The implications will be stupendous for our nation and for the future of democracy. Pay attention.
https://www.realchangenews.org/news/2017/12/20/book-review-ratfked-why-your-vote-doesnt-count
Facilitator’s Guide.
Main Themes
1. WHY SHOULD WE FOCUS ON STATE LEGISLATURES?
- States Elections = High ROI.
- State elections “might not be the sexy elections to invest in…but..they often provided the best value. Donations that would be a mere drop in the bucket to a presidential or Senate candidate might make all the difference at the local level. And policy outcomes…could actually be influenced in state capitals — unlike in gridlocked Washington DC.” (xiv)
- In CT, Republican Linda McMahon spent $100 million on two losing Senate bids in 2010 and 2012. For less than a third, “REDMAP locked in control of half of Congress until at least 2020. (xxi)
- States legislatures in many states draw both congressional district lines as well as state legislative district lines. These districting decisions have long term consequences both within the state as well as nationally. Republicans have spent decades taking over state legislatures to be able to control redistricting and advantage their party. Democrats are tardy to the party.
2. WHY IS GERRYMANDERING PROBLEMATIC?
- Gerrymandering Dilutes Democratic Voting Power – Packing & Cracking.
- America is the only major democracy in the world that allows politicians to “pick their own voters” by drawing their own district lines. (xxvi)
- Nationwide, 1.4 million more Americans cast their votes for Democratic U.S. House candidates than Republican candidates” but because of partisan gerrymandering by Republican-controlled state legislatures, “Republicans came away with a 33-seat advantage” in the U.S. House of Representatives. (xxii)
- In 2012 in Pennsylvania: Democratic House candidates won 51% of the vote, but Democratic House candidates won only 28% of the seats. (23)
- This happens by “packing” and “cracking.” Republicans draw district lines to “pack” as many Democratic voters as possible into the smallest number of districts possible. “You want Democrats to win a small number of seats with a high percentage of the votes” and Republicans to win a large number of seats with winning but not excessive majorities. (24)
- Example: PA – in 2012, the 5 Democrats who won congressional seats won with an average of 76% of the vote; the 13 Republicans won with an average of 54%. (24)
- Example: NC – the 3 Democratic congressional districts have Cook Partisan Voting Index (PVI) scores of D+19 – 26; the 10 Republican districts have PVIs of R+8-13. (34)
- Example: MI – in 2014, the 5 Dems who won congressional seats won with an average of 69.9% of the vote; the 9 Republicans won with with avg. 57.7% (64)
- Example: OH – in 2012, Dems got more votes than GOP candidates for state house, but “Republicans commanded a 60-39 supermajority of seats, despite getting less support at the ballot box.” (86) In 2006, Republicans took 61% of the seats with just 47% of the vote. (93)
- Example: FL – in 2008, Obama carried the state but only 10 of FL’s congressional districts, while McCain won 15. (122)
- Example: WI – in 2012, Dem assembly candidates got 174,000 more votes than Republican assembly candidates, but Republicans won 60% of the seats. (139)
- In other words, you “pack” Democrats into a small number of districts, and “crack” the rest of the Democrats in the area across a number of Republican-leaning districts to dilute the power of Dems’ votes.
-
Gerrymandering Makes Federal Congress More Extreme — At Least on the
Right. State legislatures that draw gerrymandered district lines
make our federal Congress more extreme — at least on the right.
- When districts are competitive, “members of Congress pay more attention to the middle, to independents and to the other side.” (40) When districts are not competitive, there’s no incentive for congresspeople to pay attention to the middle — where most voters actually are — and instead their only concern is not being eaten alive by someone even more extreme.
- When districts are uncompetitive, “reaching out, working together, finding honest compromise — the process of governing — became the only thing that might make them vulnerable, to a primary challenge from someone calling them not partisan enough.” (47) See also: pg 96-97; 157; 209-210.
- But, importantly, this only seems true for Republicans. Certainly Republicans feel threatened by challenges from more-right wing Republicans. But when asked if Democratic congresspeople ever feel worried about challenges from even more left-leaning Democrats, the “immediate and dismissive” answer from former Dem Congressman Price is “Never.” (50)
- The result is the middle is left behind — but that’s where most Americans are. 2014 Pew Center poll on partisanship — majority of Americans want the two parties to work together and find common ground. “The majority do not have uniformly conservative or liberal views…yet many of those in the center remain on the edges of the political playing field.” (108)
- Daley: “The problem with our politics is not that all of us are more partisan, or The Big Sort. It’s that we have been sorted — ratfucked — into districts where the middle does not matter, where the contest only comes down to the most ideological and rancorous on either side. Because the Republicans drew the majority of the lines, there are more rancorous Republicans than Democrats….it’s Republicans who have become more rigid and less willing to search for common ground.” (109)
- Political scientist Theda Skocpol tracks the “Koch effect” that has pushed House Republicans to the right, particularly since 2010. How far to the right? The 2010 House “took the biggest leap to the far right in recorded quantitative measurements of the kind that political scientists use to track legislators’ positions.” (199)
-
Gerrymandering Helps Republicans Win Unearned Presidencies. Clinton won the popular vote by almost 3 million. How did
Trump win? “There is a direct line between crooked district boundaries
drawn by Republicans after 2010 and their ability to win tight
elections, dominate the states and capture the Electoral College, often
from the minority.” (225)
- Example: NC – Between 2012-2016, Republican supermajority (elected with gerrymandered maps they authored) eliminated a week of early voting, ended same day registration, eliminated pre-registration of high school students, and introduced tough voter ID laws. African American early voting fell 9%. Trump carried the state by 3%. This is how statewide gerrymandering contributed to Trump swiping an Electoral College victory. (228)
- Example: WI – in 2016, “more than 300,000 registered voters…did not have the ID required under new laws passed by the state’s GOP supermajority.” Trump won the state by just 27,000 votes. (229)
- In general, Democratic turnout drops by about 7.7% in general elections when strict voter ID laws are in place. (231)
3. HOW DID WE “GET HERE”?
-
“The Big Sort”? Are uncompetitive districts just a result of where people live?
An influential book that argued that Americans had “sorted ourselves
into increasingly homogenous and ‘ideologically inbred’ communities.”
Polarized politics and district lines weren’t the fault of
gerrymandering, but the result of Americans’ “propensity to cluster”
around likeminded people. (xxiii)
- A main theme of Daley’s book is to challenge the sufficiency of The Big Sort theory and instead offers an institutionalist account. Americans are not more polarized in their views (Pew research supports this) — it really is the gerrymandering of district lines by Republican-controlled state legislatures, powered by sophisticated map-making technology, that has caused the occurrence of uncompetitive congressional races and the partisan rancour in Congress.
- “Everybody assumes that it’s sorting, the Big Sort, and that demographics are driving this” said Chuck Todd. “But the fact of the matter is they’re not looking at the lines. Big Data has ruined American politics…. Big Data has given you the tools to not have to coalition-build. We don’t do political persuasion anymore. If you have competitive districts, you force political persuasion.” (xxv)
-
The Unholy Alliance. Did an ‘unholy alliance’ between black Southern Democrats and
Republicans contribute to the trajectory of Republican power? What blame
should the mainline Democratic party take for this?
- In the 1990s, RNC legal counsel tasked with “fixing the Republicans’ redistricting problem” (Dems had controlled the House for decades at this point.)
- The solution was to use the Voting Rights Act to create majority-minority African American seats in the South. “Work closely with minority groups to encourage candidates to run. Then pack as many Democratic voters as possible inside the lines, bleaching the surrounding districts whiter and more Republican, thus segregating congressional representation while increasing the number of African Americans in Congress.” (xvi)
- Early 80’s: Amendments to reauthorization of Voting Rights Act and Supreme Court case Thornburg v. Gingles, which mandated the opportunity for minorities to “elect representatives of their choice” in states with a pattern of racial-block voting. Lee Atwater (later chair of RNC) realized that “majority-minority seats would help make every surrounding seat more Republican.” (35)
- Ginsberg, RNC’s counsel working with Atwater, realized that white Southern Dems had dominated redistricting since the Civil War, creating underrepresentation for two groups: Republicans and minority voters. So he built an “unholy alliance” between the two groups.
- This “changed the face of the South and the Democratic Party, and set the Republicans on a course to control the House for a generation or more.” (36)
- The outcome: black Dems worked with Republicans to draw lines that benefitted them both. But Republicans ended up with the long-term advantage. African Americans increased representation by finally winning a few congressional seats created for them, while Republican seats grew “rapidly in numbers.” (36)
- They teamed up for litigation, and shared resources, including redistricting software. (36) Long-term negative effects on the ability of Democrats to win elections in the South.
-
Racial Gerrymandering. How has racial gerrymandering impacted redistricting? There are
numerous examples of Republicans explicitly drawing district lines to
pack communities of color into the smallest number of districts
possible, to minimize the impact of their votes.
- North Carolina: Bipartisan racial gerrymandering via ‘unholy alliance,’ see above. In the REDMAP era, redistricting proceeded “along two paths: one very public and the other behind closed doors.” Republican operatives drew the lines in secret to “segregate African American voters” in a few districts, concede them to Democrats, and take all the rest. (45) Litigation later revealed the rouse and found clearly that “race was the legislature’s paramount concern” when drawing the lines. (48)
- Texas: After 2010 census, state gained new Congressional seats due largely to Hispanic population growth, but Republicans created new seats that advantaged the GOP. As in Wisconsin as well, GOP created districts that “looked Hispanic but voted Republican.” (113)
- Wisconsin: Republicans “wanted to pack as many Hispanic voters as they could into Milwaukee’s districts, therefore bleaching surrounding districts whiter and more Republican.” (143) They worked behind the scenes to get “conservative Hispanic leaders to support the plans at public hearings” (144) harking back to the ‘unholy alliance’ between Republicans and black Democrats in the South.
-
Dems “Whistled Past the Graveyard” While Dems were jubilant after Obama was elected in 2008, the
party then proceeded to fall asleep at the wheel for anything lower
ballot. By 2014, GOP controlled 32 of 50 governorships (+10 since 2009);
33 of 49 state Houses and 35 of 49 state senates (x2 since 2009). Dems
had lost 816 state leg seats than before Obama took office. (98)
- Party should have been thinking about redistricting in 2008, but they just weren’t. They “used Obama’s landslide…to run up a hue majority in Congress. Democrats neglected the states. The party planned for nothing. Redistricting…never seemed to cross the mind of the Dem leadership or strategists.” Steve Israel, former chair of DCCC, calls this “a catastrophic strategic mistake.” (102)
- Israel: “The Republicans have always been better than the Democrats at playing the long game. And they played the long game in two fundamental ways. Number one, on the judicial side…The second long game was on redistricting.” (103)
- Israel argues that districting is too obscure to be of interest to the public. (104)
- Martin Frost & John Tanner were Congressmen who tried to keep redistricting on the public and party agenda, but were largely unable to.
- Three times, Tanner proposed legislation requiring bipartisan redistricting commissions. He couldn’t even get a hearing — even when Dems controlled Congress. (107)
- Frost: “What was going on in the House was not a priority for the DNC. The DNC was a presidential committee. The RNC saw things differently. They financed what Ginsburg did. Democrats never really understood this.” (116)
-
The Obama Factor. Daley makes the argument that some (not all) of this mess
properly lies at the foot of President Obama. It was his DNC that was
asleep at the wheel (and, although Daley doesn’t discuss it, his DNC
that underfed state Democratic parties and left the DNC in crippling
debt. See: Donna Brazile). (244)
- Obama had the message backward, when he suggested the solution to gridlock in DC was to make it hard for Republicans to win elections. But that was backwards: it’s the Republican mapmakers who have made it hard for the voters to affect elections. (202)
- The Obama years ended “with the Democratic party hollowed out nationwide.” Dems lost 919 state legislative seats under Obama’s presidency, and turned over 27 of the state chambers they held in 2008. (243) This didn’t happen because voters didn’t like Obama’s policies – it happened because of Republican gerrymandering.
- Obama speaks eloquently but obliquely. He’s started the NDRC with Eric Holder to tackle gerrymandering, but he’s not direct enough. If he’s going to capture the public’s attention and lead, he’s going to need to bring the fire. “If they can’t get angry about this, maybe they’re too bloodless to lead the fight.” (251)
- The Media Gets it Wrong. Daley argues that the political press has done a terrible job of covering gerrymandering, districting, and the true causes for our partisan strife. In 2016, “the elite political press might have been the only people who actually believed the House was in play and that electoral competition was alive and well.” (236) This shapes the national narrative in important ways, and has hindered general knowledge of the challenges we face.
-
REDMAP. And then of course, there’s REDMAP. Chris Jankowski –
Republican strategist at RSLC (Republican State Leadership Committee)
who helped orchestrate 2010 Republican strategy REDMAP (Redistricting
Majority Project) to take over state legislatures and thus control
redistricting in important states across the country.
- Elections in “zero years” matter more than most, because per the Constitution, every state redraws its district lines every ten years, after the Census. (xiv)
- Karl Rove: “These are state legislative races that will determine who redraws congressional district lines after this year’s census, a process that could determine which party controls upwards of 20 [congressional] seats and whether many other seats will be competitive.” (xvii)
- Jankowski raised $30 million for REDMAP in 2010, compared to $10 million invested in state legislative races by DLCC (5). Republicans won ~700 seats.
- Jankowski: “We weren’t selling access anymore. We were selling an outcome and an impact on the political system.” (6)
- The RSLC was actually inspired by its Democratic counterpart, the DLCC. Jankowski was impressed with the idea behind the DLCC, and decided the GOP needed one. DLCC was a small scale effort compared to what Jankowski wanted the RSLC to be.
- It worked. In 2010 REDMAP delivered an “avalanche of campaign cash” to Republicans running for state seats all over the country. Democrats were caught by surprise.
- But it didn’t end there — RSLC needed to ensure that its newly elected majorities stayed in power. So they retained “seasoned redistricting experts” made available “at no cost” to Republican-controlled state legislatures to provide “technical advice… when crafting new legislative and Congressional boundaries.” (43)
4. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
-
Independent Commissions. Some states have established nonpartisan commissions.
- Iowa is the “redistricting unicorn” – its nonpartisan Legislative Service Agency draws the state’s legislative and congressional lines. The Agency is trusted by the legislature. It seems to work: Since 2000, “Iowa has had more competitive congressional races than Texas, California and Florida combined, despite having a fraction of the number of seats.” (149) They use Maptitude, but don’t load in any political data. But they can do this because the state is over 90% white. It’s almost entirely homogeneous, so the need to ensure minority representation is essentially irrelevant. This makes the process more straightforward than in more diverse states.
- Arizona passed a ballot initiative to take district line-making out of the legislature’s hands, and established the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. The state had, as Ruth Bader Ginsburg later noted, a “background of recurring redistricting turmoil” in part due to long bias against Hispanic voters and Native Americans. (164) Voters backed the initiative 56%; the 5 person Commission would include 2 Dems, 2 Repubs, and an independent Chair. But the Commission became infected by partisanship and closed-door maneuvering, and in the end the district lines didn’t end up super competitive. (172)
-
Ballot Initiatives and Constitutional Amendments.
- In 2010, Florida voters passed two constitutional amendments (‘Fair Districts’) with 63% of the vote and significant bipartisan support. (120)
- In 2015, Ohio voters approved (with 71% of the vote) a ballot initiative to expand the state’s apportionment board and give the minority party a larger role in the process of drawing state legislative districts. (193)
- In 2016, Maine voters approved a ballot initiative to change winner-takes-all elections to a ranked-choice/instant runoff system for state and congressional races. (194)
- Multi-Pronged Solutions. We need electoral AND non-electoral strategies to increase voter participation. The Republicans have long understood this. Some of their non-electoral strategies include creating a separate media and news ecosystem, as well as pushing increasingly restrictive voting laws (e.g. cutbacks in early voting, more complicated voter registration processes, closing polling stations). (213)
-
Daley’s Theory to Detect and Destroy Ratf**king.
- 1) Dems need to win a ‘seat at the table’ for redistricting in 2020, and then offer a permanent gerrymandering disarmament plan. E.g., Dems could propose a national, nonpartisan redistricting plan that kicked in after a ‘critical number’ of states passed it. (217)
- 2) Independent commissions, whether partisan or non-partisan, are not a panacea. The devil’s in the details.
- 3) Redistricting reform IS politically popular, no matter how much politicos howl about how it’s not. When they hit the ballot, as they have in CA, AZ, FL, and OH, they win with double digit, bipartisan support margins. (218)
- 4) Courts have a valuable role to play. Courts can and do recognize and remedy racial gerrymandering, and they could do the same for partisan ones (maybe with the efficiency gap argument).
- 5) Voters need to get angry and turn out — including at midterms. “Fair representation is a civil rights issue and a democratic rights issue.” (219)
-
Republicans are Ready. Unlike REDMAP, which caught Dems by surprise, the GOP is ready
for Dems to try to run the same play. As of 2015, RSLC had committed
$125 million to a three-cycle REDMAP 2020 plan. That’s twice what Dems
hope to raise (119).
- Dems can’t just fight last year’s war. There’s some hope that the DLCC may be better funded and that Dems understand they can’t just copy REDMAP.
- We need to focus on states, not on the House. We should also focus on the 5 governor’s races in 2018 where those officials will have veto rights over new maps. “While new progressive groups like Swing Left imagine riding anti-Trump energy to a blue House in 2018, that’s not the most likely path.” (255)
- Note too that gains Dems made in 2017 often came in places where new maps had been drawn recently (Florida and Virginia). Dems “didn’t flip these seats; they won with fair maps.” (258) Dems shouldn’t mistake these wins as an indication of their broader ability to win under gerrymandered maps.
- On the Republican side, their focus in sustaining REDMAP is on nominating the right Republicans rather than defeating Democrats. (265) They’re aware of the problem they’ve created with extreme Republicans. Whether they actually have a plan to combat that is yet to be seen…
- And of course, they’re still focused on the states. Jankowski: “Our definition of a wave election doesn’t have anything to do with congressional seats. It has to do with net gain and control of state legislatures.” (271)
Sister District Book Club Reader's Guide
https://sisterdistrict.com/book-club/ratfked-readers-guide
Review & Summary
Introduction
The 2008 election was a big turning point. Obama won big, and “down-ballot” Democrats won big with him. The Republicans lost, and the Republican Party was lost. What to do? Devise a plan and take back control. Redraw the maps to maintain control. In short, ratfuck the Democrats. We’re only few pages into the introduction when the author contradicts his own subtitle. This wasn’t a secret plan.
It’s legal, it’s breathtaking, and much of it happened in plain sight.
The plan was developed by Chris Jankowski and presented to Republican Party interest groups. The Redistricting Majority Project, cleverly shortened to REDMAP, was on. And it was hardly a secret. Karl Rove himself announced it in the Wall Street Journal. The GOP Targets State Legislatures: He who controls redistricting can control Congress. Seriously, go read the article. It’s shorter even than a summary of the book, but lays it all out.
The problem the Democrats were facing, and that the Republicans hoped to capitalize on, is that the critical census year midterm would not go well for team blue.
Presidents almost always lose seats in a midterm election. Democratic turnout always falls in non-presidential years.
The plan worked. Worked outrageously well, in fact. Republicans in some states control supermajorities of representatives despite collecting less than 50% of the total vote. Of course, there are excuses made, that this is the natural result of demographics. That Democrats have sorted themselves into cities. Ratfucked is a rebuttal of sorts to this line of thinking, laid out in articles such as the Times Upshort column Why Democrats Can’t Win the House. (Having read the Times column, though, it doesn’t exactly deny gerrymandering. In fact, it even calls out the fact that the lines have been fixed.) At least everybody seems to agree that it’s hard to win Congress seats with “wasted” votes.
Part of the problem is the evaporation of independent voters. Voters are more reliably partisan, which makes gerrymandering more effective as well. “If everybody votes reliably Republican or reliably Democratic, then districting becomes everything. How you put the lines together is all that matters.” It’s noted that in California and Illinois, the opposite takes place: Democrats draw the lines to their own benefit. It’s not simply a matter of Republicans being corrupt. Whoever has power is corrupt. How surprising.
The simple truth is this: America is the only major democracy in the world that allows politicians to pick their own voters.
Mastermind
The man behind the plan is Chris Jankowski. He got his start as an insurance lobbyist, which provides him with a perspective that others don’t have. Insurance regulation is almost entirely done at the state level. In the wake of the record setting settlement with tobacco companies and another (eventually overturned) $4 million settlement against BMW for selling a repainted car as new, tort reform bubbled up to a priority issue for the insurance industry. “Many states, facing budget deficits and an antipathy to tax increases, used the tobacco money to expand new programs, and corporations naturally feared that they’d be targeted again.” Fighting battles at the local level, Jankowski learned an important lesson. A little money goes a long way. It’s possible to win hundreds of state representative races for less than the cost of a Presidential election.
Operation REDMAP would turn those small wins into big wins. Essentially, Jankowski went around to the big donors, laid out his plan, and explained how he could practically guarantee results. 2010 was a very bad year to be a Democrat. Obama may have won the Nobel Peace Prize for being not Bush, but what else had been accomplished? “Death panels.” The key was to find vulnerable districts and voter sensitive issues.
In Pennsylvania, they picked 20 out of the 203 state districts. One of them was the home of the popular Finance Committee chairman, David Levdansky. But there was somebody in Pennsylvania who wasn’t very popular anymore: Arlen Specter. Specter was a five term senator who also served on the Warren Commission and grilled Anita Hill. He’s actually fairly moderate, and so was expected to lose the 2010 primary and switched parties, hoping to win as a Democrat. That didn’t work. Nobody likes a turn coat. Meanwhile, Levdanksy had voted for a budget which included an Arlen Specter library. In a tough economy, people don’t like to see their tax dollars being spent to honor losers.
As Jankowski says, “Low Democrat turnout and the right wave and you just wipe those people out. Redraw the districts. Boom. So. Arlen Specter library. Done. Everything is context, but you’ve got it.”
Pennsylvania
Coming in to the 2010 election, Democrats held a slim margin the state house, 102 to 101. Republicans controlled the state senate and would likely win the governorship. After the census, it was likely that a US Congress seat would be lost, requiring a complete redraw of the map. The stakes are very high.
Jankowski wasn’t immediately certain how to defeat Levdanksy. He was popular in his home district. But backed by donor money, Jankowski was able to conduct poll after poll searching for the one issue that would crack the race open. The fucking Arlen Specter library. A relentless barrage of negative advertising featuring almost daily mailers in the weeks leading up to the election painted Levdanksy as an irresponsible spendthrift. His campaign was completely unprepared for the attack and had no response. The ads relied a lot on innuendo and untruths. Dirty campaigning as usual, except perhaps for the scope. In the end, Levdansky lost his seat by 151 votes, 10761 to 10610.
Once the Republicans had control of all state legislature, they could redraw the lines to ensure everlasting success. Look at the results by year. In 2008, aided by Obama, the US Congress delegation was 12-7 Democrats. In the 2010 midterm, Republicans reversed it to 12-7 red team. But in 2012, despite Obama drawing out the blue voters again, Republicans extended their lead to 13-5. (One seat lost in reapportionment.) How? By controlling the districts.
You can even create 12 of 18 districts that are more Republican than the country as a whole in a state that would naturally lean blue. That’s how powerful the lines can be.
North Carolina
The big story in North Carolina is the role of race. This chapter introduces us to the Voting Rights Act. According to the VRA and the 1986 Supreme Court case Thornburg v. Gingles, minority voters are entitled to a representative of their choice. In short, the congressional delegation should look like the people.
In many Southern states long represented by white Democrats, this led to a Faustian bargain devised by Lee Atwater and Ben Ginsberg. Up until this point, white Democrats controlled redistricting, leaving Republicans and minorities underrepresented. The “unholy alliance” would redraw the lines to pack blacks together in urban “majority-minority” districts. Meanwhile the rural districts get whiter and drift right.
Relevant Washington Post article: GOP Will Aid Civil Rights Groups in Redistricting.
The results are amazing. Nationwide, in the first election after the 1990 census, in 1992, 13 new black representatives were elected, the largest black caucus in a century. At the same time, 12 white Democrats lost. In 1994, another 16 Democrats were defeated, and Republicans took control of the house. Hello Mr. Speaker Newt Gingrich.
This process was even overseen by the Justice Department. While North Carolina could have benefited from a single majority-minority district, the Republicans proposed two. By sacrificing one more seat total, they guaranteed that none of the other seats would be competitive. And this was perfectly fine with Justice. As they explained, “We were not concerned about the political ramifications. If it helped Republicans, so be it. Our job was to help blacks and Latinos get elected.” And so the Republican plan was approved.
Bringing us to 2010, it was time to draw the map again. This time a special consultant was brought in, Tom Hofeller. He was profiled in an Atlantic article, The League of Dangerous Mapmakers. (Another article that serves as a short form of the book here.) There’s a surprising amount of OPSEC involved in making maps that will eventually be a part of the public record. Some advice: “Emails are the tools of the devil.”
In 2010, the plan was to dial up the number of black districts from two to three, further strengthening the lock on the remainder. The trick was to make it look fair. The maps were drawn according to voter registration records. They looked competitive. But the map makers knew that the maps were also drawn to optimize results based on actual voter turnout. “The Republicans knew from their statistical analysis, of course, that the registration advantage was not a statistic which affected the actual performance of the district.”
Results: Even after the bad 2010 election, Democrats controlled 7 of 13 seats. In 2012, Republicans won 9 of 13. In the 3 minority districts, Democrats won with greater than 70 percent of the vote.
Maptitude
What’s the magic technology that makes all this possible? It’s a program called Maptitude, which is demonstrated by William Desmond. He does this on his desktop, not the twice subpoenaed and imaged laptop he used for the Arizona redistricting. The software itself is just a tool, but it allows the import of a vast array of demographic data that’s accurate down to voting blocks of only a few people. (Desmond worked for a consulting company, and we’ll get to Arizona in a few chapters, but he got his start working for the Obama campaign in 2008, developing targeted marketing. He’s not one of the Republican map fixers.) Daley (the author) requests to cook up a rigged map.
Before I can ask how much time something so complicated and intrusive would take, Desmond has the overlay complete. One more click and he can shade the partisan strength block by block in any color of his choosing.
Technology has enabled the map makers to draw lines with a precision and accuracy previously unimaginable. And as we move into the future, it will get worse, not better. Predictive models allow a kind of political Moneyball. Make an apparent compromise today in expectation of population change. “You would build districts that the other side could tolerate now, because they don’t know what you know about what it’s going to look like in the future.”
Michigan
We take a tour of Michigan’s 14th district. It stretches 31 miles in an effort to connect neighborhoods in Pontiac and Detroit. Daley drives along the entirety of the district, from southern tip to northern end, at a garbage dump of all places. Along the way we pass derelict parks and stadiums and a coffee shop under 24 hour protection, but carefully dodge around The Gap and California Pizza Kitchen.
Unfortunately, while there are a few maps, the book has very few pictures, so it’s difficult to really appreciate the described contrast. I would have loved to see the expensive homes lying just across the border. The man who drew the lines in Michigan is Jeff Timmer. As his maps are described to him, he defends them as quirks of geography. And of course, the Voting Rights Act made him do it. Nothing partisan about it.
Ohio
Remarkable fact: in 2012, the total vote count for Democrats exceeded that of Republicans, but Republicans won an overwhelming 60-39 supermajority in the state house. The US Congressional races fared similarly, turning 52 percent of the vote into 75 percent of the delegation.
Again the map makers worked in secret, operating out of a rented hotel room known as the Bunker. They based their maps off a partisan index that predicted how voters in each proposed district would respond, creating 11 red districts with a safe R+5 to R+11 while sacrificing four blue districts that were packed from D+12 all the way to D+29.
Before the maps were approved, the apportionment board travels the state and talks to the citizens. However, as the one Democrat on the board explains, “But we didn’t have the maps! We went on the road and we didn’t have anything to show. So we didn’t get very good attendance, and they use that as proof that people don’t care.” (Spoiler: people really do care.)
Ohio provides us with our first cautionary tale, that the Republicans may have gone too far and accidentally ratfucked themselves. The guaranteed results in general elections means that many candidates’ only true challenge is the primary. Former Speaker of the House John Boehner was forced to resign as the ultraconservatives rejected any and all compromise. Safer seats lead to more conservative members lead to deeper frustration.
Unintended consequence of the decade: “Ohio’s ratfuck was so complete that even its master designers couldn’t pull it back or control its extremes.”
Democrats
The Democrats who jubilantly celebreated victory in Grant Park on election night 2008 believed that the evolving face of America would make the party’s ascent inevitable. ... There’s no demographic advantage big enough to conquer the level of apathy Democratic voters have felt in nonpresidential election years since 2006.
This chapter started off mostly lamenting that team red is winning and team blue thinks they should be winning instead. But then come some uncomfortable truths.
The one man who might have changed things, Democratic congressman John Tanner, didn’t make many friends, even in his own party, with his plan to establish national standards for bipartisan redrawing. “They have deals. ‘Don’t come around here fucking with the maps. I won’t fool with your map if you don’t fool with mine.’” The implication is that no matter how unfair the lines are to the people, there’s always a silver lining for those in power. Who doesn’t like a 70% approval rating?
The Democratic party is losing moderates now too. That special breed of Democrat who likes god and guns, the Blue Dog, is extinct. There’s a complaint here about the coastal elites, who serve as the party’s leadership. Nancy Pelosi does not come from a competitive district. In fact, none of the districts in California are competitive, where incumbents are reelected very nearly 100% of the time with wide margins.
Looking to the future, the Democrats have a plan: Advantage 2020. They’re going to spend a lot of money on down ballot local elections, take control of the states, and fix the maps. It’s only cheating when the other team does it.
Florida
Did you know Florida is crazy? Florida is crazy. Nevertheless, in 2010, they passed a referendum (by 63 percent) demanding Fair Districts. The state legislature would still draw the maps, but they had to play nice. How did that work out?
In 2014, Judge Terry Lewis ruled that Republican consultants conspired to manipulate the redistricting. But according to the operatives involved, the judge ruled based on irrelevant circumstantial evidence. “In his fanciful writing he muses as evidence meetings that happened before there was even census data or a redistricting mapping program. What impact could those have had?” Indeed, if they couldn’t discuss the inputs to the process, what was left to talk about? The desired output?
Who rigged the process? What’s the evidence? At one point, a college Republican, Alex, attended an open hall meeting and spoke for about 60 seconds. Later a public map submission came from what was apparently his email address. Six of those districts appeared exactly as drawn in the final map approved by the legislature. The map submitted by Alex also coincidentally exactly matched a map that happened to be drawn by master mapmaker consultant Frank Terraferma, but Frank has no idea how Alex obtained his maps. After all, Frank had no intention of submitting his maps. He only drew them for fun.
Another mapmaker, Pat Bainter, would also say “that their efforts were just for fun, but they were also very highly paid, very active, very obsessed, and very secretive.” Curiously, Bainter is the same man who in a deposition would claim, “I found it very interesting, I never actually completed a map. I found it way too tedious.” but previously sent a secret email justifying population variance up to 5 percent by “preventing retroregression” in minority districts. A small detail for someone who finds mapmaking tedious.
More maps were submitted under other aliases. A secret cabal of mapmakers drew up the maps they liked, then submitted them either via proxies or just using the names of proxies (patsies). All of this came to light after a court challenge. Curiously, at trial, the Republicans developed amnesia. “The fact that they’re on my computer doesn’t tell me how they got there.”
Wisconsin
By now the book has fallen into a bit of a pattern. The Republicans won big, then redrew the map in secret. The short chapter doesn’t contribute much except to note that state legislators shown preview copies of the map in progress were explicitly warned about the charade and reassured that their seats were safe. “Public comments on this map may be different than what you hear in this room. Ignore the public comments.”
And then they did something really tricky. They projected low Hispanic voter turnout over the next decade. Thus, in order to create the VRA mandated majority-minority district, they would need to pack even more Hispanics from surrounding areas into a single district.
Iowa
At long last, we arrive at the promised land. The one state that does things right. The unicorn. Iowa’s districts are drawn by a nonpartisan agency, and everyone is seemingly happy with the results. No packing and cracking here. The whole process is pure as the driven snow. Of course, it helps that Iowa is also as white as the snow. The role of race, and the effect it has on gerrymandering, cannot be overlooked.
Curious fact about Iowa: it’s the eye of the gerrymandering storm. The chair of the Republican State Leadership Council, which funded REDMAP, Kraig Paulsen, is the Speaker of Iowa House. The chair of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, Mike Gronstal, is the Majority Leader of the Iowa Senate. The two people in charge of taking control of state legislatures and consequently fucking with the maps both come from the one unfuckable state.
Politicians, generally speaking, find that if there’s more competition, then they’re more likely to work with one another.
Arizona
At the opposite end of the spectrum is Arizona. In theory, districts are drawn by an independent committee (Two Democratic appointees, two Republican, one independent chair). In practice, the commission chair, Colleen Mathis, was in for a world of hurt.
She would also learn just how few people in Arizona were truly postpartisan. She would be impeached on a party line vote by Arizona’s Republican-led senate and removed from office for ‘gross misconduct in office’ and substantial neglect of duty.’ (The state Supreme Court reinstated her, unanimously, less than three hours later.)
The fight started when Mathis wanted to select nonpartisan legal counsel to advise the commission. She wanted one firm. The Democrats wanted a different firm. The Republicans wanted another different firm. “They’re stonewalling,” cried the Republicans. The dispute is captured in the Times’s article Arizona Redistricting Panel Is Under Attack, Even Before Its Work Is Done.
The good news was that when the map was finally made, for the first time in 30 years, the Justice Department approved an Arizona map on the first try. Election results in subsequent elections were close, with a 5-4 Congressional delegation edge decided by 161 votes in a close district.
But then the good news dries up. We look closer and see that Republicans were the victim of packing, winning by margins up to 51 percent. It doesn’t help that after winning, senior Democrats were a little too eager to discuss the result, saying, “The maps performed like they were designed.” Supposedly independent commissions change the battleground, not the battle.
In 2000, a state Democratic leader with national ambitions appointed a lackey to the commission with a single priority. Sell out the rest of the state, but guarantee his patron a winnable. Combined with the two Republican appointees, and that was the 3 votes necessary to get it done.
Theorem
Now we leave the realm of what happened and enter the realm of what to do.
Sam Wang is an election predictor. In 2012, he got the Presidential election just right, but failed at the state level. Or rather, he correctly predicted the total vote, but failed to account for the REDMAP lines. “Wang had gotten the numbers right but the politics wrong.”
Gerrymandering regularly arrives in state and US Supreme Courts, with mixed results. Judges are reluctant to overturn maps without clear evidence of tampering. Maybe the lines of a district look funny, but as noted, the mapmakers usually have plausible deniability on their side. The VRA made them do it. It’s really for the best. And so on. What’s needed is a standard that evaluates election results across a state to detect malfeasance. Wang is on the case.
Lawrence Lessig is another crusader, who started fighting for campaign finance reform but has added gerrymandering to his platform. “Why don’t we try a representative democracy? For 230 years we have not had it. Let’s just try it for once.”
A solution to gerrymandering is unlikely to come from either of the two parties.
The good news is that the people care. In states that support the referendum, citizens have voted 60 or even 70 percent in favor of redistricting reform. Making the reforms work is a struggle, as in Florida and Arizona, but it’s a start. Maine, crazy independent state that it is, may experiment with instant runoff voting.
One solution, championed by FairVote, is multi member districts and ranked choice voting. As opposed to the binary red or blue choice offered today, in a three member district voters could mix and match whichever three offered the best compromise.
Or the doomsday scenario. “Clinton loses. Republicans and their appointees control all three branches.” Then apparently we hope they fuck things up so bad even their base turns on them and demands a new electoral system.
Coda
Moving beyond the 2010 election, the new maps, and the 2012 election, what has the REDMAP project wrought? Too much conservatism, even for conservatives. The ratfuck has backfired. “With a 247-188 GOP majority, Boehner held the largest Republican House advantage since 1947. Yet he could no longer command it.” Boehner was forced to contend with a motion to vacate the chair brought by Mark Meadows, a fairly new representative from North Carolina. In 2010, his district was represented by Heath Schuler, one of the last of the Blue Dog Democrats. After 2011, however, the Democratic core of 11th district was cracked, creating a new conservative stronghold. Too conservative even for the conservative leadership, as it elected a representative who would brook no compromise.
Even as Republicans gain power, citizens are less pleased with their governance. In Michigan, state House votes tilted 54.7 Democrat to 45.3 Republican, but Republicans managed a 59-51 majority with which they passed an emergency manager law. It was repealed in a referendum, but the state legislature reenacted weeks later. The will of the people on this issue was explicit, yet their representatives disregarded it. (Ultimately resulting in the Flint tainted water disaster.)
The Democratic plan calls to run the blue counterpart to REDMAP in 2020. We can’t rely on that, however. When Democrats are in power, as in Illinois, the maps are just as twisted. In California, an independent commission was opposed by the incumbents. “Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats and Democratic-aligned groups spent millions trying to defeat the initiative. Nevertheless, it passed with more than 61 percent support.” How fixed was California before that? Over the course of 500 state elections, only a single incumbent lost. One. Out of 500. In 2012 alone, 14 Congressmen lost or bowed out of unwinnable contents. Quite a change.
Of course, even in California they tried to pull a Florida. “Democrats met behind closed doors at the party’s Washington, DC, headquarters, hired consultants, drew their ideal districts and presented maps to the panel through proxies who never disclosed their party ties or ‘public interest’ groups created specifically for the purpose.” ProPublica has a lengthy report that could easily have been an entire chapter: How Democrats Fooled California’s Redistricting Commission.
One final point. Democrats needs to vote in midterm elections. Republicans pulled off REDMAP because blue voters sat it out in 2010. In off years, they focus on party building and laying the groundwork for future wins. “Democrats, in contrast, yearn for a charsimatic hero every four years, have ignored the hard work of party building.”
Unrigged: How Americans are Battling Back to Save Democracy
by David Daley
An uplifting story of how grassroots political movements around the nation are forcing significant changes in how our government operates.
Former Salon editor Daley wrote his first book, Ratf**ked (2016), to show how Republicans in many states have used gerrymandering and voting manipulation to guarantee total control of many levels of government for years, even decades, into the future. Guided by powerful new algorithms, they made it virtually impossible for Democrats to defeat them.
In his latest book, however, the author offers a much more hopeful outlook, writing about nonpoliticians who have started a powerful new political movement that is catching on across America and is showing every sign of accelerating.
One story tells of a 27-year-old woman, an employee in a recycling nonprofit, who wrote on Facebook that she wanted to “take on gerrymandering in Michigan” and asked if anyone was interested. Ultimately, she was able to get portions of Michigan’s constitution rewritten.
Similar movements soon followed in Colorado, Utah, Ohio, and Missouri, all of which faced powerful opposition, and all of which won.
Then, as it became clear that 25 other states had passed laws designed to make it harder for Democrats to win elections—and more difficult for people of color to vote—citizens in those states joined the fight.
They won battles dealing not only with gerrymandering, but also with such issues as voter ID laws, precinct closures, voting roll purges, voting rights for released felons, and more. As Daley clearly shows throughout this inspiring text, it was always “ordinary” citizens who led the way, often people who had never participated in politics. They took to the streets, circulated petitions, ran for office, and launched or joined organizations, and they did it while facing overwhelming odds and severe opposition from elected officials. But they never gave up, and they almost always won.
A book for anyone who wants to effect major change but thinks they can’t.
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/david-daley/unrigged/
Unrigged is largely a photograph of the national movement that his
previous book helped spawn, and suggests the possibility of a nationwide
grassroots voter rebellion.
— Skip Johnson, Charleston Post Courier
[A]n uplifting survey of grassroots efforts to make American democracy more
inclusive. . . . Daley’s wit (the offices of the Election Protection hotline
are filled with “enough Starbucks cups to caffeinate The Walking Dead”) and
clear explanations of the electoral process make the book accessible to
political neophytes as well as experts. This optimistic appraisal of the
political scene will strike a chord with progressives gearing up for the
2020 elections.
— Publishers Weekly
David Daley's work has fired up a generation of activists who are fighting
to un-fuck it all up before time runs out. He is a must-read writer for this
critical moment.
— Amanda Litman, Run For Something co-founder and executive director
https://www.odysseybks.com/book/9781631498725
Review: 'Unrigged' shows how grassroots efforts can improve voter access and democracy
David Daley’s first book, the 2016 nationwide best-selling “Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count,” exposed how Republican operatives weaponized gerrymandering across the nation in 2000 to entrench GOP power in state and federal elections, even when the party earned far fewer votes than the Democrats.
His newest effort, “Unrigged,” is largely a photograph of the national movement that his previous book helped spawn, and suggests the possibility of a nationwide grassroots voter rebellion.
Daley researched his book by crisscrossing the nation to meet grassroots organizers, attend their meetings, and accompany them as they went door-to-door and town-to-town seeking signatures for petitions. He tells the story by focusing on a few individual how-could-it-happen-here personal accounts, which, when taken together, paint a portrait of what has become a vibrant national movement.
For example, Daley tells the story of Katie Fahey, a 27-year-old who worked at a Michigan recycling nonprofit. After the 2016 elections, Fahey became so incensed over the results of gerrymandering in her state, the most gerrymandered state in the nation, that she wrote on her Facebook page, “I’d like to take on gerrymandering in Michigan. If you’re interested in doing this as well, please let me know.”
The result? More than 4,000 volunteers collected more than 400,000 signatures, raised almost $15 million, and forced the state government, which strongly opposed them, to end gerrymandering, according to Daley.
As the understanding spread that Republicans in 25 states had used gerrymandering and other tools to make it difficult, even impossible, for Democrats to win elections, and to make it hard for black people and other likely Democrats to vote, ordinary citizens all across America began to rebel. The movement was led mostly by Democrats, but a large number of Republicans who also felt every American should have equal access to the ballot joined them.
Grassroots movements in Colorado, Utah, Ohio and Missouri forced their states’ governments to rewrite their laws to ensure that everyone had an equal chance to vote. Voters in other states took on such issues as voter ID laws, precinct closures, putting precincts in places hard to reach by people likely to vote Democratic, restoring voting rights for released felons, and more.
These initiatives all were led by ordinary citizens, many of whom had no experience with government. They took on overwhelming opposition, including decidedly unfriendly legislators and their deep-pocketed backers. But no matter how powerful the opposition, no matter how politically connected or financially strong their opponents were, the activists refused to quit. They spoke truth to power.
And, they won.
'Unrigged': New Book Explores Efforts To Counter Gerrymandering
STEVE GOLDSTEIN: Redistricting will be coming to Arizona and the rest of the U.S. following the results of the 2020 census. For decades, there've been concerns about the drawing of districts that have benefited one party and in some cases have not given voters much of a choice. David Daley wrote about that and gerrymandering in his book, "Ratf***ed." He's returned with a different, more upbeat tone in his latest "Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy." This one focuses on efforts to counter gerrymandering. And some of those efforts were started by a single person who was able to get things done. David, did your reporting make you conclude that what really gets people pumped up is when they're fearful or nervous or feel the system is working against them?
DAVID DALEY: I think that's right. You had five states in 2018 that enacted some version of redistricting reform. It's Michigan, Ohio, Colorado, Missouri and Utah. So these are, are red states. They're purple states. They're bluish states. And it wins all around the country, with the exception of Utah where it's super close, all of the other margins are like 60 — above 70% of the vote. This is something that really galvanizes voters, but it also unites voters — Democrats, Republicans, Independents. You don't pass anything in Missouri at, you know, 63% of the vote unless if everybody is coming along with you. And I think that what unites Americans on this is this idea that gerrymandering is cheating, and we don't like cheating, you know, not in baseball with the Houston Astros and not in our politics. People want a fair playing field. And reformers, regular people, went out around the country in 2017, 2018, and they made their states better.
GOLDSTEIN: One name that came to mind, and you devote a chapter for sure about Kris Kobach, who here in Arizona we knew a lot about because of his association with Russell Pearce, our former Senate president, involving SB 1070, etc. And he was also involved with the president when it came to the Presidential Commission on Election Integrity. What did, what happened in Maine, the effort against Kobach and what was... I wonder if he'll be the ironically named commissioner of integrity.
DALEY: Kobach is appointed by the president after the 2016 election, along with Vice President Pence, to do a committee on electoral integrity. And a lot of people thought that this was going to be his attempt to do a national voter I.D. bill and also to sort of nationalize the idea of purging voter rolls if, if names don't match up perfectly across all of your different government documents. So if you have a different middle initial or if your name is spelled wrong and one document, you could find that your registration is, is just struck. And the secretary of state in Maine is a Democrat. His name is Matthew Dunlap and he's appointed to this commission. He sort of systematically holds Kobach accountable. And every step of the way, Kobach and his cohorts are sort of behind the scenes trying to jam all of this kind of falsified and sort of mythic data into the system without actually making it public. They're trying to essentially have a fix on this commission. And Dunlap essentially files a lawsuit that shuts the entire thing down.
GOLDSTEIN: Other than a desire to make change, were there other things that some of the people you profiled really had in common, whether it was belief in the system, whether it was the fact that they were fed up? Were there certain qualities that they all seem to have?
DALEY: Yeah, you know, I think the system stopped working for people in a lot of ways. Politics as usual wasn't making change possible. We talk about, you know, how on all of these issues there's a lot more agreement than our political system allows to have bubble up. What was so remarkable is... It's not that citizens get up in the morning and they say, "I want to start a petition drive and bring change to my state." It's that they realize there's no way to bring change to their state unless if they do something remarkable. Right now in this country, there's 59 million Americans who live in a state in which one or both chambers of the state legislature is controlled by the party that won fewer votes in 2018. That's one in five of us almost. Which is really a stunning number. So in a lot of these states, politics simply isn't responsive to people. And whether it was Luke Mayville up in, in Idaho with a movement that expanded Medicaid and health care for the 70,000 folks there who sort of fell in between the gap of the state exchange and Obamacare, or whether it was Desmond Meade in Florida who wins this amazing constitutional amendment there with 64% of the vote that expands voting rights to a 1.4 million former felons who had served their time, paid their debt, deserved their right to vote back, or whether it's redistricting. All of these people felt like they had to get involved and, and almost go to war with their own representatives because the system was so broken that it was no longer working for them.
GOLDSTEIN: You wrote about some Native American efforts, and we obviously know how Native Americans felt disenfranchised for good reason in this country.
DALEY: One of the most powerful trips I went on was to San Juan County, which of course borders Arizona. And I'm out on the East Coast, so driving around San Juan County, you know, it's the, it's the size of the state of New Jersey. And there are three post offices down there. And one of the amazing things you see is how these three white towns up in the northern part of the county had sort of gerrymandered the county commission in such a way as to ensure that they always held two of the three seats. And there were always various schemes, whether it was gerrymandering these districts or they're using vote-by-mail in such a way as to make it harder for the Navajo to vote. And what I went down there and saw was just inspiring. You had lawyers and activists and Navajo Nation members who for years fought back and won, finally, a court order that required fair districting down there. They also had to organize in such a way as to be sure that they could turn the vote out across all of these hundreds and hundreds of miles that only had three post offices. So I went out and watched as they tried to educate people and tried to generate voter turnout. And it turns out that in November of 2018, all of it works. And for the first time ever, a majority Navajo County in Utah is now represented by a majority of Navajo County commissioners.
GOLDSTEIN: That is David Daley. He's the author of "Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy." David, thanks so much for the conversation, and stay well.
DALEY: Always a pleasure. You too. Thank you.
https://kjzz.org/content/1592846/unrigged-new-book-explores-efforts-counter-gerrymandering
"A revelatory account by the best- selling author of Ratf**ked that will give you hope that America's fragile democracy can still be saved. Following Ratf**ked, his exposé of how a small cadre of Republican operatives rigged American elections, David Daley emerged as one of the nation's leading authorities on gerrymandering. In Unrigged, he charts a vibrant political movement that is rising in the wake of his and other reporters' revelations. With his trademark journalistic rigor and narrative flair, Daley reports on Pennsylvania's dramatic defeat of a gerrymander using the research of ingenious mathematicians and the Michigan millennial who launched a statewide redistricting revolution with a Facebook post. He tells the stories of activist groups that paved the way for 2018's historic blue wave and won crucial battles for voting rights in Florida, Maine, Utah, and nationwide. In an age of polarization, Unrigged offers a vivid portrait of a nation transformed by a new civic awakening, and provides a blueprint for what must be done to keep American democracy afloat"--
CONTENTS
Chapter - 01 - Second chances and rights restored:
"I will be a
lifelong voter"
Chapter - 02 - Aboard Idaho's Medicaid express:
"I had to get off
the couch and actually do something"
Chapter - 03 - The defeat of the voter fraud myth:
"The fix was
in"
Chapter - 04 - Utah, Nevada, North Dakota:
"There will be a lot
more native voices to hear from"
Chapter - 05 - Michigan's redistricting revolution:
"We were
tired of sitting on the sidelines"
Chapter - 06 - Redistricting goes national:
"There's got to be a
better way to do democracy"
Chapter - 07 - Donald Duck and Goofy no more:
"The map was
smoking. The map made it easy"
Chapter - 08 - Mathematicians enlist for duty
Chapter - 09 - People power:
"It's like diving into the
matrix"
Chapter - 10 - Activist groups:
ace-ing the "fuck, yeah"
test
Chapter - 11 - Maine's ranked choice:
"The people can't be
stopped"
Chapter - 12 - Youth saves the day:
"If they don't want you voting,
that means we have to."
https://www.kpl.gov/catalog/item/?i=ent://SD_ILS/0/SD_ILS:1843627
.....................
https://drawthelinespa.org/draw-the-lines-podcast/episode-3-from-ratf-ed-to-unrigged-david-daley-discovers-hope
