U.S. politicians often lecture other nations about their flawed governance as if American democracy is the gold standard, but anti-democratic measures like gerrymandering belie that self-image, says ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar. By Paul R. Pillar An old fear about…Read more →
When I first saw North Carolina state Senator Jeff Jackson's tweets (above), ny eye was drawn to the graphic. Maybe because of the hues or the simplicity of the forms, it rang some Fernand Léger bells in my mind. Turned out, though, that Jeff was talking about gerrymandering, not art criticism.
If somebody you know got stopped seven or eight times for driving drunk, would you think they had a problem?
Texas lawmakers have now been popped by federal judges seven or eight times in recent years for intentionally discriminating against minority voters in voter ID and redistricting legislation.
Think they’ve got a problem?
Illustration: (Anneke Paterson/Todd Wiseman/The Texas Tribune)
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is backing Wisconsin in a high-profile case asking the U.S. Supreme Court whether lawmakers can go too far when drawing political maps to advantage one party.
Texas hasn't been a big part of progressive plans for winning back Congress in recent years-- nor even Democratic Party plans. Most of the few Democrats the DCCC has backed there have been dreadfully corrupt conservatives like Pete Gallego, Vicente Gonzalez, Henry Cuellar and Filemon Vela. They were certainly openly hostile to Beto O'Rourke when he first ran for Congress in El Paso against another of their corrupt conservatives, Sylvester Reyes.
Antonin Scalia once wrote that "Political gerrymanders are not new to the American scene" and noted there were allegations that Patrick Henry attempted, unsuccessfully, to gerrymander James Madison out of the First Congress.
The Republican-dominated North Carolina legislature has given Governor Roy Cooper every reason in the world for him to want to do them some harm. The House has 74 Republicans, 45 Democrats and an independent and the Senate has 35 Republicans and 16 Democrats. Yesterday, after the 5-3 U.S.
