"... entrenched officials prefer to consolidate power, not share it."

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In America, voters don't pick their politicians. Politicians pick their voters
Gerrymandering is just another way to keep black people from voting. We have to fight the entrenched politicians to end it
By Wayne Dawkins, October 9, 2014

One out of every five Virginians in the birthplace of English America are [sic] black – disproportionally more than the one out eight people nationwide who are African American. It is therefore ludicrous that, since 2010, even more black people per capita were packed into US Representative Robert C “Bobby” Scott’s already predominantly black district.

That district, three federal judges declared on Tuesday, was gerrymandered, and they ordered the Virginia General Assembly to redraw the boundaries in 2015.

But elected officials have forfeited their chances to do that job competently. It does not matter whether Republicans or Democrats hold the power; both sides have been guilty over decades of abusing voters by gerrymandering districts. In the 21st century, voters don’t pick their elected officials; politicians pick their voters.

This time, a nonpartisan commission should draw the congressional boundaries.

In 2011, I attended a public hearing about exactly such a commission in Norfolk, Virginia. The officials testifying made constructive suggestions and politicians in the audience nodded approvingly. But the commission had no authority, so the redistricting recommendations were essentially ignored and the politicians did what too many politicians always do: try to stop black people from voting.

The result was – and always is – polarized politics: too many extreme conservative or extreme liberal districts with leaders who are allergic to compromise or common ground.

Toxic redistricting is so foul that Rep Eric Cantor was jettisoned from his Richmond-area district this summer by a Tea Party challenger. Why? The former House majority leader had the nerve to attempt to suggest a compromise with the Obama White House over a minor immigration policy issue. Eric Cantor the conservative was no longer conservative enough for the 7th Congressional District.

Congressional districts also need competition – the very element snuffed out by political pros committed to protecting incumbents through gerrymandering.

For instance, in recent campaigns, Bobby Scott (who has already served 11 terms) seemed to experience coronations instead of re-elections: he routinely received 70% of the vote. At Scott’s 2010 Labor Day cookout/political rally at a house overlooking the Hampton Roads harbor, a Libertarian candidate with a dozen supporters showed up to make a little noise with their campaign paraphernalia. Scott’s supporters fed them hot dogs and burgers: his so-called opponents posed no threat.

What would be healthier than the current system is map-making that creates “minority opportunity” districts rather than just one majority-minority district. It might not get a representative of color elected, but such districts could be diverse enough for any authentic representative of that community to emerge and build the necessary coalitions needed to earn the seat.

In the meantime, Virginia’s conservative political power brokers are expected to appeal the court’s decision and swear instead that they have been punitively destroyed by the courts. But they should understand there is a precedent for courts to review and reject racially motivated gerrymandering, even in the wake of the US supreme court’s terrible decision to eliminate the preclearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act.

In 1967, Andrew W Cooper and two co-plaintiffs successfully sued New York state in federal court, alleging that the predominantly African-American Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn was racially gerrymandered into parts of five congressional districts held by white representatives. The courts sided with Cooper and his friends, and a new 12th Congressional District was redrawn that year.

In spring 1968, Shirley Chisholm won that seat and made history as the first black woman elected to Congress.

Cooper’s suit tested the integrity of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which initially was thought only to apply to southern states. And, in fact, the piece that was discarded by the supreme court – which required mostly southern jurisdictions to check in with the Justice Department before changing their voting laws because of a century of legal and extralegal means to deny black voters their rights – opened doors for mischief makers with schemes to restrict or discourage voting by minority and poor voters.

But millions of African-American and other citizens of color across the country are no longer helpless before the law the way they were in the 1960s. They can legally fight the power, as we did here in Virginia – but they have to stay vigilant, because entrenched officials prefer to consolidate power, not share it.
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