Chris Christie and Donald Trump
[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Politics.]
By Susan Crabtree
Real Clear Politics
In recent years, Democrats have often accused Republicans of some of the most extreme forms of gerrymandering, arguing that GOP efforts to redraw congressional maps to their favor purposefully disenfranchises some of Democrats’ most reliable voters.
Now the shoe is on the other foot.
New York’s new district lines, signed off by the Democratic legislature and governor, are so comically contorted they’ve generated jokes and criticism from the right to the far left. The shape of Rep. Jerry Nadler’s newly crafted district – New York’s 10th – is downright serpentine, so much so that it was quickly dubbed the “jerrymander,” which brings this issue back to its historic roots
The Atlantic put it this way: “[The redrawn district] slices down the west side of Manhattan, takes a ferry ride across the East River, cuts a horseshoe-shaped path through a half dozen neighborhoods on its way to Prospect Park, then wraps around a cemetery containing the earthly remains of Boss Tweed and Horace Greeley before swallowing a huge section of central and south Brooklyn.”
Nadler’s new district is the most egregious example, but there are plenty of others across the Empire State. And some Democrats argue that some district lines in New York are drawn to protect moderate Democratic incumbents with others gaming the systems against Republicans. That is debatable, but regardless, a “jerrymandered” district like Nadler’s isn’t a good look for a party that has railed against GOP gerrymandering as a crime against the Constitution in places like Ohio.
Congressional lines are reapportioned every 10 years based on census population figures. In New York, as in several other states, a bipartisan commission was supposed to carefully craft the new map to avoid partisan rigging, but the members deadlocked, handing the job to the Democratic-controlled state legislature.
The new lines would make it nearly impossible for Republicans to win anywhere but upstate – and even there make it far more difficult for the GOP, except in one safe super district. Along the Canadian border, Democrats dumped more Republicans into GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik’s rural district, while dividing a large Army base between two districts. To the south, it lumped Staten Island, the more conservative part of New York City, into a new district with its most liberal area, Park Slope. The new district makes it nearly impossible for the city’s lone Republican, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, to retain the seat.
Most observers believe the new map threatens half of the GOP’s eight congressional seats in the state, enough to significantly offset expected GOP gains in the rest of the country. In a closer-than-expected November midterm election, it also could plausibly prevent the GOP from winning back the House majority – now held by Democrats with a margin of only five seats.
Since Gov. Kathy Hochul signed off on the new maps in early February, New York’s redistricting process has attracted nationwide attention – as well as the biggest GOP legal guns.
A Republican-led group of voters filed a lawsuit in early February arguing that the lines violate a 2014 state constitutional amendment aimed at preventing partisan district drawing.
With control of both the House and Senate at stake, redistricting court battles are playing out in several other states as well. Both parties are engaged in forms of political gerrymandering while utilizing different tactics to achieve their goals. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project gave seven of the 12 new congressional district maps failing grades, including four passed by Democrats. The Princeton group labeled the New York map as particularly egregious; noted that new lines in Illinois and Maryland have benefited Democrats; and leveled harsh criticism for initial GOP efforts in Texas, North Carolina and Ohio. (Courts have ordered North Carolina and Ohio to take another stab at fairer maps.)
The Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman has given a recent edge to Democrats in the great gerrymandering sweepstakes of 2020, although this could change as more maps are drawn, including Florida’s with its 28 congressional districts.
“For the first time, Dems have taken the lead on @CookPolitical’s 2022 redistricting scorecard,” Wasserman tweeted in early Feb. “After favorable developments in NY, AL, PA et. al., they’re on track to net 2-3 seats from new maps vs. old ones.”
After months of Democratic complaints over new GOP state voting laws posing threats to democracy, Republicans are accusing Democrats of blatant hypocrisy, especially when it comes to New York. Just months ago in November, New York Democrats tried to pass a state proposal to remove the requirement that new district maps must receive some Republican support, but the voters defeated it.
Still, those in charge of redrawing the lines claim they are legal and fair. The new districts’ strange twists and turns, they say, are simply a result of connecting like-minded groups, such as minority voters congregated in certain areas, to reflect, not drown out their voices.
“These maps reflect communities of interest across the state,” David Imamura, the Democrat who served as the chairman of the bipartisan redistricting commission, told the New York Times in an interview. “I think New Yorkers will have their communities well represented in the maps the legislature has come up with.”
Others contend the new lines unwind the results of previous gerrymandering by Republicans and fairly reflect growing Democratic dominance across the state. Republicans dismiss these arguments, pointing to Democratic efforts to roll back laws requiring GOP input as proof.
“Democrats are completely ignoring the will of the voters … and changes that they themselves put on the ballot and advocated for at the time,” former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie tells RealClearPolitics in an interview. “Now, all of a sudden, they don’t want to do that.”
Christie, who heads up national Republican redistricting efforts along with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, also suggested that Hochul is simply shoring up her Democratic Party credentials by signing off on the obviously rigged map. Hochul became governor last year after Andrew Cuomo’s downfall over sexual harassment complaints.
“This is just Kathy Hochul trying to prove that she’s a tough Democrat doing the bidding for [Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer and the rest of the gang in the New York delegation,” he said.
Former Rep. John Faso, who represented New York’s 19th district from 2017 to 2019 and lost a governor’s race to Democrat Eliot Spitzer in 2006, is assisting in the GOP legal fight. He charged Democrats with trying to run out the clock by arguing there’s no time to redraw fairer lines because candidates have to start running for office with a June primary just months away.
“That’s kind of akin to the guy who murders his parents and throws himself on the mercy of the court on the basis that he’s an orphan,” Faso told RCP. “Well, they created this mess. The Democrats created this abomination of a redistricting scheme.”
Moreover, he argued, other courts across the country have pushed back filing deadlines and even primaries in efforts to try to make the maps fairer and less partisan. In North Carolina, where Republicans are the ones defending creatively redrawn partisan maps amid Democrats’ accusations of a rigged process, the courts have delayed a March primary for several months so the lines can be created more fairly.
New York’s state constitution also has provisions to ensure redistricting conflicts are resolved expeditiously, Faso pointed out.
“The courts have to consider this expeditiously so there’s plenty of time to hear this matter fully,” Faso said. “… They should not be allowed to rig elections for 10 years because they’re worried about moving a deadline for candidate qualification for being on the ballot.”
Christie and Pompeo serve as national co-chairs to the National Republican Redistricting Trust, or NRRT, an effort created in 2017 to counter a similar organization announced the year before and helmed by former Attorney General Eric Holder and other allies of Barack Obama. Although Holder’s organization, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, or NDRC, did not respond to several RCP inquiries, Holder has publicly defended the efforts on grounds of racial equity and shifting demographics.
“Democrats are drawing maps that follow the census data and reflect population shifts,” he recently told reporters. “They’re also preserving or increasing representation for communities of color.”
Christie dismisses the argument, particularly when it comes to New York. The NRRT, he says, recently retained an expert who ran 500 computer models based on population groupings, and none of those versions were more partisan than the existing Democratic-drawn map, he asserted.
“When a computer can’t find one map to come up with randomly that’s more favorable to Democrats than the one they came up with, I think that’s the definition of pushing the edge of the envelope beyond where it’s even plausible,” he said.
Both sides are raising millions of dollars for their redistricting legal battles. A CNBC report last week, citing internal GOP fundraising invitations, said Republican “megadonors” want to raise at least $3 million to fight the New York maps alone. The report didn’t mention that the NDRC has raised $10 million since 2017, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Fair Lines America, the GOP funding arm for redistricting, is a nonprofit that does not disclose its donors.
Christie and other Republicans, however, say the GOP is playing catch-up in the redistricting money chase. “Mike Pompeo and I came together to co-chair [this group] as a way to combat Barack Obama and Eric Holder … the guys who are raising all this money for Democrats to do this around the country,” he said. “So for them to kind of act like there’s gambling in this establishment – are you kidding me? I mean, it’s ridiculous.”
Christie says Democrats started their national redistricting strategy 10 years ago and caught the Republicans off guard.
“Now we’re not going to be [caught off guard],” he vowed. “New York is one of those places where our national team is going to plant the flag … because this is so egregious, it defies every statistical analysis and commonsense political analysis.”
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