New York’s redistricting fight is a key piece of a larger battle, playing out in state courts and legislatures, that threatens to gerrymander democracy to death. In North Carolina, a new Republican State Supreme Court majority recently validated a plan that could lock in a long-running, lopsided GOP majority in the state legislature and in its congressional delegation.
A former chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party, Pepper has seen Republicans try to gerrymander his home state to dilute the influence of Black voters. Democrats have been painfully slow to push back on the agendalaunched in 2010 to gain control of state legislatures in order to gain control of redistricting. Pepper’sproposes ways to level the playing field.
There was plenty of blame to go around afterward, with many fingers pointed at the lackluster campaign run by Governorwas another main target, as one of the leading architects of the map that ended up being replaced by the court. “The lines didn’t help, but they only hurt at the margins,” Gianaris says. “Good candidates could have still won these races. Better lines would not have made the ultimate difference—perhaps for maybe one seat.
Even if Elias and Branch win the current round, the whole thing is likely to eventually return to New York’s appellate court, its highest judiciary body. This time, though, state Democrats are banking on the result going in their favor. In April, after knocking down Hochul’s first nominee, the state legislature approved a new chief appellate judge,DiFiore voted with the court’s majority against the pro-Democrat map last year; Wilson was in the minority.
Attempts to carve electoral districts for partisan advantage have existed for a very long time, going back to at least 1812, when Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry signed a bill legalizing a Boston-area district shaped like a mythological salamander and guaranteed himself political trivia immortality. But thanks to shamelessness, polarization, and easy access to data, we are living in a golden age of gerrymandering.