Without consent of the governed
by Tom Sullivan
Two pieces require more than your attention. They require your action.
Ian Millhiser recounts at Think Progress how in spite of Barack Obama's resounding wins in 2008 and 2012, Democrats lost ground and continued to for a decade.
Republicans pushed back in the states during Obama's years in the White House. After deep losses for Democrats in 2010 during the ongoing recession and weak recovery, Republicans gained control of state legislatures and post-census redistricting. Aggressive gerrymandering meant that while in 2012 Democrats' House candidates won won nearly 1.4 million more votes than Republicans nationwide, in some states, Republicans held over 70 percent of congressional seats.
State-level races reflected the same imbalance.
By the death of in February of 2016 of Justice Antonin Scalia, Republicans holding a 54-46 majority in the U.S. Senate were prepared to deny a Supreme Court appointment to the sitting president on the absurd pretext that it was an election year. Those 46 Democrats represented more than 20 million more people than their GOP counterparts, writes Millhiser. The appointment of Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the Supreme Court vacancy went to Donald Trump, who in November 2016 won the presidency with three million fewer votes than his Democratic opponent.
Millhiser concludes:
The government of the United States no longer derives its powers from the consent of the governed. And by the time voters head to the polls in November to elect a new Congress, America will have existed in this state of profound undemocracy for nearly a decade.In state after state, Republicans systematically enacted an undemocratic quilt of laws to ensure their continued control even in the face of declining popular support.
"All three of these things have to be seen as part of a whole," says Eric Holder, Barack Obama's attorney general, who founded the National Democratic Redistricting Committee in 2016 to challenge Republican gerrymandering efforts. "Unregulated dark money combined with these voter-ID laws combined with gerrymandering is inconsistent with how our nation's system is supposed to be set up. American citizens ought to be concerned about the state of our democracy. We could end up with a system where a well-financed minority that has views inconsistent with the vast majority of the American people runs this country."Both Berman and Millhiser see signs the tide is turning. Berman writes:
The lower courts have already signaled a willingness to push back on unfair redistricting. On January 9th, a federal court struck down North Carolina's U.S. House map, which gives Republicans a 10-to-three advantage over Democrats, the first time a federal court has invalidated congressional lines for partisan gerrymandering. But on January 18th, the Supreme Court blocked the redrawing of North Carolina's maps, pending appeal. GOP-drawn districts have also been struck down in Alabama, Florida, Virginia and Texas. Many of these rulings are similarly being appealed by Republicans, making it unlikely such districts will be redrawn before the 2018 elections. After this story went to press, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down the state's Congressional maps – which give Republicans a 13 to 5 advantage – and ordered they be redrawn in 2018, boosting Democratic prospects in the state.Millhiser also sees hope the courts are beginning to see and undo the violations to democracy wrought in the last decade. But there is a caution:
If America continues to polarize on geographic lines, with Americans in densely populated areas favoring Democrats and Americans in sparsely populated states preferring Republicans, that means that Republicans may soon enjoy an all-but-guaranteed majority in the United States Senate large enough to ensure that no legislation is enacted and no judge is confirmed under a Democratic president.The remedy he sees is not just one, but two constitutional amendments: "one to amend the amendment process itself, and the other to amend the Constitution again to fairly apportion the Senate." Don't hold your breath.