Former President Barack Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder have spent months denouncing Republican-controlled states for gerrymandering, but they have not addressed Democratic-controlled states that do the same. Last Friday, Obama criticized Alabama’s congressional map while praising Holder’s National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC) for “working so hard to ensure that people everywhere have a fair chance to choose their representatives.”
Last month, Holder pushed for “fair line drawing” on MSNBC, claiming that Republicans “gamed” the system in redistricting after the 2010 census. He has repeatedly slammed Republican states for gerrymandering for months.
Texas is among the most commonly cited examples of Republican gerrymandering. The state is being sued by the Department of Justice, which argues that the state’s congressional districts were drawn with the intention of limiting the impact of minority votes.
According to the NDRC, it is far from the only Republican state that gerrymanders. Recent news releases from the group blame Republicans for gerrymandering techniques in states ranging from Tennessee to Kansas to New Hampshire and Ohio.
The Republican map in Ohio is especially bad. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project gave Ohio’s map a failing grade for political fairness. When it comes to Democratic-led states doing the same thing, Obama and Holder are deafeningly mute.
Maryland is facing a series of legal challenges to the congressional map imposed by the state legislature. The strategy has the ability to gerrymander the state’s last Republican legislator out of office.
The Illinois congressional map features multiple districts that twist closely through Chicago neighborhoods and suburbs before branching out into nearby suburban and rural areas, lowering the possibility that any of those areas will elect a Republican.
Some other district begins on the western end of the state, across the river from St. Louis, Mo., and runs practically the whole length of the state in the configuration of an apostrophe to the Indiana state line.
Each of the maps received a failing rating from the Princeton Gerrymandering Project. New York is the most recent blue state to reveal its redistricting plan, which Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law on Thursday.
It eliminates four Republican congressional districts, cutting Republican congressional representation in the state by half. Representatives for Obama and Holder’s National Democratic Redistricting Commission did not respond to Fox News’ request for comment on the blue state gerrymandering.
Holder’s organization promotes its “Fair Districts Pledge” to “end gerrymandering” by “redistricting that eliminates map manipulation.” It expressed no comment on whether the maps in New York, Illinois, or Maryland uphold that pledge.
