Salon: Gerrymandering is fine if Democrats do it
February 10, 2022
If the Democrats gerrymander New York, then this is fine, according to Salon. If the Republicans gerrymander Alabama, then that’s the reimposition of Jim Crow.
No exaggeration. On: the Democrats and New York: “‘Karma’ bites GOP in N.Y.: Republicans whine after Dem gerrymander may flip three seats,” one headline reads.
On the flip side, also from Salon: “Aggressive gerrymander could send several GOP House members packing as “inevitable result” of Republican cheating.”
Because it will be GOP losing seats, the restrictions on New Yorkers’ voting rights are just fine.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) last week signed into law a new congressional map that could net Democrats an additional three congressional seats, while costing the Republicans four — since New York lost a seat as a result of the 2020 census. The map is one of the most aggressive gerrymanders of the cycle,
Aggressive gerrymanders are good when Democrats benefit. When talking about the Alabama gerrymanders the tone is somewhat different:
“And on Monday, the Supreme Court declined to enforce the 1965 Voting Rights Act in response to a plainly racist gerrymander in Alabama, on the grounds that doing so would interfere with the state’s control of their elections systems.
As AIM reported on Wednesday, the Supreme Court didn’t actually say the Alabama map was OK, it actually said that given the filing date for the primaries is Friday – this one, Friday, February 11 – then it’s a little late to be redrawing districts for this election cycle. But then as we also noted yesterday such little facts aren’t going to stop the progressives from displaying their biases.
Salon is up in the top 100 of sites dealing with law and government – we’d all rather hope they showed rather less bias about it of course. The site also gains some 8 million visits a month and so they have a substantial audience they should be doing better by.