Top gerrymandering foe faces internal crisis as Trump pushes to redraw the maps
The most important anti-alternation organization in the country is in the midst of an internal debate tense on the opportunity to modify its position opposing any partisan redistribution, a remarkable development in response to a gerrymandering war which broke out across the country.
It is a sign that after two decades of progress harshly won against the line designer, the movement faces an existential crisis.
The common cause fought to ban Gerrymandering through laws, referendums and constitutional amendments for decades, fighting against Democrats and Republicans in red and blue states to adopt measures to prevent legislators from tracing district lines that benefit from their own party.
Why we wrote this
The common cause has been for decades against partisan redistribution for decades for democracy for decades. Now, the group faces internal pressures to soften its position in California, in the midst of concerns that democracy confronts greater challenges.
But Monday evening, after a meeting of the national board of directors of the organization, the president and chief executive officer of the Virginia Kase Solomón group sent an email to the leaders of organization asking them not to make new declarations on the Gerrymandering until the board of directors publishes new councils, which, according to her, would come later this week. The request for deduction occurs while the Democrats in California push to temporarily suspend the state independent redistribution of the State to allow them to draw five or more districts of the Chamber of New Democrats. This decision-which would cancel the anti-allegueous reforms that the common cause contributed to the law in 2010-is a response to the aggressive push of the Republicans in mid-December to redesign state cards in Texas and elsewhere in their favor before the mid-term elections of 2026.
“While the IRC [independent redistricting commissions] Stay our gold stallion and will continue to be our post, the Board of Directors is currently considering options on how we will react in these very unusual circumstances, “wrote Ms. Solomón in an email to the group leaders who were read in the instructor by two distinct sources who had received it.
“This is certainly a point of inflection for our organization,” said a member of the common staff in The Monitor.
Internal tensions because of common are a striking sign of the time, while the rights of votes and pro-democracy groups attack the way of responding to what many of them consider an unprecedented attempt to undermine and even dismantle democracy by President Donald Trump and his republican allies. While the Republicans are fighting to keep their majority of the thin house as a razor and their unhindered control of the federal government, each seat counts – and the two largest states could easily pass the balance of powers with the partisan line designer.
President Trump, who said on Monday that the GOP was “entitled to five other seats” in Texas, had pushed the State Republicans to redraw their Congress card.
The Democrats of Texas fled their condition to block a vote on the bill. On Tuesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott asked the Supreme Court of the State to withdraw the chief of the minority of the Democrats from his functions, while other Republicans have called for the arrest of the legislators. The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, and his democratic allies responded by committing to make the favor if Texas follows, putting pressure for a voter referendum on a state scale to temporarily suspend the non -partisan card of California and let the Democrats ruthlessly restart the cards to return as many seats to their column.
A story of struggle for democratic reforms
A non-partisan and popular organization, Cause Common has played a key role in many government reforms fights over more than half a century, from the thrust to reduce the age of the national vote to 18 years until the fight for the national reform of campaign financing.
The group is particularly known for its anti -alternation efforts – successes and setbacks. He played a key role in the adoption in 2010 of California in 2010 in 2010 of a citizen redistribution commission, working in close collaboration with the republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to stimulate a referendum on the scale of the State which overthrew one of the most aggressive gerrymanders in the country. After that, California went from a state that had almost no competitive house race for the one who was at the center of the Battle for the control of the house.
The common cause also continued to overthrow the aggressive Gerrymander of the Northern Republicans, a case which was finally devoted to the Supreme Court of the United States (Rucho v. Common cause). In a historic decision of 2019, the court divided 5-4 according to supporters, declaring that even if the Gerrymandering could be “incompatible with democratic principles”, the federal courts could not have surveillance-a major setback for anti-alternation efforts.
The unequivocal anti-alternation position of the common cause has remained coherent even in recent weeks.
Less than two weeks ago, Common Cause held a press call with heads of state from California and Texas entitled “Why Newsom and Trump are wrong on redistribution”. The organization has launched a national petition requiring that “each governor – democrat and republican – must publicly commit to reject all efforts to redraw the cards for a partisan gain.”
But this long -standing position is now under examination of the board of directors.
“It is the first time in modern history that an in -office president and his political party have unilaterally moved to conceive the result of a election before a single vote. It sparked a wave of responses across the country and will have long -term consequences for our democracy,” wrote Solomón in a statement to the monitor.
“We assess all the options on the table to deal with this attack on our democracy. We continue to maintain that the independent redistribution commissions led by citizens are the gold stallion to protect the power of the people. ”
When it was asked if it meant that the organization’s board of directors debated to oppose or remain neutral in the battle of the Gerrymandering which is looming from California, or if it could even go so far as to support the temporary plan of Gerrymandering of Democrats, Ms. Solomón reiterated that the group “assesses all options on the table to confront this attack on our democracy.”
“You cannot unilaterally disarm”
The voting rights, the reform of democracy and the groups of good government have been increasingly combined with the Democrats in recent years. But not everywhere. The Democrats continued to attract Gerrymanders to states like Illinois and Maryland which have no explicit restrictions on the partisan designer of the line, generating tensions with these groups. And the common cause was willing to face and criticize democrats when justified. (Rucho v. Common cause, the Supreme Court affair, ended up including the Republicans of Maryland opposing the Gerrymander of the Democrats of their State.)
Many Democrats in recent years have adopted non -partisan redistribution cards both as a message from good government and a solid political strategy aimed at canceling the highly Gerrymande republican cards. But since President Trump demanded that Texas became his card before the next elections to try to help the GOP to keep control of the house, there was a dramatic change in the approach of the Democrats. Several governors of the blue state led by the governor of California Newsom have threatened to respond in kind, even if many of their states have laws prohibiting gerrymandering.
While the Democrats quickly moved to say that they cannot give in the battle, this has put the voting rights organizations in an increasingly difficult position.
Representative Ted Place, a Democrat in California and member of the Democratic Directorate of the Chamber, told the instructor at the end of July that he urged groups of good government to support the push of the Democrats of California to a Gerrymander to their own fight to fight against a Gerrymander in Texas.
“I hope they now realize that you cannot unilaterally disarm,” he said. “You now have the potential of no longer having democracy, which would more like to have good government. So I hope they will realize that their own existence is faced with existential threats. ”
A source close to the common cause indicates that there was “significant pressure” on the part of the Democratic occupants to bring the organization to “retreat from our support for independent redistribution commissions” in California.
We still do not know what position the group will take. The incapacity of the council to achieve a consensus at the meeting on Monday indicates a disagreement among the members.
Some are still opposed
Not everyone reconciles their position on Gerrymandering.
The common cause worked in close collaboration with the governor of the Schwarzenegger era to ban the legislative gerrymandering of the State in 2008 and the gerrymandering of the congress two years later.
Schwarzenegger’s chief of staff, Daniel Ketchell, stresses that the former governor has continued to campaign for anti-alternation efforts in recent years, especially in 2018 in Colorado and Michigan-and says that his point of view has not changed.
“He thinks that gerrymandering is bad, it doesn’t matter who does it and campaigned against the whole country. And he believes in the old preschool lesson [that] Two wrongs do not do good, ”he says.
Several common activists say they are personally torn apart. They have spent their careers fighting against the gerrymanders supporters and consider them bad for democracy. And they also fear that any support for a temporary exemption from their position definitively discloses their credibility.
But many consider the mid-term as a crucial turning point in the survival of democracy. And they see the point of the Democrats according to which the blocking of Gerrymandering in the Blue States while the red states continue to Gerrymander without restrictions will simply tilt the map on the right, ignore the will of the voters and allow President Trump to undermine democracy.
“What does a sort of maintaining a pillar of democracy when all the other pillars fall?” A source close to the common cause requires rhetorically. “Is there a kind in a morally coherent or focused on the value of folding the rules?” I don’t know.”
