NPR’s Michel Martin talks to Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Penn., and Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., about what they believe is the nation’s current greatest problem: gerrymandering.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We’ve been hearing regularly from members of the House Problem Solvers Caucus. That’s a bipartisan group in Congress, evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, that tries to make policy out of positions they think most Americans share. I spoke on Capitol Hill yesterday with the co-chairs of the caucus, Democrat Tom Suozzi of New York and Republican Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.
This was right before they voted on another Iran war powers resolution, which narrowly failed. I asked them about their constituents’ biggest concerns, and I started with Representative Fitzpatrick.
BRIAN FITZPATRICK: Same thing I’ve been hearing for many, many years now is affordability. Half the people in this country live paycheck to paycheck. There’s a lot of stresses on their budgets. Those stresses are only getting worse, not better, and they’re looking for relief.
MARTIN: The Problem Solvers Caucus released a framework back in February to address the drivers of the affordability problem. So it’s not like there’s a dearth of ideas out here. So how are you explaining to your constituents the lack of action on any of these issues?
TOM SUOZZI: I don’t think anything’s getting done. As a matter of fact, we had a meeting just today. We’ve decided we have to clear the decks, and the big focus has got to be this whole issue of gerrymandering and redistricting.
MARTIN: Interesting.
SUOZZI: Because what’s happening is when things are so partisan, so divided, you don’t get things done. And the more we create these safe seats, the more people just pander to their base ’cause they just have to worry about winning a primary as opposed to winning a general. The plan is is we’re actually setting up a working group on this. We need to get Democrats and Republicans in our group.
We’ve got about eight people who volunteered who are affected by this, actually, and some who are not even affected but want to address the issue. Even though we have so many issues going on right now, this technical type insider issue, gerrymandering and redistricting, will kill our country.
MARTIN: Is the idea here to – what? – intervene in this redistricting race or what is it?
SUOZZI: It’s to set up independent redistricting commissions to let independents vote in primaries, not have primaries be closed, and to look at other solutions that have been done in the laboratories of democracy, the states, which have worked to try and create more competitive seats.
MARTIN: Mr. Fitzpatrick…
FITZPATRICK: So here’s the stuff we have to overcome.
MARTIN: Yes.
FITZPATRICK: Constitutionally, states are given jurisdiction, sole jurisdiction, over the time, place and manner of elections. The only jurisdictional hook we have is funding. So we can tie certain funding streams to certain reforms being enacted. So that’s what we need to do. It is incredibly corrosive to our democracy to have states and/or regions of this country that might be 60-40, 55-45 in terms of registration, but are 90-10 in House representation. That doesn’t work.
MARTIN: I am just trying to understand how you persuade your colleagues, the same Democrats, the same Republicans at the state level who’ve been redrawing these maps to advantage their own party.
SUOZZI: We need to actually withhold money from them unless they do it. That’s the, you know, that’s the only…
MARTIN: But why would they do it, given that some of this started – and I understand you don’t want to play the blame game, but this started at the behest of President Trump, who specifically asked Texas to redraw their maps. They did so, and other states followed and other states are retaliating and here we are.
SUOZZI: I think that we have to appeal to people’s better angels of their nature, that this is just destroying our country. I think that most people in our nation are sick and tired of this because politicians in safe seats do not listen to the people. You know, I’m in a seat that Donald Trump won. I’m a Democrat.
MARTIN: Yeah.
SUOZZI: Brian is in a seat that Kamala Harris won. He’s a Republican. We have to listen to the people. And that’s good for America that I’m listening to what’s going on.
MARTIN: Can I ask you a sensitive question, Mr. Fitzpatrick? I’m aiming this at you as a retired FBI agent. We are told anecdotally that another driver here is fear of violence, fear of political violence. Is that true that members of Congress, they feel that some of their behavior is actually being dictated by the fear of violence?
FITZPATRICK: Well, there certainly is a fear of violence. I don’t think that’s anything new. I do think it’s gotten worse as of late because with the expanding use of social media and connectivity of these various groups, people tend to act out more than they have in the past. So that’s always been a risk. Is that infecting people’s behavior? I mean, I can’t say that. You know, it’s always in the back of people’s minds.
SUOZZI: And, you know, I – again, I want to go back to, you know, the rise in violence is happening because of this division and this us-versus-them and everybody attacking each other all the time. We’ve always had bad actors in the world, but it’s been fomented because of people pandering to their base, social media rewarding extremism, cable news promoting extreme voices on both sides and, quite frankly, back to the same topic of gerrymandering is making it worse. And it leads directly to political violence.
MARTIN: Tom Suozzi, Democrat from New York, Brian Fitzpatrick, Republican from Pennsylvania, co-chairs of the Problem Solvers Caucus. Thanks for talking to us once again.
FITZPATRICK: Thank you.
SUOZZI: Thank you.
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