So far, the\u00a0redistricting\u00a0power grab\u00a0that President Donald Trump\u00a0launched\u00a0in Texas\u00a0has ended in a stalemate\u00a0for the parties and a huge loss for our nation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
After 10\u00a0months of out-of-cycle, coast-to-coast\u00a0congressional\u00a0redistricting,\u00a0Democrats and Republicans\u00a0control\u00a0about\u00a0the same number of seats\u00a0as\u00a0they\u00a0did before the\u00a0mess\u00a0began.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Republicans have nine more GOP-controlled U.S. House seats, and Democrats gained seven and possibly more, depending on the outcome of a legal challenge to Tuesday\u2019s redistricting election in Virginia.<\/p>\n
Democracy and good government, meanwhile, are in negative territory.\u00a0All of this has\u00a0squandered public resources\u00a0by requiring\u00a0frivolous elections and special legislative sessions\u00a0and\u00a0abused\u00a0the\u00a0public\u2019s\u00a0trust.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The whole fiasco started last summer, when\u00a0Trump leaned on Texas GOP leaders to redraw the\u00a0state\u2019s\u00a0U.S. House districts to help Republicans keep control of Congress in the midterms.\u00a0Gov. Greg Abbott and the rest of the Texas GOP fell obediently in line without regard for the obvious fact that Democrats would retaliate. Texas Republicans scratched out five more\u00a0GOP<\/a>\u00a0seats\u00a0at the expense of all of us.<\/p>\n Other states\u00a0then\u00a0joined\u00a0the\u00a0scrum.\u00a0California<\/a>\u00a0scrapped\u00a0a\u00a0nonpartisan redistricting commission\u00a0that had been a national model\u00a0to add\u00a0five Democratic seats.\u00a0\u00a0Legislatures in\u00a0Missouri, North Carolina\u00a0and\u00a0Ohio\u00a0redrew their maps.\u00a0Florida\u00a0is scheduled to\u00a0start a special session on redistricting\u00a0next week.<\/p>\n Virginia\u00a0held\u00a0its redistricting referendum\u00a0Tuesday. Voters\u00a0narrowly\u00a0approved a\u00a0constitutional amendment\u00a0to\u00a0allow new, temporary\u00a0maps\u00a0that could give Democrats four more seats.\u00a0\u00a0It is disappointing\u00a0but\u00a0entirely predictable\u00a0that\u00a0the state\u2019s new Democratic governor, Abigail Spanberger, who ran as a centrist, strongly backed the referendum.\u00a0<\/p>\n Within hours, a\u00a0Virginia judge<\/a> blocked\u00a0the state from certifying those results. Virginia\u2019s\u00a0attorney\u00a0general has promised to fight the ruling.\u00a0<\/p>\n This is all so bad for democracy in so many ways. Americans have little reason to vote because candidates from the two main parties do not represent their interests and values. It\u2019s obvious our political leaders care less about the country than their own parties. They have made it abundantly clear that whoever is in the minority doesn\u2019t deserve a voice.<\/p>\n Candidates\u00a0in highly gerrymandered districts\u00a0become more extreme because they do not have to appeal to moderate\u00a0or\u00a0independent\u00a0voters\u00a0to win\u00a0their\u00a0primary\u00a0\u2014 and the dominant\u00a0party\u2019s\u00a0candidate\u00a0almost always\u00a0wins\u00a0the general election.\u00a0Meanwhile, candidates from the underdog party are often unqualified\u00a0or\u00a0unfit because they have little chance of winning.\u00a0<\/p>\n Gerrymandering\u00a0warps\u00a0the balance\u00a0of\u00a0minority and majority rights.\u00a0Both need protection; neither is supposed to\u00a0dominate\u00a0forever.\u00a0That\u2019s\u00a0the\u00a0path to tyranny.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lawmakers in a\u00a0few states have refused to\u00a0bow to partisan\u00a0diktats\u00a0from Washington\u00a0and are paying a price.\u00a0\u00a0Out-of-state, pro-Trump\u00a0groups\u00a0have targeted several GOP state senators in Indiana.\u00a0Ten\u00a0Republican lawmakers\u00a0in Kansas\u00a0have\u00a0faced retribution from colleagues for rebuffing a redistricting effort there.\u00a0<\/p>\n Courage and conviction mean having the guts and independence to say no to your own. We\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0know what\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0like in Texas anymore.<\/p>\n Have thoughts about this?\u00a0Send a\u00a0letter\u00a0to the editor\u00a0using our\u00a0letters\u00a0form<\/a>\u00a0or email\u00a0letters@dallasnews.com<\/a>.\u00a0Letters should be no more than 200 words and include the first and last name of the writer and city of residence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So far, the\u00a0redistricting\u00a0power grab\u00a0that President Donald Trump\u00a0launched\u00a0in Texas\u00a0has ended in a stalemate\u00a0for the parties and a huge loss…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-264053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}