No, President Trump is not responsible for the unconscionable gerrymandering that just took place in Virginia. And, no, his backing of a similar measure in Texas did not trigger the recent wave of shameful partisan redistricting.
That’s the popular narrative being spun by Democrats and their handmaidens in the liberal press. The New York Times, which describes Virginia’s new congressional plan as “one of the country’s most aggressively gerrymandered maps,” admits the redistricting push in the Commonwealth “is a stark reversal for a party that has decried partisan gerrymandering for decades.” But, the Times says, Democrats explain the map redraw was necessary “to counter similar GOP efforts in Texas and other states.”
Baloney. As Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) stated in a post on X, “New York started it.”
She’s right, of course. Democrats kicked off this cycle of political hardball when they attempted an unusual mid-census redrawing of the election maps in New York in 2022 — “completely ignoring,” as Tenney pointed out, “the independent commission they created in 2014.” Their proposed redistricting would almost certainly have eliminated a number of Republican-held seats in the Empire State.
Trump is a New Yorker; do you seriously believe he was oblivious to the outrageous attempt by Albany Democrats, Attorney General Letitia James, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Gov. Kathy Hochul to disenfranchise Republican voters?
In 2022, New York Democrats proposed a new election map after the 2020 census took away a congressional district from the state. That year, New York came within 6 points of electing Republican Lee Zeldin governor and flipped three Democrat-held seats in the same election, leaving New York with 15 Democrats in the House and 11 Republicans.
When the state’s highest court blocked the Democrats’ aggressive attempts at gerrymandering, they proposed yet another new map that would have eliminated the only Republican-held seat in New York City, the Staten Island-Southwest Brooklyn seat currently occupied by Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.).
Fortunately, the Supreme Court stepped in and blocked New York’s redistricting, and Malliotakis kept her seat. Ironically, Democrats had argued that her district was not racially inclusive enough. Malliotakis is of Greek and Hispanic heritage; she is the embodiment of inclusivity.
Why do Empire State Democrats persist in trying to thwart the will of the voters who approved a nonpartisan commission to determine their state’s election districts? There’s an easy answer: It is because their policies are driving people to leave their state. In 2030, when the new Census is conducted, New York is expected to lose multiple seats. Since Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state, their ranks in the House will drop.
That happened in 2020; New York lost one seat, with its delegation shrinking from 27 to 26. The state also lost one Electoral College vote. In fact, the drop in seats and electoral votes should have been greater — the Census Bureau acknowledges the 2020 count was flawed, with five red states undercounted and several blue states, including New York, overcounted.
New York is not alone in losing population and House seats. California is in the same boat, which is why that state, too, has engaged in partisan redistricting, even though its residents voted in 2010 for an independent commission to draw its congressional districts.
Like New York, California lost one House seat because of the 2020 census. If the census did not include people in the country illegally, California, which hosts the largest population of undocumented people in the nation, would see far greater losses. That is one reason the White House is seeking to exclude illegal aliens from the census. There is also the recognition that people who cannot vote should not be represented in Congress at the expense of those who can.
Democrats in charge of states like California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York will pay for imposing unpopular and arrogant policies on voters with less representation in the House and, ultimately, fewer Electoral College votes. They know this is coming. Rather than amend their high taxes and suffocating regulations, Democrats would rather stay the unpopular course they have set and preserve their numbers in the House through crude gerrymandering.
And this is the party pretending to defend democracy. Joy Reid recently told former talk-show host Maury Povich that “Democrats do not play politics the way Republicans do. They do not. They do not. Democrats play by the Marquess de Queensberry rules. They’re not rule breakers.” Reid claimed.
Reid’s comment is both flat-out wrong and hilarious. Democrats have been threatening to pack the Supreme Court, eliminate the filibuster, add new Democrat-heavy states like Puerto Rico and abolish the Electoral College since even before their 2016 loss. They are not friends of democracy.
This is not a playground argument over “who started it.” Voters, who dislike gerrymandering and the party that takes that low road, should recognize that Democrats will stop at nothing to evade responsibility for their policies. Rather than correct their disastrous management, Democrats would rather engage in the partisan tactics they have long criticized.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) said of the Virginia gerrymander, “We all lose at this point.” He is so right.
Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim and Company.
This article originally appeared on TheHill.com.
This article originally appeared on TheHill.com.
