Recently a Facebook friend posted a link to a Rolling Stone (How the GOP Rigs Elections) article about the dirty politics being played by the Republican party in Wisconsin (his beloved home state) with respect to district gerrymandering, so-called dark money, and voter ID laws.
We exchanged a couple of views of opinion on the matter. But the Facebook platform isn't the best in which to respond fully. So I decided to make a more detailed response on my blog. I put the link in the comment so my friend could come a read it, and so can you, my loyal nine followers.
My original response is as follows:
--Gerrymandering is not the sole providence of Republicans. You should see how the districts are drawn in Oregon and Washington, democrat strongholds. There are a couple of districts in the suburbs of Portland that actually jump neighborhoods only to start up again a few blocks later.
And here is his response after he asked if I had read the article:
"I agree gerrymandering happens on both ends of the spectrum, GOP has been downright unlawful in their drawing. “During the 2012 elections, Democratic House candidates won 1.4 million more votes nationally than Republicans, but the GOP won 33 more seats.” And, if it were going the other way— I’d be just as up in arms. This is an argument of democracy not of partisan values. Votes should count and if you dig deep into that 538 stuff they’ll talk about packing and stacking votes.
I know it can never be perfect, even with algorithms it doesn’t evenly split. But, the majority of districts can get back to competitive elections and that my friend, along with the reduction of campaign finance and the increase ability to vote will increase the amounts of OUR freedoms."
(I highlighted one point he made as I will get back to a little further down the blog post)
He also included a link to a very interesting site (The Gerrymander Project) that discusses gerrymandering in a very balanced way. I did have a little issue viewing each video. My solution was to refresh the page prior to watching the next video.
So without further ado, here is my post:
As a matter of fact, I did read the article. I will have to say, Rolling Stone, IMHO, isn't exactly a bastion of unbiased reporting. But I am fairly certain that I can critically think well enough to get past the undisguised bias and get to the heart of what was written. When I first read the article I had a strong sense of deja vu. It was a near copy (not plagiarized) of an article that ran several years ago in the now defunct Oregon Statesman-Journal. Only the tilt of that article was to the right, with those interviewed being conservative players in Oregon politics, rather than progressives, as in the Rolling Stone article. On top of the bias, the article is so full of holes as to be nearly worthless as a piece of decent journalism. My former journalism instructor would be beside himself with the number of obvious slanted statements to the downright inaccuracies. But the article was not written for people who think critically and who like to verify. It was written for (and by) the 145 character sound bite generation and for those who won't bother to ask themselves "Is that really true?". I will cover a few of these in detail below but one I wanted to point out quickly was the statement : "Just three in 10 Americans have a favorable view of the Republican Party,..." It fails to mention in the same poll, democrats only have a about a 3% lead. Not exactly something to hang your hat on. BTW: I had to dig to find the poll the author of the article might have used as a source.
GERRYMANDERING:
As I pointed out above, gerrymandering is not just something the Republicans came up with recently to wrest control of the Wisconsin Statehouse away from the democrats. Both sides do it and have done for various political reasons for decades. But as the link to Gerrymandering Project points out, only about 17% of the redrawn districts were done for solely partisan political purposes. What caught my attention was how the Rollings Stone article makes the point how the evil Republicans won the statehouse, then redrew the districts to firm up this control. But the article fails to point out just how this was able to happen. First of all, the Republicans had to gain control of Wisconsin before they could redo the districts. I don't know a whole lot about Wisconsin politics. But what little I have been able to find seems to indicate the statehouse was either evenly balance or just slight tilted in the democrats favor. Why/how did Republicans gain this control? The districts were supposedly competitive. Voter ID laws were not in effect. Maybe the people of Wisconsin grew tired of democrat control (or stalemate?). Maybe they wanted to go a different direction. I'm not saying this is a justification for the gerrymandering, but the ingredients were put into place by possible voter dissatisfaction of the democrat party. Wisconsin was not the only state that had been balanced where the Republicans made massive gains.
The Slant: Despite the election and reelection of Barack Obama, this shift happened from 2008-2016. The voters of Wisconsin weren't the only ones to shake things up.
DARK MONEY:
As for the so-called "dark money" being used in Wisconsin, again, it is not just Republicans. One has to look no further than the Tides Foundation and money coming from a certain Eastern European billionaire. The SCOTUS decision in "Citizens United" works both ways. George Soros and Silicon Valley Billionaire Peter Thiel are just two of the many VERY wealthy individuals who have used the new campaign contribution rules to bolster their chosen candidate(s). Based on where a lot of the wealth currently resides, I'd be willing to bet that the party of the rich has moved firmly into the democrat column. Consider: Bill Gates (MircoSoft), Mark Zuckerburg (Facebook), George Soros (Who Knows), Mark Pincus (Zynga), Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn) are all billionaires several times over. And they are also very progressive (Think Sanders, Obama, and Clinton). This kind of money into politics is not just an arena of the Republicans.
The Slant: Mentioning how the Koch brothers drove large dollars into Walkers campaign during the recall without a mention of the millions that came from out of state to support the efforts to drive Walker out of office.
VOTER ID LAWS:
Supposedly, voter ID laws were a big, if the main, reason why Donald Trump won Wisconsin's 10 Electoral delegates. The article goes into detail the breakdown of how this many people don't have a IDs or cannot get IDs. I don't have the time nor the ability to get that far into the weeds about why/how certain segments of society cannot/will not get state issued ID cards. But one thing I will say is make sure you read the numbers correctly and with a bit of a jaundiced eye. I had to read one line twice to make sure I was reading it correctly. The second reading make it a bit more clear and a little less fraught.
But for those who oppose voter ID laws or don't like the direction many states are taking I do have a question for you: Do you really suggest there be no form of verification to vote? I'm not going to drag out all the arguments about how people need IDs for basic living in today's society. It has been covered and there is no argument the progressive can counter with that doesn't end with an "ism" or "ist". Do you not think there should be some sort of verification of legal residence in a district/state/nation before a person can vote in our great Republic. And why can't people get a state issued state ID's? Are there are no DMVs in certain parts of town? Is there no possible way for people to get to an ID issuing location? Some people I have talked who oppose voter ID laws say not everyone drives. You don't need a DRIVERS LICENSE to be eligible to vote an ANY state that requires voter IDs. It just has to be a state issued ID. DMVs do issue ID card that are not drivers licenses. And I think in some states these types of IDs are free or a very minimal cost. And these are perfectly valid for use at polling stations.
The Slant: Watch this video, I dare ya. I actually cringed the first time I watched this video. Are there really people who think like this about their fellow man?
As for dirty politics in Wisconsin, the Republicans do not have the market cornered here. During Scott Walker's recall election in 2012 and the governors race in 2014, democrat operatives in the state government initiated what was called a John Doe investigation under the supposed guise of corruption with regards to political donations. The article covers this briefly (less than a paragraph) and of course, it is highly slanted. Never mentioning that the interpretation of contributions was outdated in light of the "Citizens Untied" decision. The article also never mentioned the raids into individual homes were done at night with threats of violence if doors were not opened. Those who were raided had their personal effects (Computers, phones, papers, etc...) taken from them with no recourse to reacquire them. And they were also threatened with jail time if they were to mention to anyone (even their lawyers) what had just occurred. These was so far out of line that the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled these actions unconstitutional and ordered the investigations shut down. The article makes it seem as if the only reason these investigations were shuttered was because of four conservatives judges. In fact the ruling was 6-1 (two concur with dissent) with one judge not participating. The gag order against the investigation’s targets prompted U.S. Circuit Court judge Frank Easterbrook to call the John Doe framework “screamingly unconstitutional.” (Source)
Now it is time to get back to the highlighted section at the top. Supposedly more than 1.4 million people voted democrat than voted Republican in 2012. OK, great, WOW! Not really that a big of deal and probably falls under that category of faulty comparison. While alike, they are not related due to our form of government. If progressives want to use "1.4 million people" as a salvo then why can't conservatives use this "by congressional district map?" Note the source. Not exactly a right leaning site. Progressives should be thankful we are clamoring to have elections decided by how many acres the Republican candidate wins.
I would venture a guess that if you dug into that 1.4 million you would find the VAST majority come from one or two states, namely California and New York. Some on the left like to point out that Clinton beat Trump in the popular vote. True enough. But, if only the state of California were subtracted from those totals, Trump now wins both the Electoral College AND the popular vote. Clinton won the vote in Cali by more than 4.2 million. And she won the national popular vote by 2.9 million. Clinton w/ Cali: 65.8M; w/out Cali 57.1M, Trump w/ Cali 62.9M; w/out Cali 58.4M. But we can't just throw out the votes Californians cast, which allows the progressives to run around with their hair on fire yelling "...but Clinton won the popular vote...". Entertaining!
This is exactly WHY we live in a Constitutional Republic and not mob-ruled democracy.
It does not matter that 1.4 million more voted democrat rather than Republican. It just doesn't matter. We don't elected Congress and the Senate on a nation wide vote. Those folks are there to represent the people of their various region. I would be willing to bet that Sen Kamela Harris (D-CA) received more democrat votes than entire number of votes that were cast in the most recent South Dakota senatorial race. Heck, there were even more votes cast for the second place finisher, Loretta Sanchez than were cast in South Dakota.
To wrap this up, I will have to say politics is a dirty game, no matter which side of the aisle you are from. And if you are more middle of the road like my friend (leans slightly left), it can really suck.
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