Republicans Are Poised to Gerrymander Their Way Back to the Majority
IF DEMOCRATS MANAGE to escape the traditional midterm curse and don’t drop a single vote from 2020 to 2022, they would still lose control of the House of Representatives simply as a consequence of Republican gerrymandering following the census. Unless, that is, there’s a change to current laws or an overwhelming Democratic wave on par with 2006 or 2018.
Yet Democrats are in a peculiar position: With control of both chambers of Congress and the White House, they have the opportunity to ban gerrymandering, restore a semblance of democratic balance to House races, and at the same time give themselves a fighting chance to hold on to the lower chamber. But it’s far from a guarantee that the party will do it. Democrats may choose instead to voluntarily march themselves into a political abyss for no reason other than their own inertia and lack of imagination.
The bill that could stop this, the “
For the People Act,” has already passed the House of Representatives as H.R. 1. The dawning reality of the upcoming gerrymander heightens the importance for Democrats of passing the Senate version and signing it into law. To do so would require
reforming the filibuster, as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has vowed to oppose the bill with everything he has. Sen. Joe Manchin, the deciding Democratic voter on filibuster reform, penned a
Washington Post op-ed on Wednesday swearing that he would never vote to eliminate or “weaken” the filibuster, but a reform he suggested previously — mandating that senators actually occupy the floor in order to use it — could strengthen it as an institutional device, forcing engagement by the minority. Under current rules, as Manchin has noted, all a senator has to do to “filibuster” is send an email to a floor staffer, and everything shuts down.