Wizards
April 22, 2015 - by
If there’s a lonesome pilgrim out there hoping the recent Supreme Court decision will restore honor and fairness to redistricting… well, the Wizards have him surrounded.
When Republicans dreams came true and, at long last, they got to draw their own districts, they set out to find a special kind of Wizard.
Next the Wizards went to work carefully studying the Voting Rights Act and years of court rulings – then announced they’d reached a rock-solid conclusion: The law, the Republican Wizards said, required legislators to draw as many districts as possible where 50% of the voters were African Americans.
Not 40% or 60% — but 50%.
And that’s what the Wizards did.
And, up in Washington, the wise-men in Obama’s Justice Department blessed their work, saying, Amen – the Wizards had dotted their i’s and crossed their t’s and complied with the Voting Rights Act.
And their plan worked out just fine: More Republicans were elected. More African Americans were elected. And more Democrats lost.
Meantime, over on the other side of the isle, the Democrats were hiring their own set of Wizards who sat down, looked at each district and applied different mathematics completely – they asked, How many African Americans do we need to add to this district to elect a Democrat?
The answers the Democratic Wizards got varied from district to district – it could be 30% in one district and 34% in another and 40% in still another – but, for Democrats, that math worked out just fine too: More Republicans would lose. More Democrats would win. But not necessarily more African Americans.
The Democrats then took the next step and sued – to replace Republican wizardry with Democratic wizardry.
And, now, an odd thing is going to happen: The courts are going to decide which type of wizardry best serves the ends of justice.
Wizards
April 22, 2015/
If there’s a lonesome pilgrim out there hoping the recent Supreme Court decision will restore honor and fairness to redistricting… well, the Wizards have him surrounded.
When Republicans dreams came true and, at long last, they got to draw their own districts, they set out to find a special kind of Wizard.
Next the Wizards went to work carefully studying the Voting Rights Act and years of court rulings – then announced they’d reached a rock-solid conclusion: The law, the Republican Wizards said, required legislators to draw as many districts as possible where 50% of the voters were African Americans.
Not 40% or 60% — but 50%.
And that’s what the Wizards did.
And, up in Washington, the wise-men in Obama’s Justice Department blessed their work, saying, Amen – the Wizards had dotted their i’s and crossed their t’s and complied with the Voting Rights Act.
And their plan worked out just fine: More Republicans were elected. More African Americans were elected. And more Democrats lost.
Meantime, over on the other side of the isle, the Democrats were hiring their own set of Wizards who sat down, looked at each district and applied different mathematics completely – they asked, How many African Americans do we need to add to this district to elect a Democrat?
The answers the Democratic Wizards got varied from district to district – it could be 30% in one district and 34% in another and 40% in still another – but, for Democrats, that math worked out just fine too: More Republicans would lose. More Democrats would win. But not necessarily more African Americans.
The Democrats then took the next step and sued – to replace Republican wizardry with Democratic wizardry.
And, now, an odd thing is going to happen: The courts are going to decide which type of wizardry best serves the ends of justice.