'Fundamentally unfair': 94-year-old Republican warns of GOP crisis

19 August

Voters wait in line to cast their votes during early voting in the U.S. presidential election at a polling station in Detroit, Michigan, U.S. November 3, 2024. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook

Connie Morella was a moderate Republican congresswoman from Maryland when Democrats told her if she didn’t change parties, redistricting would take away the seat she held for 16 years.

Morella told Raw Story she “chuckled” at the idea of changing parties, even as the Democratic state legislature cut out Republican voters in the northwestern part of her district and added a highly Democratic eastern area, ahead of the 2002 election.

“I thought, ‘By God, I'm going to show them. I'm going to stand up and fight,” said Morella, 94.

“As it turned out, I did lose.”

She lost by 9,000 votes to Democrat Chris Van Hollen — who is now a U.S. senator.

“Naturally, you go back and you look at the old district, and you think, ‘If they hadn't gerrymandered, would I have won?’ And I would have won,” Morella said.

“It would have been a little lower because people were very troubled about Republicans, I think, on a federal level, but I would have won if they had not redistricted.”

Morella wasn’t long without a job: in 2003, President George W. Bush appointed her U.S. ambassador to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, in Paris.

But Morella lamented the continued progression toward “one-party districts” — an issue now at the heart of political battle as Texas Republicans attempt to redraw congressional districts mid-cycle, to gain five U.S. House seats in 2026.

“Looking at the population for representation, [redistricting] should continue to be every 10 years, and not like now, all of a sudden, like what's happening in Texas,” Morella said.

“We're suddenly deciding, ‘Well, I think we're going to do our redistricting now.’

“I think that bucks the tradition, which is what worked.”

Morella, who calls herself a “RINO” — a term used by President Donald Trump to deride “Republicans in name only” — said she understood Texas Democrats’ “frustration” with their Republican peers.

“Obviously, it's become so very partisan,” Morella said.

“I think it's wrong, the redistricting, and then, of course, I can see [Democrats] trying to respond to it, but I'm not sure the response is the best one.”

Democratic state legislators fled Texas to deny a quorum for a special session on redistricting.

“Certainly, I don't think it's that effective, but nevertheless, I think what's happening with redistricting in Texas is an example of how we should do something about it.”

Morella co-chairs the ReFormers Caucus, a bipartisan group of former lawmakers pushing for reform and hosted by Issue One, a nonprofit that works to reduce the influence of money in politics.

Morella suggested not letting “people who are holding elective office be involved with the final decision about redistricting,” instead getting “independent entities that have nothing to do with politics to do the design.”

“[Gerrymandering] is certainly not the way to govern. It is certainly not democratic,” Morella said.

“You can see from what's happening now. There is not one party that is innocent. Both parties are guilty of it, and it's the American people that lose their respect for governing bodies, and I see that happening, a deterioration.”

In response to Texas’ redistricting efforts, Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom announced a proposal to redraw congressional maps and put five more Democrats into the U.S. House.

From Missouri to New York, states followed suit in announcing redistricting plans.

‘Double-sided sword’

Gerrymandering — manipulating electoral boundaries to benefit a political party — was named after Elbridge Gerry, a governor of Massachusetts and vice president under President James Madison who passed a law creating a highly partisan electoral district in Boston opponents said looked like a “salamander.”

“It was so divergent that it looked like a salamander. It really literally did,” Morella said. “That is an example of what shouldn't happen.”

As a victim of gerrymandering herself, Morella said she had visited the grave of “good old” Gerry at the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C.

Gerrymandering can backfire, said Adin Lenchner, founder and principal at political strategy firm Carroll Street Campaigns, calling the practice a “volatile tool” that’s had “really mixed results.”

Lenchner said incumbents sometimes end up facing off in primaries due to redistricting, draining resources — as in 2022 with New York Democrats Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney, and Illinois Democrats Sean Casten and Marie Newman.

“We've seen the more extreme the gerrymander, the higher the risk that it just collapses on itself when either voters’ priorities shift or the courts come into play,” Lenchner said.

“These moments really risk alienating voters and those already skeptical nonvoters even further.”

Republican redistricting backfired in Dallas County, Texas, when the party went from seven state House seats to two in 2018.

The same year, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court determined 2011 congressional maps drawn by Republicans to be unconstitutional, ending up “flipping four seats to Democrats almost overnight,” Lenchner said.

“The very same districts that were meant to keep Republicans safe became the ones that cost them their majority,” Lenchner said.

‘Fundamentally unfair’

In Utah, voters are awaiting a ruling in a lawsuit that would force the Republican legislature to scrap maps drawn in 2021.

Those maps led to Republicans winning all four U.S. House seats, one of which was formerly competitive for Democrats.

Utah State Sen. Stephanie Pitcher is among those responsible for drawing congressional maps.

“In Utah, as a Democrat, I'm not happy by the way they gerrymander the districts here,” Pitcher told Raw Story.

“I'm sure the Republicans in California feel the same way, so it's a sentiment that we share.”

Pitcher commended Texas Democrats’ efforts to stop Republican redistricting.

“I think they've found some creative ways to stall the process and that's a process that they find fundamentally unfair,” said Pitcher, who is also a criminal defense attorney.

“I agree with them, and I would say the same thing if the roles were reversed.

“I don't think gerrymandering benefits anybody, whether you're a Democrat or Republican.”

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