One man, one vote, is the definitional dynamic at the very heart of democracy. The constitutional assurance of the voting franchise mandates that every vote shall be counted and have an equal impact. Accordingly, the Constitution mandates the taking of an official population count (“Census) every 10 years; the impactful result is determinative of the democratic allocation of seats in the House of Representatives, reflective of the population of the voting districts.
The unconstitutional tactic of manipulating or rearranging map-defined voting districts, outside the mandated census to favor a political party, is a clear perversion of the democratic process, known as “gerrymandering.” Our readings advise that such unconstitutional manipulation involves “cracking,” or deleting the voting impact of an opposing party, or “packing,” the increase of such voting power. The perverse result is an empirical dystopia in which the politicians pick their voters, rather than voters picking their politicians.
Recent media reports indicate that in response to an intended Texas Republican Party tactic to untimely and percersely gerrymander the State’s voting map, wrongfully gaining five additional Members of Congress, have taken the irregular, but procedurally effective tactic of leaving the State, thereby preventing the mandated Legislative caucus, as a roadblock to the passage of such an errant Bill.
We have experienced mixed feelings, relative to public assertions by certain State Governors, like New York and California, of an anticipated defensive response, amounting to the replication of the Texas legislature’s unconstitutional gerrymandering; consistent with the aggressive populist aphorism, “fight fire with fire.” Such tactical political response, while emotionally understandable, is inarguably dissonant with the avowed principles of the Democratic party, to uphold the tenets of the U.S. Constitution, albeit in retaliation for, and defense of, the errant tactics of the Trump Administration. Even in the event of tactical success, the victory would be pyrrhic, resulting in yet another unprincipled assault upon the presently beleaguered Constitution.
It may be necessary and would certainly be historically preferable to undertake the arduous legal procedure of amending the Constitution for the effectuation of the warranted needed rather than being complicit with the MAGA-Trump miscreants in their unprincipled disregard of our Nation’s existential Constitution.
-p.
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