THE STRANGE WORLD
OF GERRY MANDER
Scoper
Gerry Mander has lived all over the United States, but he's lived in western North Carolina, off and on, through most of the 1990's. In fact, he's still hanging around today, trying to screw up the Tar Heel State's scheduled May 2 primary elections. Unless the Supreme Court stops him, he probably will. Who is this Gerry Mander, and why is he so rotten?
In the first place, Gerry Mander is not a person. He's a concept, half-named after a person, half-named after a lizard. Elbridge Gerry (vice president under James Madison) was Governor of Massachusetts in the early 1800's, during which time an election district was drawn to give an obvious advantage to candidates who belonged to Gerry's political party.
This "district," shown on a map, was so contorted as to resemble a salamander. An artist pointed this out in a newspaper editor's office, and it's not much of a stretch to imagine the two men combining "Gerry" and "-mander." Fast-forward to:
North Carolina, 1992. Based on population figures from the 1990 census, lawmakers in Raleigh were obliged to re-draw the state's congressional districts. This they did, following a federal mandate under the Voting Rights Act, which pressured them to create "minority-majority" districts. Huh? It's a district where a minority is a majority. In Washington, the conventional wisdom (under George W. Bush's father's administration, no less) was that blacks will not vote for a white candidate, and vice-versa, therefore there must be districts with such a large minority population (black, in this case,) that a minority candidate's election is virtually guaranteed. (This doesn't wash; there are too many examples to the contrary.)
So North Carolina's 12th district was created. Salamander? A salamander who saw a creature shaped like this would run for its life. In kindest terms, it's been described as the Interstate 85 district. It's also been called the "ketchup-spill" district. It ran between Gastonia and Durham and in some spots, well, Ally McBeal was never this thin. You'd literally have to live in the I-85 median to be in the district. But, when you draw it to include the largest number of minority voters that's what you get. That's "gerrymandering." Enter the U.S. Supreme Court.
"You can't do this! It's blatantly discriminatory!"
"But the Justice Department said…"
"Don't listen to them, listen to us! This district is unconstitutional, so change it!"
Unfortunately, the high court didn't tell them how to change it, or what would be acceptable. Some residents of Charlotte, North Carolina woke up one morning to find that they and their beds were now in the 9th district, and had exchanged black Democratic Congressman Mel Watt for white Republican Congresswoman Sue Myrick.
There were the usual appeals, of course. It took until 1997 for Raleigh to re-draw the 12th, with lawmakers basically "flying blind" as the Federal courts would not define what was "good" and what was "bad." Only after the work was done would the court look it over and say: "unh uh." The 1997 plan (which teleported some Charlotteans back into the 12th district) was struck down as well. A new one was in place for the 1998 elections. These required special sessions of the Legislature, by the way, paid for out of every North Carolina taxpayer's pocket. Ready for the punchline?
Early this month, a 3-judge federal panel ruled once again that the 12th district was illegal, citing the same criterion: race played too big a factor in its construction. North Carolina Attorney General Mike Easley immediately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but unless there's a decision in a week or so, there will be no congressional primaries on May 2. Already, absentee ballots are on hold: what's the point of printing them?
There's enough blame to go around. The state legislature created a voting district so blatantly race-based it was almost nauseating. But the Assembly was urged on by a Justice department that was convinced that only a minority elected official could possibly represent minority interests. (So much for Martin Luther King's color-blind "dream.") Then federal judges and Justices start flexing their muscles, creating a hard place right next to the rock. Throughout the 1990's, North Carolina's choices have been: "be sued by the Justice Department, or watch while the federal courts throw your district maps into the garbage can."
Meanwhile, there'll almost certainly have to be yet another special session of the Legislature (fork it up, taxpayers,) to try to remove this Sword of Damocles that's been hanging there since the 1990 census.
Say, isn't there another census coming up?…