By Bill Barth
Wisconsin Newspaper Hall of Fame.
A stream of soaring rhetoric is devoted to patting ourselves on the back for the virtues of American political culture, where everyone’s voice matters.
Except it’s not true.
Let us count the ways.
Historically, political power rested with men. White men. Landed men.
Black men were mostly in bondage, and other non-White men were widely regarded as inferiors. American Indians were dismissed to the point of not existing as human beings.
Women were but a poor extension of their husbands and fathers. Except Black women. They were property.
Thomas Jefferson’s famous phrase from the Declaration of Independence – “All men are created equal” – sounds inclusive but was not. In that era the principle applied to White men. In practice, it applied only to some White men.
Over generations, though, Americans inched closer to living up to the founding documents. A Civil War was fought to end slavery. Constitutional amendments granted rights and citizenship to Blacks, extended the vote for women, and for 18-year-olds who were being drafted and sent off to war in a foreign land.
Yet change came in halting steps. Lincoln’s post-war vision gave way to Jim Crow laws and lynchings. Women pressing for full rights endured decades of persecution. Basic guarantees from the Voting Rights Act were not written into law until the 1960s, after years of unrest and murderous violence. Voting rights for young people were not granted until the streets filled with raging protesters.
History’s lesson is painfully obvious.
Power yields only if it must.
And any ground gained is not necessarily permanent.
Let’s look at two cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court and the predictable outcomes that followed.
In Rucho v. Common Cause, decided in 2018, the Court ruled federal courts lacked authority over partisan gerrymandering by the 50 states, despite describing the practice as “incompatible with democratic principles.”
That was a “Go” signal for Republicans and Democrats, wherever they had majority power, to carve up legislative districts to dilute the ability of voters to challenge or alter authority. It is accurately referred to as empowering politicians to select their voters rather than upholding the ability of voters to select their leaders.
Then came Louisiana v. Callais last month, which gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that had been the foundation of minority representation in Congress. The ruling essentially allows states to redraw legislative districts for partisan purposes – wink, nod – even if the effect is to dilute minority representation.
To no one’s surprise, the states of the old Confederacy overnight moved to crack heavily minority districts and create new lines to dislodge Black elected representatives.
This is a fact: The race to the gerrymandered bottom began this year at the behest of President Trump, who called on Republican-majority states to redraw lines mid-decade to add seats to save the party’s thin edge in the House of Representatives. Beginning with Texas, several states answered the call. There has been a price to pay for resistance. Multiple Indiana state Republicans who refused were targeted by the White House and ousted in their primary elections.
Republicans started this disgraceful process – keep in mind, justices called it “incompatible with democratic principles” – but Democrats quickly joined the battle, vowing to match fire with fire. So far, it appears Republicans have the edge in net gains for rigged seats.
Partisan gerrymandering is not new. It’s been around almost as long as the nation, though it’s always presented negatively when school children are taught how democracy is supposed to work. Two examples illustrate how it truly functions: Republicans gerrymandered Wisconsin; Democrats gerrymandered Illinois.
This is different, though, both in scale and brazenness. Customarily, district lines are redrawn once every 10 years following the national census. The last population count occurred in 2020. This mid-decade embarrassment makes no pretense to be anything but a partisan power grab.
That is cheating. It’s rigging elections, right out in the open, without apology. It’s telling voters their voices do not matter. It’s telling voters the parties will decide who wins, and those elected will represent only the party and its bosses.
This summer the United States will mark its 250th birthday. Words will rain down in torrents, glorifying representative government.
But most of the speakers will be liars, complicit in a system manipulated to thwart and bend the will of the people for partisan purposes. America is a paradise. The partisan political mob is a parasitic infection.
Their way is not democracy. Their way is tyranny.
What are the options when a government no longer reflects and represents the people?
Let Mr. Jefferson explain: “… to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed … whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it …”
Rebellion is in our bloodline. Cheaters, beware.
Bill Barth is the former Editor of the Beloit Daily News, and a member of the Wisconsin Newspaper Hall of Fame. Write to him at bbarth@beloitdailynews.com.
