Tennessee moves to disenfranchise its democrats

Tennessee moves to disenfranchise its democrats

“Too much of American politics is decided by efforts to restrict who votes or, as in gerrymandering, to manipulate the weight those votes hold. A more democratic system won’t end polarization, but it will create a healthier form of competition.”
― Ezra Klein

In light of the Supreme Court decision on Callais, Tennessee is joining other southern states to redrawing its congressional districts in order to eliminate its majority minority districts. I have written before about gerrymandering where Massachusetts has no republican congressman and Virginia is trying to have 10 democrats and only one republican. California and Texas recently redrew their congressional districts. More will likely follow. Callais says that racial gerrymandering is illegal. But isn’t the elimination of majority minority districts racial gerrymandering?

Tennessee with its trifecta republican majority (both state houses and governor) has already gerrymandered Nashville to dilute its black vote – oops I mean democrat vote by slicing it up into three districts. Now they are talking about doing the same to Memphis to get rid of the state’s sole democrat representative who happens to be white (Steve Cohen) elected in a majority minority district since 2007. Marsha Backburn who is running for governor is leading the charge. “I urge our state legislature to reconvene to redistrict another Republican seat in Memphis,” Blackburn tweeted. “It’s essential to cement @realDonaldTrump’s agenda and the Golden Age of America. I’ve vowed to keep Tennessee a red state, and as Governor, I’ll do everything I can to make this map a reality.” Good grief. I just might have to sit out the election of the governor this time.

So Gov. Bill Lee, shamelessly, has called a special session of the legislature to gerrymander Memphis. Personally, I miss the steady hand of Harold Ford, Jr and find Steve Cohen to be an almost cartoonish figure. But I am reminded of what one senator once said when called the dumbest senator in Washington – he said “dumb people need representation too.” 

Currently there are 9 congressional districts in Tennessee. Memphis is in the 9^th district with about 750,000 people. The city of Memphis itself has a population of 610,000. As mentioned, Nashville which has 704,000 was carved up and split among three congressional districts to get rid of its democrat congressman Jim Cooper. I think both Memphis and Nashville should wholly be each in a compact congressional district. If that means two or more democrats, then so be it.

Yes, I know the democrat states with the trifecta government gerrymander leading to tit-for-tat from the republicans. I think that it is shameful. However, I do not buy the argument that if a state has a certain percent of democrats (or republicans) or particular minority groups, that they should have proportionate representation (the reasoning behind Louisiana’s second minority majority district). I just think that districts should be drawn that are compact and make sense. I think that they should not split counties into separate districts either. How about setting forth some criteria and let AI draw the districts for each state? Then all this disenfranchisement can stop. 

Here is map proposed by Tennessee’s House and Senate Republicans. It splits Memphis into three districts and the Nashville area into five. The new map splits the 9th Congressional District, which has been Tennessee’s last remaining Democratic stronghold, into three separate seats, carving up the state’s only majority-black congressional seat. Aside from District 1, the map would make Eldridge Gerry proud. 

I asked my good friend Chad who is conversant in Claude to draw a Tennessee congressional map with nine districts that did not cross county lines with approximately equal population and was geographically compact. Here is that map.

So there it is, a totally apolitical congressional map. One could then see how many democrat counties and how many republican counties and project the composition of the congressional delegation. The only factor that would change would be shifts in population. Each district has approximately 800,000 residents as is the case now. To keep that number going forward some counties might have to be added or subtracted from a district. Regardless, I prefer Claude’s map to the one from the Tennessee republicans. What say you?