To break it down for you, I don't think gerrymandered elections reflect the will of the people. It's a process whereby representatives select their voters rather than voters selecting their representatives. The North Carolina district maps are so partisan that their supreme court found them in violation of the state constitution.
Same thing with the Democrats in Maryland.
To claim that the representatives elected via gerrymandered boundaries reflect the will of the electorate is absurd. To claim that their mandate is equal to or even supersedes the non-gerrymandered office of governor is obtuse. And to ignore the context and intent of the legislature reallocating power away from a branch of government their party just lost is willfully blind.
I said above it is unethical, but it is not illegal or unconstitutional, and I do not see it as an attack on democracy as the
Vox author argues. The legislature was elected as well. I could see a state constitutional amendment to restrict a lame duck session of the legislature enacting such a bill, unless there was some emergency (natural or security). I'm not a Wisconsin voter so it is none of my business.
I chalk this up to partisanship. Democrats see Democratic policy as natural, wise, beneficial and anyone who does anything to thwart the enactment of those policies is wrong-headed, devious, and evil. The problem is that Republicans see their policies as natural, wise, and beneficial. The
Vox author seems to believe that there is no other way to look at the issues in Wisconsin than his way. Anybody who does is not
wrong. They're
evil. If your opponent is wrong, you can argue with him to convince him of the virtues of your position, or work towards compromise. There can be no compromising with an evil opponent.
Today's GOP is playing the kind of systemic political hardball that's simply bad for the country. If the transition of power is going to be this combative every few years, it risks spinning out of control.
Completely agree. I have drawn the analogy to the demise of the Roman republic. Two parties squared off and each party increasingly accepted the primacy of their policy over the provisions of the constitution or even the good of the country (because partisanship blinded members of both parties and they came to believe their policies were good for the country), including proscription lists and eventually murdering the consul-for-life in the Senate, which unleashed a civil war that completely swept away the last vestiges of the republic.
