(Bethesda, Maryland) Steve Shapiro isn’t the most popular Democrat in Maryland. The retired federal official has a curious hobby: going to court to defend the integrity of the electoral system.
In particular, he successfully challenged his state’s electoral map, which was drawn to favor the election of Democrats to Congress.
“I looked in the Constitution, and nowhere does it say that members of Congress can choose who gets elected instead of the voters,” said the man who became a lawyer after a career in the National Guard.
The American federal electoral system is unique in that each state has its own laws that set the rules for elections. In other words, the state decides how its share of the 435 members of the United States Congress is elected within its territory.
One of the crucial issues is the electoral map. While in Canada, it is the federal government that draws each constituency, in the United States, it is the states. A small minority of states (11) have an independent commission, but elsewhere, it is the elected officials who draw the contours of each constituency. The local legislature therefore sharpens its pencils to favor its own party as much as possible.
In South Carolina, for example, Democrats won over 40% of the vote in 2020, but won only one of seven seats. One of the six Republican seats, in Charleston, was won by just one percentage point. Coincidentally, the local (Republican) legislature “moved” black districts from that district to the neighboring district of the only Democrat elected. Then they went looking for “red” rural districts to compensate.
The technique of partisan redistricting is known as gerrymanderingin honor, if you will, of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Elbridge Gerry.
When he was governor of Massachusetts, he had a constituency designed so bizarrely that it looked like a salamander (salamander). It was given the nickname “gerrymander”.
Not everything is allowed when it comes to gerrymandering. But almost. Drawing federal “districts” to gain an exaggerated advantage is perfectly legal. Unless it can be proven that the maneuver is racially motivated.
In May, the Supreme Court, along new ideological lines, ruled 6-3 that South Carolina’s map was valid. Opponents failed to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the conservative justices any racially-based bad faith.
It was just partisan, in short, which is not unconstitutional. You can rig the cards, as long as it’s not clearly to suppress the black vote, in the end. In a state where blacks vote 90% Democratic, it’s hard to distinguish “merely partisan” from “racial,” but that’s the state of the law.
Maryland Democrats are no more virtuous. In this largely blue state, the legislature in 2010 presented a map that outraged Steve Shapiro.
“My constituency went from the Washington city limits to 60 miles north, to the Pennsylvania border, with places where it was two miles wide…” he told me, pointing across the street to Bethesda.
In doing so, the rural vote, which was rather Republican, was drowned in that of the city, which was largely Democratic.
PHOTO YVES BOISVERT, THE PRESS
Steve Shapiro has been fighting for years for a fair electoral system.
Admittedly, Maryland has the most bizarre shape of the 50 American states. It’s not easy to draw districts, which must all have roughly the same population – an average of 761,000 inhabitants in the country, but with differences ranging from 526,000 (Rhode Island) to 990,000 (Delaware).
The 2010 map was unacceptable to Mr. Shapiro. He campaigned to have it rejected in a referendum in 2012. “People weren’t really aware of it, and the question was written by Democrats to make it seem like a technicality. Even in Republican districts, the map passed! Everywhere, in fact, except my district…”
He decided to build a case himself and argue the case. That landed him in the Supreme Court. “I had to have Republicans with me, to be heard.” That wasn’t hard to find.
After many twists and turns, the Democrats’ unfair card was withdrawn and a new one was adopted, which he considers fair. “Both parties approved it.”
“If we rely on geography and social coherence [compact et continu, selon l’expression classique]Republicans might have two or three seats instead of one with another map, but this one is correct.”
The electoral rules are pretty strict in many respects in the United States, except for maps, oddly enough. A partisan injection into the cartoonist’s ink is allowed.
As the law stands, the Supreme Court will not interfere in gerrymanderingexcept in extreme cases. But it recognized the power of state courts to control these cards.
So the battle is being waged state by state. A battle in which the parties and a myriad of “non-partisan” or bipartisan organizations intervene. Some states, like California or Arizona, have their own independent commission. But there again, their solutions give rise to litigation.
The House of Representatives is narrowly dominated by Republicans, who hold 220 seats. Democrats have 211, with four more vacant. These local debates therefore have a major impact on national politics, and the future president’s ability to govern.
Meanwhile, in North Carolina (14 districts), Republican justices were elected and form the majority of the state Supreme Court. The Court threw out the previous map and adopted a map favoring Republicans.
“I stepped in, I tried to explain to them: If you go ahead with this ridiculous map, Maryland is going to come back with their bad map too. They didn’t listen to me. And with the Supreme Court’s decision on South Carolina, I’m really disappointed.
“National partisanship has infected state politics,” he laments.
THE gerrymandering usurps the role of the voter and affects the quality of representation. Initially, some politicians did it on a whim or for practical reasons. So-and-so wanted the university or such-and-such a city in his constituency. But with computer tools, it has become much easier and even more partisan.
Steve Shapiro
Steve Shapiro is a hero to voting rights groups. But he’s a lonely man among Democrats.
“They say I’m helping Republicans. I say if you don’t want Republicans to do it in North Carolina to retaliate, don’t do it! It should be solved nationally. There have been strict federal laws, but with the current state of Congress, that’s unlikely.
“I think that citizens are more aware of these issues now, it’s more in the news. I tell myself that if it changes, I will have had my small part in it, I just wanted to make a difference.”
This difference is visible and clearly drawn. Steve at least won that against Gerry.