North Carolina in historic and geographic perspective

Political events over the past few years in North Carolina have been quite depressing. Extreme gerrymandering diluted representation. In 2012, the Democrats won the popular vote for the federal House but lost most of the seats. In 2016, a 53% GOP margin for House votes won them 77% of seats; a 55% margin for state senate turned into 68% of the seats; in the state lower chamber, 53% of the vote got them 62% of the seats. (See here. For maps showing the power of gerrymandering in the state, see here.) 

Then, when the Republican governor lost re-election in 2016, the legislature moved to strip the Governorship of most of its power. 

But this is not unprecedented.

First, let us compare across space: Maryland is as gerrymandered as North Carolina, only in favor of Democrats. Is is true that Republicans benefit more nationally from gerrymandering (only Illinois and Maryland have a strong Democratic bias) but N.C. is not at all unique.

Second, the legislative power grab after the election is unique in the 21st century — the Maryland legislature did not try to strip Governor Hogan of his power in 2014 — but it is not unique across American history. First, consider Louisiana under Huey Long. For all the shenanigans, Governor McCrory did not move to destroy the opposition when he was in power the way Long did back in 1928-35. 

More ominously, consider Redemption in North Carolina. In the 1868 election, Republicans solidly trounced the Conservative Party. In 1870, however, the Conservatives managed to come back by effectively casting themselves as the white people’s party ... and using terror tactics by the Ku Klux Klan. Governor William Holden called out the militia to fight the KKK, but the Conservative nonetheless won the legislative elections. They first moved to prevent legislators from being seated from districts where the state militia arrested KKK terrorists. They then impeached Governor Holden. In 1876, the Conservative Party renamed itself the Democratic Party, becoming part of the national Democratic coalition. It took them until 1898 to fully disenfranchise the black population. (See also here.)

By those standards, North Carolina has so far been quite civilized. No riots, no extrajudicial killings or warrantless arrests, no declarations of martial law, and the courts have reined in the lame duck power grab and may reverse the gerrymander. Vigilance is warranted. Protest is warranted. And political mobilization is needed. But worse things have happened and worse has been overcome. 

Comments

[Logan]

"Maryland is as gerrymandered as North Carolina, only in favor of Democrats."

Eh, just looking at Congressional, Maryland's 2016 election was 60% Clinton, 34% Trump, so with 8 Districts you'd say a proportional split would be more like 5-3. But note that Maryland pre-2010 was just a 6-2 state, could have been a 8-0 state if Democrats had actually decided to gerrymander to the full extent, instead of being swept up in in-fighting. A nonpartisan redistricting probably only produces 2 GOP seats in Maryland because of the natural base of support in the rural western portion and the eastern shore, while the rest of the GOP vote is just spread out across the suburbs without a significant heft.

So North Carolina in 2016 was 50% Trump, 46% Hillary, so let's say a 7-6 split, right now it's 10-3, and a nonpartisan redistricting would probably make it closer to 7-6 one way or another.

Maryland's congressional gerrymander swings 1 seat out of 8, North Carolina's congressional gerrymander swings 3 or 4 out of 13. I think North Carolina is more egregious.

Sensitive to picking on Maryland because I feel like it just gets national attention because the Washington Post editorial board is pissed they were moved into a different district.

[Noel Maurer]

You can test for gerrymandering using the Wang criteria with this tool: http://election.princeton.edu/2016/06/26/an-online-app-to-diagnose-partisan-gerrymandering/

The gaps are pretty large. Along with Illinois, Maryland is one of the two states that seem gerrymandered in favor of Democrats. See here for the 2014 election: http://election.princeton.edu/2015/12/08/the-net-effect-of-gerrymandering-in-nine-states-exceeds-that-of-population-clustering-in-all-50-states/

I actually found out about Maryland's gerrymandering from Wang; I haven't seen it mentioned in the Washington Post.

[Logan]

I would concede that given the pathetic Democratic performance in Maryland in 2014 that they "should" have lost an above average number of seats.