Carville: Dems Need to Add New Blue States and Pack the Supreme Court to 'Save Democracy'
Democrats are really going through it over Texas Republicans' proposal to redistrict their state mid-decade, possibly adding up to five red House seats in the process. The rhetoric in opposition to the plan is predictably apocalyptic in nature, as Democrats seem to know of no other method for critiquing or debating any issue. Anything they don't like is "misinformation," or an "assault on democracy," or "racist," or will "kill people," or some combination thereof. They're reacting with volcanic outrage, per usual, and they look ridiculous. Holocaust comparisons. Hypocritical grandstanding on "democracy." And laughably hollow threats like this:
As I noted on Special Report, this party approaches politics with a simplistic, unserious, myopic, outcomes-oriented power principle: Anything that's good for them is good. Anything that's bad for them is bad, and probably an emergency. In addition to this being a stupid and shortsighted way to look at politics and life, they're also making extremely counter-productive choices as they attempt to win the public relations skirmish:
Former President Barack Obama has weighed in, as he likes to do --cloaking this issue in high-minded and righteous-sounding rhetoric, as he so often does:
Oddly, I couldn't find a similar 'undermining democracy' warning from Obama about New York Democrats' redistricting push last year (note: also mid-decade, also not a census year, for various reasons). Here's how the New York Times described that naked, partisan power-grab:
In rejecting a bipartisan commission’s map, Democrats in Albany made no secret of their political objective: winning more seats....Democrats seized control over drawing New York’s congressional districts on Monday, rejecting a map proposed by the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission in favor of drafting new lines that could make key swing seats more Democratic...in private conversations, they made little effort to hide their true objective. With the battle for control of the House likely to run through New York this fall, Democrats here and in Washington are determined to use their supermajority in the State Legislature to tilt the playing field against Republicans from Long Island to Syracuse.
Consider the recent history of this issue in New York:
In 2014, the Democratic majority in the legislature passed a constitutional amendment creating an Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC). The commission’s ostensible purpose was to prevent partisan gerrymandering...the IRC was tied in early 2022, allowing the Democratic supermajority in the legislature to redraw New York’s 26 congressional districts under a law that Hochul had recently signed. The State Court of Appeals in Harkenrider v.Hochul struck down the legislature’s map for blatant gerrymandering, which included diluting GOP-dominated Suffolk and Nassau Counties by combining them across the Long Island Sound with Democratic strongholds in Westchester and the Bronx. Subsequently, a federal judge appointed a special master to redraw the maps, helping Republicans gain a total of four congressional seats in the 2022 election. After another lawsuit claimed the maps were only interim, state courts gave the IRC a second chance. The revised maps were signed into law in time for the 2024 elections, in which New York Republicans did not fare as well
About a decade ago, New York Democrats passed a constitutional amendment creating a nonpartisan commission to draw their Congressional districts. Then they've sought to overrule and undermine that commission, in pursuit of their own political advantage and power. The rejected a map in 2024 that was "proposed by the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission," according to the Times, as they "made no secret of their political objective: winning more seats." Where was the national Democratic and media freakout over this? Where was Obama intoning about norms and institutions, or whatever? The question answers itself. Indeed we do:
If Democrats get themselves all spun up over Texas, and pursue a national redistricting war with the GOP, this Washington Post reporter warns them that they'll probably lose that fight due to of various constraints, including the reality that they've already squeezed so many seats out of their maps:
Other Democrats are thinking even bigger. Longtime strategist James Carville -- who is part of the old guard and goes on occasional rants about the self-destructive impulses and extremism of his coalition's left wing -- has apparently decided to go all-in on the redistricting alarmism. In order to "save democracy," he says, if Democrats regain a governing trifecta after 2028, they must engage in radical power grabs. They'd have to bust the legislative filibuster (another unilateral and unprecedented escalation by Democrats) in order to add blue states to the country, and blue seats to the US Supreme Court:
Democratic strategist James Carville on “Politics War Room” Wednesday pushed his party to resort to drastic measures to game the system in their favor to “save democracy.” “[T]he Democrats talk about democracy … and preserving democracy and saving democracy — well, the truth of the matter is, people are right when they say this democracy is really imperfect,” Carville said. “And they’re going to have to do — if the Democrats win the presidency, the Senate and the House in 2028 … they are just going to have to unilaterally add Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia as states.” “The Constitution gives Congress power over federal elections. I don’t think they’re going to redistrict, but … they’re going to have to do it. They’re just going to have to do it,” he added. “And they may have to expand the Court to 13 members. Any of those things in isolation, I would be skeptical about, I would be cautious about, I would say, ‘Well, I don’t know if that’s the greatest idea in the world. You’re opening Pandora’s box.'” However, Carville said he believed it was necessary to “do all of those things” in order to “save democracy.”
The guardrails are falling off of this party. I responded to Carville's atrocious ideas, wondering aloud how he and his party would react if Republicans -- who control the trifecta right now -- moved to conjure up some new red states, while empowering Trump to install four or five new SCOTUS justices in newly-created seats. Again, we all know the answer to that question:
Which brings me to a humble compromise I'd like to suggest, to defuse the current tensions: In exchange for Texas and Ohio Republicans abandoning their partisan gerrymandering plans, Democrats would agree to allow a new reapportionment of House seats (and electoral votes) based on the correct 2020 census numbers. As we've highlighted previously, the Census Bureau has admitted significant population miscounts in 14 states. The bulk of these errors benefitted blue states and disadvantaged red states. Experts agree that the wrong counts likely cost Republicans five to ten House seats. All my proposal asks is for the accurate counts to be used for a fresh reapportionment ahead of 2026 and 2028 (and before the 2030 census). This would not be a partisan gambit. It would righting and admitted wrong, which goes to basic fairness. And it would correct mistakes that strike at the heart of institutional integrity. Republicans would walk away from their existing drives to shoehorn more red seats into state maps, in exchange for the maps being cured of the 2020 miscounts.
The result, however, would likely be nearly the exact same number of GOP seat gains, just by different means, which is why I struggle to imagine Democrats agreeing to it. They don't want to fix the Census Bureau's confessed mistakes because those mistakes helped them, you see. And they hate the Texas plan because it hurts them. There's no higher principle involved here whatsoever. But for the sake of this argument, I'll place the idea on the table anyway. A clean swap. How about it, Democrats? And if you're not keen on rectifying the 2020 census problem, why not?
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