Top NC Senate Democrat: ‘We can gerrymander, but Republicans can’t’

RALEIGH – That seems to be exactly what North Carolina Senator Dan Blue (D-Wake) said at a Senate Redistricting Committee on Monday morning. His logic in thinking Democrats are free to “gerrymander” with political bias while the entire reason they are redistricting int he first place is because a court ruled the maps unconstitutional on account of partisan gerrymandering? Democrats aren’t named in the court order.

No joke.

At NC Senate Redistricting committee, Democratic leader Dan Blue says Republicans can’t consider political data when drawing new maps, but Democrats can #ncpol

“The Democratic members are not a party to this litigation so we don’t see ourselves as being bound” by the court order

— Will Doran (@will_doran) September 9, 2019

You get that? Democrats are not bound by court dictated redistricting limitations (that the Democrats asked for) because the court order doesn’t name the Democrats.

So, while the respective bipartisan committees convene to consult on and draw new maps that might satisfy the latest activist court order decreeing political data taboo, spawned by Democrats ‘Sue til Blue’ campaign, Democratic members will use all the political data they want to craft line adjustments here and there.

Senator Ralph Hise (R-Mitchell) was quick to point out the folly of this notion.

But Republican Sen. Ralph Hise says that only a few top legislative leaders were named in the lawsuit (him and Phil Berger, for example, on the Senate side) and challenges Blue’s logic on that argument. This could be an interesting fight in the days to come #ncpol #ncga

— Will Doran (@will_doran) September 9, 2019

Will the redistricting process really get hung up on whether or not everyone not named in a court order has to comply with that court order? One wonders what that would mean for myriad other court orders that have become legal precedent and essentially law, but also fail to literally name quite a few people.

Regardless of if this turns into an actual legal question, it shows how utterly disingenuous Democratic lawmakers have been about the issue of gerrymandering all along. Of course, we’ve known that Democrats were the progenitors of gerrymandering in North Carolina for over a century and the racial/partisan gerrymandering smears against Republicans was merely political opportunism.

This attitude of the Democrats expressed by Senator Blue was perhaps best summed up by conservative North Carolina writer A.P. Dillon.

That’s an amazing statement that basically says ‘gerrymandering for me but not for thee’. #ncpol #ncga

— A.P. Dillon ???? (@APDillon_) September 9, 2019

‘Gerrymandering for me, but not for thee’ say the Democrats. What say you?