Former president Barack Obama is back on the political scene with his “Redistricting U” program. Obama announced the new initiative which he says will fight partisan gerrymandering, although Republican’s might argue it is really an initiative to benefit Democrats.
On Aug. 26, Obama tweeted, “Training is at the heart of organizing. It’s why I’ve always made it a priority—from my 2008 campaign until now. And it’s why I’m proud to announce @allontheline’s in-person training initiative, Redistricting U.”
“The movement for fair maps will determine the course of progress on every issue we care about for the next decade. And we can’t wait to begin organizing when the redistricting process starts in 2021. We need to build this movement from the ground up—right now,” Obama said on the program’s website.
The Redistricting U program is a part of the All On The Line Campaign and was created after Obama merged his Organizing for Action group with former Attorney General Eric Holder’s National Redistricting Action Fund. In 2016, former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder formed the National Democratic Redistricting Committee to combat gerrymandering.
The Obama-Holder backed website states: “Manipulated electoral maps drawn with surgical precision by politicians to preserve their party’s political power and silence the will of the people. This practice—gerrymandering—is when politicians pick their voters instead of voters picking their elected officials and it impacts communities across the nation. The All On The Line campaign will fight against gerrymandering and push for fair maps in the next round of redistricting.”
“We’ll continue to fight against map manipulation using every tool that is at our disposal,” Eric Holder told Reuters.
The next census is in 2020. In most states, redistricting is done at the state level by the party in power, every ten years. The boundaries of U.S. House of Representatives and state legislative districts across America are redrawn to reflect population changes, considered necessary by the federal government’s census data.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that federal judges have no power to police partisan gerrymandering—the practice of manipulating electoral district boundaries for political gain. The 5 to 4 decision handed down in June leaves it up to the states to decide how to handle gerrymandering.
Some believe that the Supreme Court’s ruling could empower Republicans and Democrats who control state legislatures and governorship to become even more aggressive in drawing districts to their benefit after the 2020 census.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell thought the Supreme Court was correct in its position on gerrymandering.
“There is no such thing as a non-partisan gerrymandering,” McConnell said after the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision that “partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts.”
Eric Holder responded to the court’s ruling via Twitter. “This decision tears at the fabric of our democracy and puts the interests of the established few above the many. History will not be kind in its assessment.”
Obama’s Redistricting U program is mobilizing Democratic voters to get involved in the redistricting process.
According to All On The Line’s website, Obama’s Redistricting U program “will target recruiting and training citizens to oppose the drawing of congressional districts based on partisan preference.”
Redistricting U will be “sending dedicated trainers to cities across the country to train volunteers, give them the tools to impact the redistricting process in their state, hear from them on how to best make change in their communities, and empower them to be leaders in the movement for fair maps.”
Holder continued, “Let me be very clear. In spite of the troubling Supreme Court gerrymandering ruling we continue to fight. We still have both more tools and the strong will to bring fairness to our democracy. We need concerned citizens to join us. Nothing worth having comes easy. We can do this.”
Former Wisconsin Republican governor Scott Walker is now the finance chairman of the National Republican Redistricting Trust. He said: “This is not the end of our fight. The battle to protect our country from Barack Obama and Eric Holder’s plan to hijack our elections now moves to the states,” The Washington Freebeacon reported.
Walker wrote on Twitter on Aug. 22, “If anyone tells you that @EricHolder is ‘fighting against gerrymandering’ and for ‘fair maps,’ just look at the form his organization filed with the IRS. The truth: their mission is to ‘FAVORABLY POSITION DEMOCRATS FOR THE REDISTRICTING PROCESS.'”
