By Bruce Walker

The decision by Senator Gregg not to become Commerce Secretary is
the first round in a vital battle over reapportionment and redistricting. Title 13 Section 2 provides “The
Bureau [of the Census] is an agency within, and under the jurisdiction of, the
Department of Commerce.”President
Obama and his Chief of Staff lack the legal authority to move the Bureau of the
Census under the direct control of the White House, and an indirect effort to do
that – – exactly what the Obama Administration has said that it intends to do –
– is a contravention of federal law. Article I Section 2 of the Constitution makes it clear that Congress, not
the President, has the constitutional authority to define the census
process. If President Obama tries
to politically manage the census process, he is not only violating federal law
but he is also violating the Constitution.

Reapportionment a zero sum game: one state’s
gain is another states loss. An
attempt to use an executive branch formula rather than an actual count to
determine how many people live in towns and counties across America will mean
that congressional seats and electoral votes will be larded out like so much
federal pork to favored parts of the nation (and those congressional seats and
electoral votes will be denied to disfavored parts of the nation.)

Reapportionment triggers redistricting.State legislatures, in most states,
draw the congressional and state legislative boundaries based on census data.
Gerrymandering – – the calculated
drawing of legislative district lines to help the party which controls the state
legislature and to hurt the party out of power – – can not only control the
partisan makeup of Congress but it control the partisan makeup of the state
legislatures.Computer software now
makes the gerrymandering process much more exact and effective.

Most
state legislators and most governors today are Democrats. If Obama usurps the independence of the
Bureau of the Census and if Democrats in state government use advanced
information technology to engage in high tech gerrymandering, the combined
effect could make the Democrat Party the permanent majority party in America
without winning a single new voter. What should conservatives do? There are three major lines of attack.

First, Republicans in Congress should introduce a bill as soon as
possible to require that all legislative districts in our nation be drawn to be
compact, contiguous, and without advantage to any political party. This would create a federal statutory
framework for Republicans to challenge in court any form of gerrymandering at
the congressional or state legislative level. Republican Congresses once outlawed
gerrymandering of congressional districts and Congress clearly has the power to
do this. Article IV of the
Constitution (guarantee of a Republican form of government for states) and the
Fourteenth Amendment (mandating equal protection of the law for all persons
within a state) are ample authority for extending this nonpartisan requirement
to state legislative districts too.

Democrats loudly condemned Tom Delay when he encouraged Texas Republicans
to redraw Texas congressional districts so that district boundaries were more
favorable to Republicans. How
can Democrats defend what they accused Republicans of doing? Congressional Republicans ought to be
able to get virtually every member of their caucus to be a co-sponsor of this
good government legislation. Obama himself has opposed, in theory, gerrymandering. Republicans should begin, as soon as
practicable, to make the congressional abolition of gerrymandering a defining
difference between the two political parties.

Second, the Republican Party should begin to inform voters in swing
states like New Hampshire, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, and Iowa just how much
political clout and federal money a crassly partisan Obama census process would
cost the people and politicians of those states. Republicans should encourage bipartisan
state resolutions to demand a census free of theoretical projections and
guessing. Obama won the White House
and Democrats won control Congress by electoral victories in just these swing
states which would be cheated out of any census monkey business.
Re-apportionment is a zero sum came. It produces as many losers as winners. It is for just this reason that it must
be fair. The losers are never
happy. Republicans must, as soon as
practicable, let voters in states which would be cheated with a partisan census
count know what Democrats are planning for them. This should also be a defining issue
that separates the two political parties.

Third,
Republicans should begin right now to make a major push to gain a veto on
redistricting in as many states as possible. Corrupt or incompetent Democrat
governors in states like New York, Illinois, and Michigan – – along with voter
fatigue with Democrat governance in those states – – create opportunities for
Republicans to elect governors.
The
Republican disadvantage in state legislatures is marginal. Until the 2006 and 2008 election cycles,
Republicans had more muscle than Democrats in these legislatures. An unpopular Obama Administration in
2010 could produce a natural backlash against the Democrat ticket and return
control of several state legislative chambers to Republicans. Actually, the Republican task is even
easier: Democrats need to control
both legislative chambers and, unless they have a veto-proof majority, the
governor as well. All Republicans
need is one legislative chamber or the governor and enough votes to sustain a
veto in one legislative chamber to prevent gerrymandering.

The good news is this: fair reapportionment and unbiased construction of legislative districts
naturally favors Republicans. People have been moving for decades from states run by the Left into
states which free market approaches to government. Electoral votes and congressional seats
will naturally move to the Republican Party is the process is simply
proper. Although Republicans did
gerrymandering in some states after the 2000 census, partisan gerrymandering has
overwhelmingly favored Democrats. Ending gerrymandering nationally will automatically improve Republican
electoral prospects in Congress and in state legislatures. But Republicans must be bold, be vocal,
and be tenacious.

                 © 2008
Bruce Walker — All Rights Reserved

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Bruce Walker is the
author of two books Sinisterism: Secular Religion of the
Lie, and his recently published book,The Swastika against the Cross: The
Nazi War on Christianity.

http://outskirtspress.com/swastika_against_the_cross 

http://outskirtspress.com/Sinisterism