Two current governors write for The Post: Take it from us, politicians can’t be trusted to draw electoral maps
By Roy Cooper and Larry Hogan March 24 at 6:10 PM Roy Cooper, a Democrat, is governor of North Carolina. Larry Hogan, a Republican, is governor of Maryland.
Our states — Maryland and North Carolina — are among the most gerrymandered in the country. Take a look at our congressional district maps, and you will see some absurd-looking districts. This is no artistic statement; it is a scheme to concentrate one party’s voters — often using race as a proxy for party affiliation — in as few districts as possible, while spreading out another party’s voters into a larger number of districts that can still be comfortably won.
Gerrymandering also has a toxic, polarizing effect on the conduct of elected officials. It makes them more beholden to the party leaders who draw the boundaries than to the voters who live within them. The fear of a primary challenger backed by their party leader forces them to fall into line and focus on the narrow interests of the party and its more stalwart voters.
In North Carolina, one Republican member of the North Carolina General Assembly actually told fellow legislators in 2016: “I propose that we draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and three Democrats because I do not believe it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats.” Later that year, Republicans won those 10 seats — 77 percent of the congressional delegation — despite winning just 53 percent of the statewide vote.
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