OPINION:
Democrats are failing to sell their radical policies to the American people — but unwilling to change their unpopular agenda, they are resorting to changing the rules to stay in power. In states like North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania, Democrats are successfully circumventing the will of the voters by having their allies on state courts draw them more favorable congressional maps.
While they claim to be the party defending the right to vote, the Democrats’ “Sue Until It’s Blue” strategy ignores the ballots of Americans across the country and is an assault on the way our democracy is intended to function.
Many are rightfully wondering how this is happening. The U.S. Constitution grants the power to draw congressional maps to state legislatures. And after Republicans overcame more than a half of a billion dollars in Democrat state spending to successfully defend all 59 of our legislative chambers and flip two more in 2020, voters put popularly elected Republican legislatures in charge of the redistricting process in a majority of states. Why, then, have Democrats been able to go around these Republican-controlled legislatures to gerrymander liberal-leaning maps?
Democrats — led by former Attorney General Eric Holder, former President Barack Obama and the National Democratic Redistricting Committee — are currently pulling the rug out from underneath voters’ feet with a sneaky plan that they have been working on for years. Dating back to 2015, the liberal money machine has poured nearly $58 million into targeted judicial races to stack state Supreme Courts with their allies who issue them favorable rulings in redistricting cases. In North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania alone, Democrats have spent $32.7 million to buy themselves majorities. What is now transpiring in these states is nothing more than Mr. Holder and Mr. Obama cashing in on their investments.
The “Sue Until It’s Blue” is alarmingly simple. Step one: Liberal elites spend big to stack state Supreme Courts with Democrat judges. Step two: Democratic operatives file lawsuits in state courts to overturn congressional maps drawn by Republican-controlled legislatures. Step three: Liberal, activist judges use these lawsuits as justification to toss out maps drawn by state legislators and grant themselves the authority to draw ones that gerrymander Democrats into power.
The Democrats used this same strategy to overturn Pennsylvania’s congressional maps in 2018 and North Carolina’s in 2020. As Eric Holder has said himself, “What we have done at the NDRC is file lawsuits in state courts using the state constitutions and redrawn the lines that way.”
Thankfully, a blueprint for Republicans to fight back against these tactics can be found in the work the Republican State Leadership Committee’s Judicial Fairness Initiative did in Wisconsin. After the losses we suffered in redistricting cases in Pennsylvania and North Carolina late last decade, JFI focused on the mission to engage in critical state judicial races across the country to beat Democrats at their own game. We were the largest outside spending organization in the 2019 Wisconsin Supreme Court race, where Judge Brian Hagedorn defeated Judge Lisa Neubauer by less than 6,000 votes. This victory preserved the court’s slim 4-3 conservative majority, which allowed it to rule last November that it is not the role of the judiciary to engage in the political process of drawing maps, foiling the Democrats’ efforts to gerrymander the Badger State through the courts.
We know the Democrats’ lawsuit shuffle and how effective it can be — now we must stop it in its tracks. That is why JFI is committed to spending more resources on state Supreme Court races in 2022 than in any year in the committee’s history to prevent Democrats from pursuing even more judicial gerrymandering.
The incompetence and failures of President Biden and Democrat-controlled Washington could give Republicans the best political environment of the decade in 2022. We cannot let this opportunity go to waste to elect conservative, rule of law judges who will prevent Democrats from running their “Sue Until It’s Blue” playbook.
Still, winning this year will not be easy. Liberal billionaires and powerful special interest groups are way ahead of us in this fight and have shown a consistent commitment to electing their allies to state courts. Since the 2015-2016 cycle, liberal spending in state Supreme Court races is up 5219% in Michigan, 293% in North Carolina, 95% in Ohio, 208% in West Virginia and 389% in Wisconsin.
In 2022, you can bet the liberal money machine will increase its spending to compensate for the Democrats’ toxic agenda. Republicans face disastrous consequences if we do not keep pace. We cannot continue to let Democrats trample the will of the people by hijacking the redistricting process and turning it over to their friends on state courts. Putting a stop to liberal judicial gerrymandering starts in 2022 with a renewed commitment to state Supreme Court races.
• Dee Duncan is the president of the Republican State Leadership Committee.
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