Eric Holder, Justice

Eric Holder To Lead Redistricting Effort, In Case Any Of You 'Political Revolution' People Are Interested

It's never too early to look ahead to 2017.

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Eric Holder Testifies Before House Judiciary CommitteeAt some point, this presidential election season will be over. We will strike the event tents, take down the lawn signs, and try to wash the Donald Trump fragrance off of ourselves.

Most people will go home, and leave the governing to somebody else. Most people sharing deeply held political beliefs on Facebook today will go back to sharing Rogue One trailers and/or DMing their private parts to somebody who they accused of voting for Hitler just a few weeks prior.

We won’t hear from them again until 2020, when they rise once more to express disgust at the political system, the binary choices, and the depressing gridlock in Washington.

Between now and 2020, nearly everything important will be debated and decided. Elections that affect people much more directly than their vote for president will happen. State legislatures will be elected. Governors will be elected. And when the 2020 census comes out, it’s those people who will be drawing the lines telling us whose votes count and whose do not. If the presidential election is a game, then it’s these local affairs that will set the rules of that game, and turnout is going to crater when the rulemakers are being elected.

Traditionally, Republicans have been fantastic at this part of the contest. The party might be in Trumpster fire at the national level, but locally, the GOP knows what it is doing. In 2014, Republican candidates for Congress won just 52% of the votes, but earned 57% of the seats. They have a stranglehold on state legislatures, and control many governor’s mansions. When other people go home, the GOP goes to work.

Eric Holder has been appointed to head a new organization aimed at helping Democrats not be so incompetent. And Holder is going to have some high-profile help after a new president is sworn in. From Politico:

The new group, called the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, was developed in close consultation with the White House. President Barack Obama himself has now identified the group — which will coordinate campaign strategy, direct fundraising, organize ballot initiatives and put together legal challenges to state redistricting maps — as the main focus of his political activity once he leaves office.

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This should be the legal battle for anybody who cares about voting rights. This should be the battle for anybody who thinks the “system” is rigged, or anybody who thinks our politics are too polarized. You simply can’t claim you care about “change” without showing up to vote for your state legislators, and holding them accountable for their actions.

The fact that Holder is involved shows that, even in the event of Republican majorities at the state level, the Democrats are prepared to fight some of these redistricting decisions in court. And while some of our most successful former presidents have focused on international concerns, the fact that Obama has highlighted this campaign as part of his post-presidency legacy bodes well for keeping the spotlight on this issue.

Decisions are made by those who show up. That’s just as true on November 9th as it is on November 8th.

Obama, Holder to lead post-Trump redistricting campaign [Politico]

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Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. His father was a legislator, so he’s seen how these maps are drawn and it’s utterly disheartening.

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