SR: There's more short-term thinking around the Supreme Court. Many people are hoping that the court this fall, in a Wisconsin case, is going to rule there's a point of unfairness in excessively partisan gerrymanders. I should note that there are two flavors of gerrymandering: racial gerrymandering, which is illegal; and partisan gerrymanders, which so far is legal. People are saying, what Republicans have done is so extreme that it should be illegal and they have ways to measure it. In a recent Court ruling about North Carolina's racial gerrymanders, the court's conservatives, without Neil Gorsuch, said excessive partisanship was distasteful but a part of politics. Should we be optimistic?
DD: The Supreme Court has never been willing to rule that the partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional. It would certainly be a terrific thing for democracy, if they were finally ready to cross that bridge. All of this rests on Justice Kennedy. Even with Gorsuch on the court, Kennedy remains the swing vote and I was much more optimistic about Kennedy's mindset, before Harris v Cooper [the North Carolina ruling]. I mean, Kennedy, let's remember, is the justice who asked for a standard by which to measure partisan gerrymandering.
SR: Yes, but then he signed the dissent saying the liberals went looking for race, found it, and extreme behavior is a natural part of politics.
DD: You cannot count on the Supreme Court and the efficiency gap [the new measure of how many votes are wasted by gerrymandering], as being some kind of democracy miracle drug that will save us. This is 2017. There are two election cycles before 2020, where the state legislative winners will draw the maps. It seems very likely to me that Republicans will keep control of the state legislatures that will draw the maps, the districts that we will be competing on throughout the 2020s. That's in all the crucial states we've been talking about, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin. Republicans will be drawing these lines in 2021. Their majorities in the state legislator are just too big. The lines are too stout and the amount of time left is too short. It's not crazy or hyperbolic to look at this and say, It's going to be another decade before Democrats have a chance at fairer maps.
This is why I think it's so important for them to try to have a seat at the table, by winning these governors races. If they do not win those key races, the 2020 redistricting battle will be over on Election Day 2018, because these governors will be in office in 2021 and it will largely be settled, suddenly you're looking at 31. I wish I had a more inspiring and optimistic note.
SR: That is so sobering. It raises the question of what are the Democrats' priorities for 2018. It makes me think these governors' races and the possibility of a Florida constitutional amendment to re-enfranchise 1.6 million ex-felons, which would completely change its politics, are the game-changers. The House matters, but do we want to live with this GOP crew through 2031?
DD: The Democrats don't get it yet... Did you see those bumper stickers that DCCC [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] put out the other day? It was like, "Democrats 2008. Have you seen the other guys?" This is why I don't think the Democrats understand what they're up against because that was their strategy in 2016, right? It was, "Have you seen this guy Trump?" It didn't work. If the Democrats think that they can just go back and say, "Have you seen the other guy," and have that work in 2018 and take back the House, I mean, it's the definition of insanity.
It's doubling down on the failed strategy last time. They need 24 seats and they keep talking about the 23 seats where Hillary defeated Trump but elected a Republican. That's the essence of their strategy, trying to win those 23 seats. Georgia 6th was not one of them but it might as well been. Hillary gets 47% there and Ossoff gets 48.1% in the April run-off and then he gets 48.1% in the June election. That's what $30 million did--budged from 47% to 48.1%. Unless if you're going to spend $30 million in all of these districts and that wasn't enough to win"
It's an incoherent strategy and so far, they're ignoring all of these other districts. Why do you ignore Montana [where another House special election was held], where there is a Democratic governor, and a Democratic U.S. senator, and it's an at-large seat [meaning there's no gerrymandering]? Why would you not consider that a target? The strategy is incoherent. It is not being thought out and it is a mystery to me why any donors keep contributing into this black hole.
They could get lucky, but it wouldn't have anything to do with a good strategy. The 2016 election ought to teach us all to be careful about our predictions. I'm not going to say it's impossible to take back the House in 2018, but it's extraordinarily uphill. Deeply unlikely and in the end, it's not that meaningful.
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