The Texas Senate passed a controversial bill over the weekend, creating five new GOP-leaning districts, following a similar Texas House vote earlier in the week. Gov. Greg Abbott stated that he would “swiftly” sign the bill into law when it reaches his desk. When he does, Democrats and civil rights groups are expected to challenge the new maps in court.
In response to the Texas redistricting bill, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the “Election Rigging Response Act,” which would transform five Republican seats into districts that heavily favor Democrats. If California voters approve the measure in a special November 4 election, it would cancel the GOP seats gained in Texas.
The term “gerrymandering” was first used in 1812 when Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry signed a bill redrawing state senate election districts. Though Gerry was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and US vice president under James Madison, his name has been forever linked to what many consider political powerbrokering.
Speaking of Mr. Madison: Patrick Henry tried to gerrymander him out of a congressional seat in 1789, showing that the practice is nothing new. Election districts have been redrawn over the years through legislative procedures such as we are seeing in Texas and through court actions. Both parties have engaged in the practice as a means of increasing their political power.
But is such partisanship what Mr. Madison and the Founders intended?
How America became the “United” States
I just finished reading The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783–1789 by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph J. Ellis. He describes in vivid detail the remarkable work of Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison, and (indispensably) George Washington in leading the newly independent United States to become a truly “united” nation.
As Ellis shows, the “Cause” for which the thirteen American colonies fought was independence from England, not the forging of a national government to which they would be subsidiary parts. Most colonial Americans considered such a sovereign power over the various states to be a continuation of the English monarchy and a violation of the purpose for which they fought. They saw their future as a kind of Europe, with small “countries” linked by common trade.
But Gen. Washington and his three colleagues were convinced that such independent colonies could not survive, much less thrive, in the face of European threats to dominate the New World. They would need each other if they were to retire the massive debt incurred by the war, develop viable trade relations with Europe, and settle their western frontier as well. The Constitution they therefore created and led the colonies to adopt was a vital expression of the American motto, E pluribus unum, “Out of many, one,” words that are emblazoned on our Great Seal and US coinage.
However, the “Quartet” and those they influenced also knew that Americans were too disparate to be represented by a single party or ideology. This is why they created the three branches of our governance with their checks and balances, permitting no individual or group to have unaccountable power over others. Within such governance, our two-party system has provided a means of debating our vital issues and achieving compromise when necessary to benefit the common good.
“America’s identity as a unified nation is eroding”
That was then, this is now.
Many analysts believe the US is more divided today along ideological and political lines than at any time since the years leading to the Civil War. Our partisan divisions reflect deep cultural chasms:
- Of the fifteen US states with the most restrictive abortion laws, all voted for Donald Trump in 2020.
- Of the twenty-one states with the most permissive gun laws in 2023, nineteen voted for Mr. Trump in the 2020 election.
- Of the twenty-three states that imposed restrictions with regard to transgender participation in school sports and other LGBTQ issues, twenty-two voted for Mr. Trump.
Gerrymandering, whether done to benefit Republicans or Democrats, reflects these divisions and deepens them as well. Redistricting is intended to make a voting district safer for the party in power, with the effect of reducing the number of competitive districts. As a result of such efforts and larger demographic shifts, analysts rate just three dozen of the nation’s 435 House districts as competitive in the upcoming midterm elections.
Consequently, according to the Wall Street Journal, “America’s identity as a unified nation is eroding, with Republican- and Democratic-led states dividing into separate spheres, each with its own policies governing the economic, social, and political rules of life.” Less than 20 percent of Americans now live in a state where the minority party has a meaningful voice in governance. A recent Harvard analysis found that 98 to 99 percent of Americans live in areas segregated by partisanship.
But without political debate, competition, and compromise, the views and needs of America’s very disparate population are underrepresented. And if Americans feel they are facing “taxation without representation,” we are back where we started when our drive for independence from England began.
A movement that “transformed American culture”
Dr. Ellis ends The Quartet with the approval of the US Constitution and the ascension of George Washington to the presidency. So we might ask ourselves: What continued to unify the new nation once its widely disparate people achieved the purpose for which they originally came together?
The answer is spiritual, not political.
According to historian Thomas S. Kidd, the Second Great Awakening that began in the 1790s catalyzed an explosive movement of churches, church membership, and personal conversion. He writes that this awakening “spawned an incredible array of reform, publication, and missionary agencies that transformed American culture and sent the Christian gospel to the far corners of the earth.”
Such spiritual unity amid cultural diversity should not surprise us: early Christians were even more disparate than early Americans (Acts 2:9–11), but they were “filled with the Spirit” (v. 2) and therefore united in biblical truth, community, worship, and prayer (v. 42).
Accordingly, “every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus” (Acts 5:42), as “the word of God continued to increase, and the number of disciples multiplied greatly” (Acts 6:7).
As a result, their movement “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6).
When we are as submitted to the Spirit as they were, do you believe God will use us as powerfully as he used them?
Quote for the day:
“In union there is strength.” —Aesop
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