I stand corrected. Partisan gerrymandering was not a major topic of discussion at the second debate of the 2020 Democratic primary. In fact, the NBC moderators did not ask about it at all. The issue was mentioned only once, and in passing by a single candidate.
That is a hell of a thing, considering the Supreme Court passed down a major decision on the matter earlier Thursday morning.
The only mention of gerrymandering during the two-hour debate in Miami came from Michael Bennet who said, “We need to end gerrymandering in Washington. We need to end political gerrymandering in Washington.”
The Colorado senator added, “The court today said they couldn’t do anything about it. … We need to root out the corruption in Washington, expand people’s right to get to the polls, and I think then we can succeed.”
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that cases involving claims of partisan gerrymandering are beyond the purview of the federal courts. The Supreme Court’s decision was split 5-4. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the conservative majority.
“We conclude that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts,” he wrote. “Federal judges have no license to reallocate political power between the two major political parties, with no plausible grant of authority in the Constitution, and no legal standards to limit and direct their decisions.”
Further, Roberts noted, the high court has never ruled a partisan gerrymander unconstitutional, adding that if it were to go that route, it would lead to judicial authority extending its reach “into one of the most intensely partisan aspects of American political life.”
“Consideration of the impact of today’s ruling on democratic principles cannot ignore the effect of the unelected and politically unaccountable branch of the Federal Government assuming such an extraordinary and unprecedented role,” he writes.
Oh, also, there was a second major Supreme Court decision announced Thursday: It sent the Trump administration’s legal case for adding a citizenship question to the census back to a lower court.
As with gerrymandering, the NBC moderators did not ask about this decision during Thursday’s debate. And like gerrymandering, the only mention came in passing, when Rep. Eric Swalwell of California accused the White House of “weaponizing the census” against illegal immigrants.
Considering how much time and effort Democrats and their allies in the press have put into constructing the narrative that Republicans win only when they cheat, and considering how much effort was spent Thursday protesting the Supreme Court’s decisions, I thought it was a sure thing that both extremely newsy events would play a prominent role in the second Democratic debate. I was wrong.
