If they weren’t such a bunch of defeatist, partisan, left-wing, hypocrites, you could almost feel sorry for the New York Times. Instead, after reading editorials like the one today about how Republicans are (in no particular order) undermining the Constitution, stripping people of their rights, rigging the election process, and politicizing the judicial system, it would perhaps be better to point a finger in their direction and laugh uproariously at the attempt to turn the recent history of Congressional redistricting into a Fractured Fairy Tale of lies, half truths, and convenient memory lapses:

The rules of American democracy say every president may install his own team of like-minded people in the government – even at a place like the Justice Department, which is at its root a law-enforcement agency and not a campaign branch office. But the Bush administration seems to be losing sight of the fact that the rules also say the majority party of the moment may not use its powers to strip citizens of their rights, politicize the judicial system or rig the election process to keep itself in office.

You may remember the Fractured Fairy Tale cartoons from the old Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Writer A.J. Jacobs would take a fairy tale and turn the story on its ear by positing outrageous juxtapositions of the familiar facts with thoroughly modern elements ending the segment with a bad pun as a comic punchline. The Times may fail miserably in the comedy department but that doesn’t seem to deter them from corrupting history to suit their partisan agenda by glossing over the past and dishonestly exaggerating the present to skewer Republicans over redistricting practices that have been carried out since Alexander Hamilton’s time.

I have absolutely no doubt that Republicans gamed the system in order to increase their majority in the House not only in Texas but other states as well. And this is a shock to the New York Times? Of course, they couch their objections in terms of “civil rights” but what is really at work here? Are Republicans drawing Congressional districts to disenfranchise minorities or to maximize the votes of their constituencies? In other words, by drawing district lines that “dilutes” the most reliable bloc of Democratic votes – Blacks and Hispanics – are Republicans being racists or simply emulating the practices of past Democratic Party masters of the tactics of gerrymandering?

One of those masters was Phil Burton of California. Burton was a pugnacious, unabashed liberal whose personal style was so offensive that many in his own party gave him a wide berth. But he was a genius at redistricting California and making it a Democratic state. His 1980 redistricting plan was a jaw dropping exercise in partisan political hackery. He himself referred to the plan as “my contribution to modern art” so wildly skewed were the lines that delineated Congressional districts. I wonder if the Times would say the same thing about Burton that they wrote about Tom DeLay?:

But The Washington Post’s Dan Eggen reported last week that the Justice Department has been suppressing for nearly two years a 73-page memo in which six lawyers and two analysts in the voting rights section, including the group’s chief lawyer, unanimously concluded that the Texas redistricting plan of 2003 illegally diluted the votes of blacks and Hispanics in order to ensure a Republican majority in the state’s Congressional delegation. That plan was shoved through the Texas State Legislature by Representative Tom DeLay, who abused his federal position in doing so and is now facing criminal charges over how money was raised to support the redistricting.

Did Burton “abuse” his federal position when he bragged about his plan? The result of Burton’s machinations became clear in 1982. When Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, there were 22 Democratic and 21 Republican Congressmen. In 1982, following Burton’s manipulation of the system, there were 28 Democrats and 17 Republicans in Congress. In 1984, Republicans won a majority of votes in Congressional districts but failed to gain a single seat thanks to Burton’s gerrymandering.

The map drawn up by Burton looked like he had given a monkey a crayon and allowed him to scribble on a map of the state. Burton’s own district featured so many twists and turns that the lines actually ended up splitting apartment buildings in two. There were lines drawn down the middle of streets so that one side was in Burton’s district and the other side given over to the Republicans. All of this legerdemain was necessitated by the changing nature of Burton’s district which had become gentrified and thus full of Republican voters. But it was made possible – like DeLay’s efforts in Texas – by the magic of computers and the science of demography.

And the 2001 redistricting process in California was in some ways, even more outrageous:

The same could be said of the 2001 gerrymander, especially considering the 23rd congressional district drawn to guarantee Democratic Congresswoman Lois Capps a safe seat. It traces the California coastline from Monterey County down to Ventura County. Although it is 200 miles long, its width ranges from five miles to 100 yards, carefully avoiding Republican leaning-neighborhoods. When discussing the 2001 redistricting map that created this district the Governor said it looked like it was drawn by “a drunk with an Etch-a-Sketch.”

Much as we are loathe to admit, we Americans tend to vote in blocs. People of similar incomes, color, religious faith, sexual preference, and even TV preferences (to name a few) all tend to vote in a similar way. This is the dirty little secret in American politics and is grist for the demographer’s mill when they seek to slice and dice the data and turn it into political power. If one were to feed recent election results by precinct along with census figures from that same zip code into a computer and ask it to elect a Republican Congressman, the obedient machine would spit out a map that would guarantee a Republican majority district.

While court decisions have required plans to take into account the racial make-up of districts, there is nothing on the books that says lines must be drawn to insure a certain number of Democratic seats. This is the real beef of the Times and the opponents of the Texas redistricting plan. It is not so much a question of “diluting” minority votes as it is a question of blunting the impact of Democratic votes. The fact that the voters are members of a minority is a straw man set up to hide the real objection – Republicans drew the lines to garner more seats in the House of Representatives.

In the mind of the editors at the New York Times, this raw exercise in political power is evil and indicative of a Republican plot to destroy the Republic. But in telling this fractured fairy tale, the Times misses the punchline. By totally ignoring past efforts of Democrats when they were the majority party and seeking to cement that advantage using the same tactics as Republicans, it somehow didn’t seem quite as urgent to defend the rights of the minority.