Gerrymandering keeps pawns of the NRA in office

[DonViejo]

NEWSWEEK
19 MAR 2017 AT 14:31 ET

Virginia is a purple state. Its statewide elected offices—governor, Lt. governor and attorney general—are all held by Democrats. To the casual observer or someone outside Virginia politics, one would expect the Democrats to also hold at the very least, a slim majority in the General Assembly. They would be wrong. Not only do Republicans hold the majority in the General Assembly, they hold an overwhelming majority.

As in states like North Carolina, Texas, Florida and Indiana, to name just a few of the most egregious offenders, Virginia Republicans hold artificial control of the state legislature thanks to gerrymandering. While Democrats were asleep at the switch in 2010, the Koch brothers' money quietly engineered this coup and were able to cheaply buy elections in rural areas like Virginia’s 9th district. Tea Party darling Morgan Griffith was the beneficiary of hundreds of thousands of their Citizens United dollars. Even he was surprised he’d unseated a popular incumbent, and the Koch brothers saw it as an enormous return on a comparatively small investment.

Now, thanks to gerrymandering, statehouses across the country are carved into districts so skewed it would be almost impossible for a Democrat to win (and the other way around in a few rare cases). Maps of many of the districts look like snakes and toilet bowls. If every Democrat in the district voted and a good number of Republicans stayed home, it still wouldn’t make a difference. It’s why 79 out of 140 seats in the 2015 Virginia state election were uncontested. It was even worse in the House of Delegates, where 62 out of 100 of the races only had one name on the ballot.

I recently made peace with Governor Terry McAuliffe after our public disagreement on his compromise gun bill last year. Those of us in the gun violence prevention movement saw it as a capitulation to NRA-backed republicans. Even though we had our differences on that one piece of legislation, the governor has been a champion for our side. Thankfully, he continues to veto dangerous garbage passed by the craven gun lobby pawns in the Republican-controlled General Assembly.

more
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/gerrymandering-keeps-pawns-of-the-nra-in-office/

[hack89]

1. Or it is not a high priority for voters perhaps?

gun control certainly did not play a significant role in the last election.