Washington times: Democrats look to state Supreme Court races as backstop to gerrymandering scheme

Click HERE to read the full story.

Democrats are failing to sell their radical policies to the American people — but unwilling to change their unpopular agenda, they are resorting to changing the rules to stay in power. In states like North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania, Democrats are successfully circumventing the will of the voters by having their allies on state courts draw them more favorable congressional maps. 

While they claim to be the party defending the right to vote, the Democrats’ “Sue Until It’s Blue” strategy ignores the ballots of Americans across the country and is an assault on the way our democracy is intended to function. 

Many are rightfully wondering how this is happening. The U.S. Constitution grants the power to draw congressional maps to state legislatures. And after Republicans overcame more than a half of a billion dollars in Democrat state spending to successfully defend all 59 of our legislative chambers and flip two more in 2020, voters put popularly elected Republican legislatures in charge of the redistricting process in a majority of states. Why, then, have Democrats been able to go around these Republican-controlled legislatures to gerrymander liberal-leaning maps? 

Democrats — led by former Attorney General Eric Holder, former President Barack Obama and the National Democratic Redistricting Committee — are currently pulling the rug out from underneath voters’ feet with a sneaky plan that they have been working on for years. Dating back to 2015, the liberal money machine has poured nearly $58 million into targeted judicial races to stack state Supreme Courts with their allies who issue them favorable rulings in redistricting cases. In North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania alone, Democrats have spent $32.7 million to buy themselves majorities. What is now transpiring in these states is nothing more than Mr. Holder and Mr. Obama cashing in on their investments. 

The “Sue Until It’s Blue” is alarmingly simple. Step one: Liberal elites spend big to stack state Supreme Courts with Democrat judges. Step two: Democratic operatives file lawsuits in state courts to overturn congressional maps drawn by Republican-controlled legislatures. Step three: Liberal, activist judges use these lawsuits as justification to toss out maps drawn by state legislators and grant themselves the authority to draw ones that gerrymander Democrats into power. 

The Democrats used this same strategy to overturn Pennsylvania’s congressional maps in 2018 and North Carolina’s in 2020. As Eric Holder has said himself, “What we have done at the NDRC is file lawsuits in state courts using the state constitutions and redrawn the lines that way.”

Thankfully, a blueprint for Republicans to fight back against these tactics can be found in the work the Republican State Leadership Committee’s Judicial Fairness Initiative did in Wisconsin. After the losses we suffered in redistricting cases in Pennsylvania and North Carolina late last decade, JFI focused on the mission to engage in critical state judicial races across the country to beat Democrats at their own game.