The GOP gamble on NC redistricting (10-14-2025--Hour2)

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all of the links, become a patron, go to vpeteclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. So there's still a little bit more. I've got some messages here also on the story about the redistricting move that the legislative leaders announced yesterday that they are going to when they reconvene on Monday the twentieth, they're going to introduce new congressional maps. They are allowed to do a redraw of the congressional maps outside of the decade sens timeframe. They're not allowed to do a redraw of the districts for the state legislative races. So General Assembly, State House, and Senate. None of those maps are getting touched. They are constitutionally prohibited from doing those maps. They are not constitutionally prohibited from doing the congressional maps. And as I mentioned in the last hour. Republicans currently have ten of the fourteen seats. If they redraw the lines, the general belief is that they will seek to make the first district a little more Republican by probably taking some voters or swapping voters between the third district, which is Republican leaning. Greg Murphy Republican represents the third district, and so the idea, the belief is that they would move the lines around to make the first district more vulnerable for the Democrat incumbent Don Davis. But the risk there is that when you do something like that, you run the risk of then making the third district more vulnerable for your incumbent Greg Murphy. That's what Andy Jackson called dummymandering. Here's an email from John who says, here is a giant gamble that the Republicans are doing. Historically, the off year election is very bad for the party that has the White House. That is true, especially a first term. If you remember twenty eighteen, Republicans were decimated not only at the federal level, but it went all the way down to the county elections. Now this is not Trump's first term per se, so it's really hard to gauge based on history. There's only been one other time that a president has served two terms non consecutively, and that was a very long time ago. But even then, usually the party of the White House does not do well in the mid terms. Right. That's what Republicans at the national level are worried about, is Democrats performing well in the midterms and they lose control of the House and or the Senate because the House is so closely divided. And as I mentioned in the last hour, the census counts were error ridden in more than a dozen states. It gave additional population counts to Democrat states, like five of the seven or six of the seven, whatever it was, and it undercounted Republican states. So Republicans in Texas said, well, wait a minute, you're counting non citizens towards your population counts, and you screwed us over by undercounting our state. So we're going to redistrict and we're going to correct this mistake that was made by the census. Okay, As John points out though, that the Democrats are also probably in their weakest position in terms of popularity in history, so it may work out for the Republicans, And I agree with John's assessment. This is the gamble that Republicans are making. And by the way, Democrats are also making the same kind of a gamble, right that they can withstand charges of hypocrisy that they are doing the exact same thing that the Republicans are doing and claiming that we don't do it while they're actually doing the thing that they're lambasting. Right, They're literally going to go ask California voters to suspend their own constitution to eliminate the quote independent Redistricting Commission, which I don't believe is independent, but different topic, Like, they're going to have to suspend their own constitutional provision in order to let the lawmakers draw more Democrat seats in the House. And I point this out California has like forty percent registered Republicans. Forty percent of their registered voters are Republicans, and they have somewhere in the neighborhood it's like mid twenty percent or high twenty percent of the congressional seats are held by Republicans. So that's the standard Democrats usually argue, is that whatever the total population is by voter registration or by presidential outcomes, right, the final votes, like you should take those percentages and basically create a proportional map. Right, if you've got. Fifty percent registered Democrat fifty percent registered Republican, then the seat should be split fifty to fifty. That's their argument. But they don't live by that argument. They don't apply that standard to themselves when they control the map drawing process, and so Republicans are now also playing by those rules. This is the same standard. Look, redistricting is inherently a political process. It always has been. So that's the background. Let me jump over here and get Mike. Hello, Mike, Welcome to the program. Hello Pete, it's been a minute. How are you doing, Hey, Bike, how are you doing well? I wanted to just sort of engage in a philosophical discussion about rediscuting and jerry mandering. I had a great texting conversation several weeks ago with your former colleague Al Gardner, who was writing in response to a post I'd made after Texas followed up on the request from from Trump to hey, I need I need some more seats, And I had written a post that basically went back to talk about a constitutional amendment that was proposed proposed by John Paul Stephens after he retired, that would put in the Constitution a means by which we could form districts without regard to frankly political benefit. And I've been saying. What Al reminded me was I've been saying for thirty years on air when he had me in for to do election work, et cetera, that jerry managing, no matter who's doing it is bad. It's not a good thing for many of the reasons that you were talking about. Where I'm struggling, Pete Is, I would think is a you know, a libertarian such as yourself would want the hands of legislatures out of the mix when it comes to picking picking voters. And you know the old. Friend, where's that where's that amendment? It is in a book called Six Amendments that John No. I mean, has it been has it been submitted for committee markup and submitted his states to ratify as it gotten any kind of legislative. Backing, not to my knowledge. I wish the Democrats didn't run the amendment, they didn't try to push this. No. I would like to say it was something out of a book that he did retired. See, so here's the problem. Okay, So here's the problem, right, is that you're asking me to engage in the philosophical debate at the expense of the reality on the ground. I, as Rush Limbaugh used to call himself, the mayor of Realville, I am a resident of realvill So I deal with things as they are and to And that's why I'm not a capital L libertarian, because I recognize the lay of the land and the rules that we are playing under, and the rules that we are playing under are currently that the legislatures draw the. Maps, right, and so it's all a power play, that's kind of that's that's. That's been what that's always been what we've been dealing with. And that's a good thing. Oh that's a different question. It's a good thing. What is it? So? What would be So if it turned out that you are going to draw maps that have no uh, that don't take into account of you know, no attention paid to partisan makeup registered voters, party affiliations, right, then what do you how do you draw the districts? You do it without regard? No, no, don't tell me now, don't tell me what to ignore, tell me what they look at. To draw them, use neutral criteria such as natural political or historical boundaries. Yeah, like the California model changes. Yeah, like the California model. I'm not that familiar with the California model, but basically, you look at it without regard. To again, do not define it in the negative. No, do not define it in the negative. You've got to define the positive criteria that you would use to draw the quote unquote fair maps. Why can't you define what you want to avoid? No, I'm asking you what the I'm asking because you cannot define some something by what you carve out and then say, well, whatever's left over. No, I want to know what it is you're going to look at. What is the criteria? Well, I just gave me some neutral criteria. And geographic boundaries. What's that geographic boundaries? You said, natural political or historical boundaries. Right, that's the California model. And their Independent Redistricting Commission was gained by you'll never guess the Democrats. Well, then that's a problem with the institution of that particular commission. It was a brand new commission set up with people that had no political experience whatsoever. Because that was one of the other criterias, a negative criteria. They wanted people that had no experience in politics whatsoever, had never donated money to any candidates or anything like that. So they got people in there that had no idea what they were dealing with, which is a political process, and they got steamrolled by fake groups that set up websites that claimed to be of community of interest, They made up certain organizations, and they gained the system. That's how they did that, because it is about it is about power, and it always has been. And you're at and so you're saying you want to set up this system that has the same criteria as the California model that has resulted in the very kind of underrepresentation that Democrats complain of in red states. Again, I don't know the problems with how the California model was executed. What I do know is this, you talk about being in Realsville. I'm talking about being a realist too, And the really realism is we do not live in a perfect world and not ever going to be a perfect system. Where you and I disagree is I think we can do far, far, far better, Ben just simply as the old saying goes, getting voters getting politicians. So here's here's my challenge to you. Here's my challenge to you, as a democrat, and act and act these ideas in states you control, you democrats control, do it. There's nothing stopping you, guys. Now, there's nothing stopping you guys from doing the very things. If you are doing it for the principled, philosophical reasons that you state, then do it well. And in many states that has already been done, Pete. In terms of democratics control states going to a more independent process, the problem is that becomes unilateral disarmament. And they're there, right, and therein lies the problem. So if you want to go back to the first thing that you mentioned about the constitutional amendment, then have the democrats run it. Why haven't they proposed this thing with the positive criteria to let us know exactly how they want to do it. But here's the thing. Whatever system you construct is going to have flaws, as you noted, right, and so those flaws are going to be exploited. And that means when people drawing the legislation up, they will know what the exploitation should be for them. That's that's going to be baked into the cake. So like it's not a morally superior position, you're adopting or arguing for here, you're just arguing for something different. No, you're just arguing for some You're arguing for some different process that might redound more to the benefit of Democrats. Not to the benefit of Democrats. Sure it is, no, No, of course it is, Mike. Come on, you would not be you would not be advocating any kind of a new system that would give Republicans a three hundred majority. Aren't you saying by saying that, Pete, that if we develop a system it's more reflective of the general population, that's gonna hurt Republicans. And that's your argument. No, that's your argument, Mike, Mike, that'sment. No it's not, Mike, that's your argument. That has always been the democrats argument. That's why I said it. You guys only want I've said this for years. When Democrats say fair maps, they mean maps that were down to the benefit of Democrats, because I could just as easily say that, well, Donald Trump won a majority of the popular vote, so he should get more of the seats too, so I could say that too. Like, this is my point. It's all about politics when drawing the districts. You just want a different way to draw them that redounds to democrats benefits. That's it. I got a run. I appreciate the call. My You know. Stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video started in nineteen ninety seven and Minhill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones, videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come who you are. Visit Creative video dot com. All right, in the moments I have before the news, let me read this quick tweet. It's a peat tweet from Eric who says, you Republicans better not jerrymander any states otherwise we Democrats will keep jerrymandering like we always do. What democrats fear is an even playing field and consistent application of the rules of engagement. Right, And I got a message from Andy who points out that the criteria that Mike mentioned is the criteria that is used constitutionally prescribed in North Carolina's legislative races. The things that Mike was saying on when I said, what are the positive criteria and he started saying, you know, geographic and political similarities or something like that, like these are the things like compactness, whole counties, communities of interest kind of thing like these are the criteria that already exist for the state legislative maps. And the Democrats sued over those too. See, so don't tell me that you want these criteria. And if only we had the criteria then then would make it all nonpartisan. Bull I know you guys too well. So when I was a kid, my grandpa died with Alzheimer's and before he died, my mom and my dad took care of him as he got worse. Forty years ago, there were no treatments and not much support for caregivers and family. But things are different today because of the work of so many people, including the Alzheimer's Association of Western Carolina. It's a great organization with awesome people with huge hearts. Supporter for twenty five years. This cause means a lot to me. I participate in the annual Walk to End Alzheimer's and I'm leading a Charlotte team again this year, and it's called once again Pete's Pack. You can sign up and you can join the team and walk with us. It's on October eighteenth, that truest field. Sign up at alz dot org slash walk and then you can search for my team name Pete's Pack. There's also a link at thepetepod dot com. There's also a link in the description of this podcast. Also, I'll be am seeing the Gastonia Walk on October eleventh, and so you can make a team and join that one too, or make a donation and help me hit my goal of five thousand dollars. If you do, I really appreciate it. There are a bunch of other walks all over the Carolinas. You can go to alz dot org slash walk for all the dates and locations. We're closer than ever to stopping Alzheimer's. Can you help us get there? Will you walk with me? For a different future, for families, for more time for treatments. This is why we walk. Marcus has been hanging on. Thank you Mark for hanging on. Welcome to the program. How are you, God, I'm doing fine. I hope you are your show as you Thank you, sir, appreciate that. Yeah, y'all been talking about this redistion and everything instead of going on forever. And there's no end to it. But it's a real simple solution. You just uh you know they worry about uh. You gotta throw out the person's colors. You gotta throw out the uh what what the populations is each district and just go by a population of state, which is what the federal government doesn't how many representatives you have, and just take a map. And it's gonna sound crazy, I know, but just take a map. It's the only way to do it without Unlet's you just want to thuss every two or three years. You just take a map, uh it's North Carolina. You get transparency with the how many squares you need to make, the how many we got to have to represent this flap it on there? Forget about how many in each district. That ain't ever gonna work. You're gonna all you about that forever, and just say, okay, if that's got fifty thou that's okay. If I've got fifteen, that's okay. You know, just let it go like that, and this in this add. To it if you need to. Yeah. But but Marcus, here, here's the issue is that the people know what the areas of the map are. Right, So you're looking at a map and you're saying, okay, we're just looking at the head count basically, and so you look at Charlotte, and Charlotte has what are we at now, something like seven hundred eight hundred thousand people or something like. Charlotte should basically be one district. But Democrats don't want that, right, Democrats don't want a single Charlotte district because then, like if you were to then start looking at all the surrounding areas and counting up all of those seats and putting those into other districts, you would have a lot of Republican districts. And so people when they're drawing the maps and there looking at the maps, they know, Okay, there are a lot of Democrats living in Charlotte, there are a lot of Republicans living in Union County, right, so they're going to know. How do you blind them to the to the to the locations and their knowledge of who generally lives in these areas. You don't worry about that. You just flapp transparent over top and squares on it and that's it. You can be right. But the people who are the people who are moving the squares around are going to know that these are rural areas. Unless you get like some kids in there that haven't been taught geography, which is basically every American in K twelve. Yeah they're not. They're going to know this is a rural area. And you'll be able to know by the population counts. Right, If their little dots or something all over the map, you're going to know, well, these dots are you know, few and far between, So that's a rural area, and they're true, they're generally going to be voting Republican. Well you don't. You don't worry about that. You just they will. You can't stop that district. No, No, that's what I mean, though. You can't stop people with the knowledge of rural voters voting Republican, urban voters voting Democrats. So how do you blind them to that knowledge? You just slap that thing off top up and that's it. You don't worry about it, and then then they can look at you keep that's the. Square, right, But Marcus, you keep saying, you keep saying that. But like if I'm looking at the map and I'm looking at the population on the map, I'm going to know where Charlotte is on that map. Oh sure, sure. And if it's got one big square, that's fine too. I Mean, the thing is, you know, you need to make it permanent unless to get more people in it. And then just as sure, like the square smaller. Well, I'm saying, you slap that sucker on there, and that's it. They can't argue about nothing. Just putting on them, that's it. And that's you know, because they can argue about everything. But I know, I know that that won't be done. But that's the simplest way. To do it well, I would advise against adopting what appears to be the quote simplest solution because it's usually not a solution at all. And in fact, as Thomas Soul says, there are no solutions, there are only trade offs. Right, So what you're doing is and look that, I mean, that was what you're describing is sort of the lofty goal that was articulated in California twenty years ago when they did their independent Redistricting Commission, And that's what they said, that's what they promised. They were like, we're going to have people drawing these maps that have like zero political awareness at all. Right, that's how we're going to take politics out of it. And what happened was the people who do know politics, they got involved during the community input portions, and he steamrolled those neophytes that had no idea the game that was being run on them. That's the problem. Yeah, I understand what you're saying. I can see a problem. They're saying. It's just that if you know, but they ain't gonna do it. I know because they remember several years back, they had one district for somebody I forgive who it was, and it was looked like a dog kind leg It went something. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was the Yeah, that was the famous twelfth district that mel Watt. He was drawn that district. They drew that for mel Watt, and it ran from Charlotte to Greensboro. At certain points it was literally I eighty five that was the connect. It just connected up I eighty five all the way to Greensboro to draw a majority minority district for mel Watt. And and the courts at that time when Republicans sued because it was Roy Cooper and his Democrats who drew those maps, the Republicans sued and the court said, no, no, no, that's fine, you can do that in order to create a majority minority district. So the problem has been that whenever Democrats get maps that don't redown to their benefit, they sue and they get criteria added by the Supreme Court, and then when they lose control, as what occurred in North Carolina, and then Republicans are drawing the maps based on the kriteria that Democrats argued for. Republicans use that criteria draw new maps. Democrats sue again saying you can't use this criteria, and then the courts, the Democrats on the Supreme Court, they turned around and said, yeah, okay, we agree with you again now. And so you get these conflicting criteria rulings that the state Like this is what Republicans were saying, like, we don't know how to comply now with these court rulings because you're you're you're in opposition to yourself with this guidance. That's the same the same black lady Justice just kind of pulls up the black Yeah. All right, Marc, it's going to talk with this, sir. I appreciate the call. All right, sir, thank you. Yeah, Like that's that's the issue. And so look, I used to I used to advocate for this very concept for you know, quote fair maps. But that was twenty five years ago. And I have heard just like you heard with caller Mike. That's my Daisley, former lawyer for the Meckleberg Republican or Democrat party rather and former political candidate as well. And you know, Mike's. Position and what he was advocating there was that you know that there has to you got to take it out of the politician's hands. And when I asked him, okay, well why don't Democrats lead by example, Why don't y'all do this? And he said, well, that would be unilateral disarmament. And that's the problem. So when you come to North Carolina lawmakers and you're like, you guys, shouldn't do this. Meanwhile, turn a blind eye to Maryland, New York, Illinois, California, right, all of these other states that are doing these things, and you want North Carolinian Republicans to unilaterally disarmed see see I see through the argument to the actual motive. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connect. 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Call or text eight two eight three six seven seventy sixty eight or check out. All there is to offer a cabin of Aashville dot com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. All Right, One of the things I love to do is to read my mail to you. So yesterday we got some we got some election material, and I got two very very heavy stock glossy political mailers delivered to the house. One is like an eight and a half by eleven and the other is like half that size and as a little card, and the first one it's got a picture of a woman leaning out of her car holding up her car keys and it says vote on it, and it says this election, the keys are in your hands. The future of transportation in Mecklenburg County is on the ballot. Don't stay home this November. Vote yes to improve Mecklenburg County Transportation. Scan the QR code to check your voter registration, request an absentee ballot, or find your polling place. And then it's got you know, the website, and it has the early voting which starts by the way of the day after tomorrow, it's October sixteenth, it runs through November first. Early voting Election day's November fourth, So okay, So like I'm looking at this and it's paid for by the Coalition for a Better twenty to fifty and okay, so this would seem the future of transportation. Woman in a car holding some car keys, headline the keys are in your hands. You flip the mailer over and it says, don't fall asleep at the wheel. So I'm getting a vibe here? Are you getting a vibe? Are you sensing a theme to this mailer? Vote yes to improve Mecklenberg County Transportation this election. Your ballot will include a voter referendum to approve or reject a plan for the future of transportation in Mecklenburg County. Don't let anyone else decide for you. This vote is your chance to choose where we go and how we get there. The keys are in your hands. Vote yes to improve Meckliberg County Transportation to learn more about how the plan will deliver better roads, safer walkways, and solutions to bumper to bumper traffic. Scan the QR code. Did you notice anything missing from the sales pitch? This is for the one cent sales tax referendum that we are looking at for November. Right, they don't say referendum. They don't say a sales tax. Right, they say vote yes to improve Mecklimber County Transportation. Oh sorry, they do say referendum. Your ballot will include a voter referendum to approve reject a plan. No, well, well no, actually it's a sales tax increase. That's what we're being asked to approve, is a sales tax increase. And what is that sales tax increase going to be used for? Well, according to the mailer, better roads, safer walkways. I refer to those as sidewalks. And solutions to bumper to bumper traffic. That's it. Okay, that's one mailer. Think about what's missing. Second mailer, this is your green light. Vote yes to get Mecklinberg County moving. And then they've got a little stop light there and the green is lit up and it says yes. Mecklinberg County has a plan to improve public transportation, including more options, better roads, and solutions to bumper to bumper traffic. From a new ride share service to synchronized traffic lights that keep us moving. This is a plan to help get you where you need to go. Don't stay stuck in traffic, request an absentee ballot, or make a plan to vote early. Did you notice anything missing from this mailer? Two words people, light rail. Why would they leave the words light rail off of the mailer? It's a brain buster. I would say, does the term light rail have some sort of, I don't know, a negative connotation somehow, maybe based on recent current events. I'm just asking questions. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please. Support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to dpetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.