All tagged democratic party

John Hood: Democratic Court Blew It on Redistricting

I’ve been on the redistricting beat a long time. Back in the early 1990s, I wrote numerous articles criticizing the collaboration among Republican and NAACP activists to maximize the number of black-majority districts. After the egregious Democratic gerrymander of 2001, I cheered on the lawsuit that ultimately became the Stephenson v. Bartlett case, which overturned the gerrymander and enforced the state constitution’s rule against unnecessarily splitting counties in legislative maps.

John Hood: When shorthand gets it wrong

If the Republican Party were only the party of white men, it would never win an election. When discussing electoral matters, we all tend to use the political equivalent of shorthand. It’s a handy tool. We use it to identify the tipping point that determines electoral outcomes — the bellwether county, the interest group with shifting allegiances, the decisive issue that turned the tide.