Opposition to gerrymandering requires retaliatory Democratic gerrymanders

This is a strange framing of actions that are perfectly consistent:

Eight years ago, Eric Holder, the attorney general in the Obama administration, embarked on a quest with a single, daunting goal: to eliminate politics from the process of drawing legislative districts.

Through the organization he leads, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which has ties to Democrats, Mr. Holder has largely focused on fighting maps drawn by Republican legislatures, bringing legal challenges and political pressure in an effort to break Republican gerrymanders.

And while he has not always been as critical of Democrats, Mr. Holder has chastised some Democratic-led states and their legislatures for drawing egregious gerrymanders as well, arguing that “fairness for us is a weapon.”

But this week, something changed. Amid a contentious, Republican-led redistricting effort in Texas, Mr. Holder reversed course, arguing that Democrats should respond in kind, with their own aggressive gerrymander as a temporary salve in an increasingly fraught battle.

Democratic governors in several states, including California and New York, are considering rewriting laws or amending their states’ constitutions in order to redraw their maps.

In an interview on Friday, Mr. Holder explained the reasons behind his sudden shift and argued that Democrats needed to assert their power more forcefully.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You’ve long held out that gerrymandering in all forms was wrong, even criticizing Democrats last cycle. What changed?

Well, our commitment to fairness and to justice in the process remains. But you have to be cognizant of the situation in which you find yourself and the tactics that they are employing. This midcycle redistricting ploy in Texas, and potentially in other states, is something that has to be met in the moment.

Our commitment to fairness didn’t blind us to this new reality, and I think that we’ve got to take these extraordinary steps, with the hope that we can then save democracy and ultimately heal it.

This just isn’t a complicated question. Partisan gerrymandering is indeed extremely bad an incompatible with democratic values. The implications of this remain as clear as the water in Crater Lake:

No gerrymandering >>>>>>>>>>>>>

Both parties gerrymander >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

One party gerrymanders, one party unilaterally disarms.

This is a situation in which judicial review is particularly justified. The Republicans on the Roberts Court, however, exemplify the strain of American political elites who are hostile of the idea of popular control of government, so in one of its worst decisions held that partisan gerrymandering is one of the few areas of American politics in which the Court shouldn’t intervene, using arguments such noted radicals as Tom Clark could recognize as howlingly specious in 1962. Every justice nominated by a Democratic president dissented. There’s nothing Holder could do about that.

Democrats refusing to retaliate both makes outcomes less democratic and incentivizes more extreme Republican gerrymanders. But this perception that Democrats are the Party of Adults and Republicans should be held to no standards whatsoever is a problem — California and New York Democrats will face far more criticism from the media than Texas Republicans even though they’re retaliating rather than initiating. But they need to press forward to the maximum extent possible.