Mother Jones – July-August 2019

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ismatic by the standards of a career
lawyer, but no one would mistake him
for Obama on the stump, though they do
share a love of dad jokes. Still, Holder’s
devotion to technocratic details can be
an advantage when it comes to the nu­
ances of redistricting. Holder said he
viewed the fight against gerrymander­
ing as a “jigsaw puzzle” and delighted in
figuring out which pieces went where.
His efforts in Wisconsin began in
March 2018, when the ndrc spent half
a million dollars to elect Rebecca Dallet
to the state Supreme Court, a huge
amount for a state judicial race. Her vic­
tory brought Democrats one seat closer
to ending the conservative majority on
the court, which can rule on state voting
laws. To increase African American turn­
out, Holder’s group funded bloc, which
knocked on 35,000 doors in Milwaukee
in the spring of 2018 and helped achieve
higher turnout in Dallet’s race in neigh­
borhoods like Merrill Park than in a 2015
Supreme Court race.
Holder returned to Milwaukee last fall
to campaign for Democratic gubernato­
rial candidate Tony Evers, for whom bloc

knocked on more than 173,000 doors in

black neighborhoods that statewide po­

litical candidates usually bypassed. Evers

defeated Gov. Scott Walker by just 30,000

votes, giving Democrats veto power over

the state’s redistricting maps in 2021.

Holder also continued the efforts

he’d begun as attorney general by taking

Republi cans to court for infringing on

voting rights. When Walker refused

to hold special elections for vacant

state legislative seats in February 2018,

Holder’s group sued and won. After the

2018 election, when Republicans cut

back on early voting, Holder’s group

sued and won again.

Walker criticized Holder’s work in

Wisconsin on Twitter several months

before the election; after losing, Walker

became finance chair of a new group,

the National Republican Redistricting

Trust, focused on combating the ndrc.

“My role is to counter Eric Holder’s ef­

forts,” Walker tweeted. “He, with [t]he

help of former President Obama, have

raised some $200 million that they are

using in court and on the campaign

trail. Their goal is to secure Nancy

Pelosi’s control as Speaker for a decade

or more.” Walker dramatically overstated

the amount raised by Holder’s group, but

it was telling that the former Wisconsin

governor—whose party Holder had been

desperately trying to catch up with—now

thought Holder was ahead of him.

The question now is whether Holder’s

group can lock in and expand the gains

made in 2018. Over the next year, the

ndrc plans to almost triple its staff

to 30, and the absorption of Obama’s

vaunted Organizing for Action list will

give Holder’s group access to hundreds

of thousands of new volunteers to work

on state races. “The single most impor­

tant thing that could be done at the

grassroots level over the next few years

is to make sure the rules of the road are

fair,” Obama said on a call with these

volunteers in December 2018.

Democrats are within six seats of

flipping state legislative chambers in

Pennsyl vania, North Carolina, Minne­

sota, Arizona, and Michigan. “We’re

much closer across the country than

people think,” said the dlcc’s Post.

But the gop still

Left: Eric Holder speaks to

Black Leaders Organizing for

Communities in Milwaukee. Right:

Tayaveon Seals, a 24- year-old

bloc canvasser, knocks on doors

in northern Milwaukee.

(contintued on page 65)