28 MOTHER JONES |^ JULY / AUGUST 2019
MAP QUESTMerrill Park and on races like the one he
was there to talk about, a state Supreme
Court contest that had received virtually
no attention outside Wisconsin.
“This state is in some ways ground
zero for gerrymandering,” Holder told
two dozen bloc canvassers who would
knock on doors that afternoon for the
progressive judge running in the race.
“Last year they called it a blue wave, and
yet you didn’t flip one congressional seat
here in Wisconsin. That’s not because
you didn’t work hard or people didn’t
vote. It was because of gerrymander-
ing.” Republicans had so effectively ger-
rymandered the state that even when
Democrats won 53 percent of the state-
wide vote in 2018, they took only 36 per-
cent of the seats in the state legislature.
Holder views gerrymandering, which
manipulates district lines to benefit one
party, as part of a broader struggle for
voting rights, since it effectively dimin-
ishes the value of certain communities’
votes. “There is a direct connection be-
tween gerrymandering and voter sup-
pression, not only here in Wisconsin but
in places around the country,” Holder
told me before his speech at the union
hall. “It is not a coincidence that you see
the greatest amount of voter suppres-
sion in those states where you see the
greatest amount of gerrymandering.”
For decades, Democrats successfully
fought these twin efforts at disenfran-
chisement in the courts. As Obama’s at-
torney general, Holder led that charge,
filing lawsuits against states like North
Carolina and Texas that challenged
Republican- backed laws curbing the
right to vote. But this tactic was handed
an enormous defeat in 2013, when the
Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights
Act of 1965 in Shelby County v. Holder,
ruling that states with a long history of
discrimination no longer needed fed-
eral approval to change voting laws.
Today, voting rights advocates face not
only a hostile Trump administration but
a growing number of federal benches
controlled by conservatives. As the gop’s
war on voting has intensified, the tradi-
tional ways of protecting ballot access
are no longer reliable.
So Holder is pursuing a new strategy,
trying to elect down-ballot candidates
who can deliver fairer maps and votinglaws. The ndrc invested $350,000 in
the Wisconsin Supreme Court race,
hoping that a liberal majority on the
seven- member court might strike
down any egregious gerrymanders in
the next round of redistricting in 2021.
“I don’t think that 10 years or so ago,
you would have a former attorney gen-
eral campaigning for a state Supreme
Court justice,” Holder told me. “This is
a recognition on the part of the Demo-
cratic Party, on the part of progressives,
that we need to focus on state and local
elections to a much greater degree than
we have in the past.”
But if Democrats are belatedly recog-
nizing this need, few besides Holder areacting on it. He is playing a long game
in a party driven by instant gratification
and consumed by the mess in the White
House. While the party’s presidential
contenders are attracting big crowds,
donors, and volunteers determined to
defeat President Donald Trump in 2020,
Holder is focused on 2021.
The Constitution requires states to
redraw their political districts every
10 years. In 2011, after routing Demo-
crats in midterm elections the previous
fall, Republicans took control of criti-
cal swing states including Wisconsin,
drawing electoral maps that cemented
their power. Now history is at risk of re-
peating itself. If Democrats don’t start
devoting more attention and resources
to state races, Holder warned the bloc
canvassers, 2021 could end up like 2011.The battle for control of state govern-
ments will determine the arc of Amer-
ican politics for the next decade, but
it is already overshadowed by the 20-
some Democrats running for president.
Holder is fighting not just a well-funded
Republican opposition but also his own
party’s narrow focus on the presidency.
“I understand people are going to be
legitimately focused on the presidential
race, as we should be,” Holder said. “But
it’s going to be my job to make sure we
don’t lose sight of those other races that
are going to be extremely important.”until recently, Holder’s strategy was a
radical concept within the Democratic
Party. Before the ndrc, there was no
single group formulating a centralized
strategy for gaining control of the re-
districting process, as Republicans had
done so successfully in 2010. That’s
where Holder came in. Never before
had a Democrat of his stature devoted
so much attention to such a wonky issue.
“I famously said I’ve got to make re-
districting sexy,” Holder recalled with
a laugh as we sat in his Washington,
DC, office at the law firm Covington
& Burling, located in the glitzy new
CityCenterDC complex. His corner
office has views of the Washington Mon-
ument and busts of John F. Kennedy
and Lyndon Johnson on the shelves.
“My hope was—and I know President
Obama’s hope was—that my being di-
rectly involved would give this effort a
degree of attention that it might not
otherwise have,” he said.
Democrats didn’t have a redistrict-
ing strategy because, for many years,
they didn’t need one. They controlled
a majority of state legislatures for most
of the post–World War II era, drawing
electoral maps in twice as many states
as Re publicans in the 1980s and 1990s.
Democrats were sitting pretty heading
into the 2010 elections after winning big
in 2006 and 2008, controlling more than
60 percent of state legislative chambers.
Then the gop launched an aggressive
bid to reclaim power at the state level, cre-
ating the Redistricting Majority Project
(redmap) to target state legislative races
and put Republicans in charge of redis-
tricting efforts after the 2010 census. The
effort was overseen by former Repub licanHOLDER ISFIGHTING NOT JUSTA WELL-FUNDEDREPUBLICANOPPOSITION BUTALSO HIS OWNPARTY’S NARROWFOCUS ON THEPRESIDENCY.PREVIOUS SPREAD: PHOTO: ALYSSA SCHUKAR; PHOTOILLUSTRATION: ADAM VIEYRA