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President Obama’s Ambitious Post-White House Plan To Aid Democrats: Eric Holder Named Chair Of New National Redistricting Effort

In a depar­ture from his 2008 cam­paign rhetoric of hope and change aimed at cre­at­ing bipar­ti­san con­sen­sus in Washington D.C., President Barack Obama plans to ded­i­cate his post-pres­i­den­cy to help­ing Democrats win elec­tions nation­wide by tack­ling redis­trict­ing reform — and he’s hand-picked Eric Holder to lead the charge.

The new group, called the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, will be led by for­mer Attorney General Eric Holder, Politico report­ed Monday. Holder helped over­see the administration’s redis­trict­ing lit­i­ga­tion while he served under the pres­i­dent. With Republicans at the helm in state­hous­es nation­wide, after the 2010 cen­sus, sev­er­al tra­di­tion­al­ly Republican states got more House rep­re­sen­ta­tives, while blue states lost some. That is because Republicans con­trolled the process by which dis­trict maps are drawn, cre­at­ing dis­tricts favor­able to Republicans. This process, known as ger­ry­man­der­ing, is the secret to Republicans win­ning a major­i­ty in the House of Representatives. In 2014, Republicans got 52 per­cent of the votes but won 57 per­cent of the seats. Despite the president’s ear­ly ambi­tions to break the par­ti­san stale­mate in Congress, through­out his two terms in office low­er Democratic turnout in midterm years has enabled Republicans to win gov­er­nors’ races and state­house races that con­sol­i­date pow­er in state cap­i­tals. Between 2008 and 2015, Democrats lost 13 Senate seats, 69 House seats, 913 state leg­isla­tive seats, 11 gov­er­nor­ships and 32 state leg­isla­tive cham­bers, accord­ing to data com­piled by University of Virginia pro­fes­sor Larry J. Sabato.

The pic­ture doesn’t look any rosier for Democrats in the imme­di­ate future. In 2018, the par­ty will already be defend­ing five Senate seats in his­tor­i­cal­ly red states, as well as anoth­er six in states that backed Republicans in 2010. They will also have to defend any House seats they gain this fall. In August 2015, Obama dis­cussed at length his feel­ings on a sys­tem that he sug­gest­ed was rigged to favor Republicans. : http://​www​.salon​.com/​2​0​1​6​/​1​0​/​1​8​/​p​r​e​s​i​d​e​n​t​-​o​b​a​m​a​s​-​a​m​b​i​t​i​o​u​s​-​p​o​s​t​-​w​h​i​t​e​-​h​o​u​s​e​-​p​l​a​n​-​t​o​-​a​i​d​e​-​d​e​m​o​c​r​a​t​s​-​e​r​i​c​-​h​o​l​d​e​r​-​n​a​m​e​d​-​c​h​a​i​r​-​o​f​-​n​e​w​-​n​a​t​i​o​n​a​l​-​r​e​d​i​s​t​r​i​c​t​i​n​g​-​e​f​f​o​rt/