After previewing their story with a video, the Argus Leader got around to posting it’s bizarre fantasy about how South Dakota’s poor, poor Democrats were hurt by big bad Republicans gerrymandering them into legislative extinction later in the day yesterday. And it looks like we have another case of a story being written to somehow try to support a nakedly biased lede, while at the same time they ignore basic facts:
South Dakota’s election map is stacked against Democrats more than any other state in the nation, according to an Associated Press analysis.
Nearly 2 in 5 votes cast in 2016 state House races went to Democratic candidates, but the party captured only 14 percent of seats in the chamber.
and…
What the 2011 committee came up with significantly favored Republicans, according to the Associated Press analysis, designed to find instances where one political party won, widened or retained its grip on power through political gerrymandering.
The analysis concludes that, had South Dakota Republicans won eight more House seats than would have been expected based on the average vote share in districts.
“There are Democrats that can’t win because they’re in districts that have been gerrymandered for decades,” said Sam Parkinson, South Dakota Democratic Party executive director. “Just because you control the majority of seats doesn’t mean you should draw the boundaries.”
and..
“It’s a fantasy for the AP to say the Republican victories can be attributed to gerrymandering,” Dan Lederman, chair of the South Dakota Republican Party, said. “That margin of victory isn’t due to gerrymandering, it’s because of weakness in the Democratic Party.”
Read that here.
As I did yesterday, I’m still calling bullsh*t on the story which ignores and downplays basic facts.
The biggest factor which was ignored in the Argus article was that Democrats will always face difficulties in winning elections when the fail to run candidates. In the last eleciton Dems failed to run candidates in nearly 30% of the races in the State Senate, while Republicans conceded only 17% – and those were the only races that Dems won.
To it’s only credit, the article actually went out on a limb and mentioned voter registration in the tail end of the article, begrudgingly noting “South Dakota Democrats also face significant disadvantages in fundraising, voter registrations and statewide name recognition. Republicans entered the 2016 election with 252,116 registered voters compared to Democrats’ 170,694.”
As my father might derisively note to me when I state the overwhelmingly obvious, “No sh*t, Dick Tracy.”
Is it possible that the overwhelming election of Republicans might also be largely attributable to the fact that the South Dakota population is comprised of an overwhelming number of Republicans, and has nothing to do with any ridiculous claims of drawing districts in an unfair manner? Could be.
When the Districts were drawn in 2011, they were not drawn in any different of a manner than they had before. And as Bob Mercer notes this morning, Democrats used to be able to do well after Republicans drew them:
Looking back to the 2001 redistricting, Republicans had a two-thirds majority in the House, with a 50-20 advantage in 2002 and a 49-21 advantage in 2003.
The Senate also was in two-thirds control of Republicans, as the chamber went from 24-11 to 26-9.
The 1992 redistricting came amid a brief resurgence, at least on the Senate side of the Capitol. The House of Representatives fluctuated somewhat.
Republicans held a 45-25 advantage in 1991 and a 42-29 advantage in 1993 before returning to 46-24 in 1995.
The Senate switched from an 18-17 advantage for Republicans in 1991, to a 20-15 advantage for Democrats in 1993. The chamber returned to Republican control in 1995 at 19-16.
Read that here.
In two previous redistricting efforts, (1991 and 2001) Republicans actually lost seats after redistricting, and in 1992, Democrats were able to take the Senate Chamber after a Republican led redistricting. Which the Argus conveniently ignored, because it conflicted with the fairy tale they’re trying to spin.
B-BUT HOW DID THEY DO THAT WITH EVIL REPUBLICANS DRAWING THE LINES?
As I noted yesterday, in South Dakota, our redistricting abilities are limited, and the rules require that certain boundaries be followed, and that the population must be split up as evenly as possible.
§ 5. Legislative reapportionment. The Legislature shall apportion its membership by dividing the state into as many single-member, legislative districts as there are state senators. House districts shall be established wholly within senatorial districts and shall be either single-member or dual-member districts as the Legislature shall determine. Legislative districts shall consist of compact, contiguous territory and shall have population as nearly equal as is practicable, based on the last preceding federal census.
Read that here.
In addition to that, South Dakota Legislative redistricting typically ends up under review by the federal government to ensure minority representation, so whether Republicans like it or not, it has to be played pretty straight.
The biggest difference between previous redistricting and this last time is that Democrats used to have a much more organized presence, and put their efforts into voter registration and fielding a full slate of candidates. In recent years, actually acting as a political party has been abandoned in favor of promoting ballot measures as panacea to their electoral woes. And as I’ve said time and again, and has been proven time and again – IT DOES NOT WORK.
But I’m getting off track. I can go on about what Democrats do wrong in elections in this state for hours. This was about the ridiculous story which ignores basic facts.
The naked bias against Republicans being exhibited more and more by the Argus Leader is just tiring at this point. And this article is just yet another example of it.