Nolan Matthew McCarty Quotes
… because … gerrymandering makes the districts less competitive, candidates are freed to pander to their bases while ignoring moderate and independent voters. More ever, politicians who do not pander face primary challenges from ideologically purer candidates.
Nolan Matthew McCarty, Political Scientist, “Sick of Our Politics? Don’t Blame Gerrymandering”, The Washington Post, October 28, 2012
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The legislators control redistricting and with the aid of modern computers, choose the demographics of the voters that they want in their districts even if they have to distort and Gerrymander the election district.
The Inspector General of the Justice Department and a Congressional committee found his actions illegal. Schlozman, a Republican Assistant Attorney General, had violated the Civil Service Reform Act by hiring attorneys on the basis of their political affiliation and later made false statements in his sworn testimony to Congress about his hiring decisions. He wanted people who he could count on to follow his lead and not prevent Southern States from changing their election laws and thus be able to discriminate against Blacks in voting, as was required by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This quotation is often cited by Civil Service supporters to show what can happen when a political appointee can fire government employees and replace them with people who will agree with him on matters of political ideology.
Most political analysts agree that all of these were factors that produced the hyperpolarization of the time. There were others such as the Republican Southern Strategy which triggered a shift of Democratic conservatives to the Republican party. This made the Republicans more conservative and the Democrats more liberal. Then those strong ideological parties drove many of their moderates out, and the Tea Party ran even more conservative candidates knocking out less conservatives in the primaries. Another factor, the relatively even split of voters nationally causing most candidates to appeal to their bases which became more extreme. However, especially in the House of Representatives, the redistricting created so few competitive districts that there was no need for candidates with safe seats to even be concerned with moderate and undecided voters.
The Democrats had Gerrymandered Illinois very much the way the Republicans did it in Texas in 2000, thus enabling Stephen A Douglas to defeat Abraham Lincoln for Illinois Senator. However, when Lincoln realizing that he, a relative minor political figure, had come so close despite the gerrymandering, he was emboldened to run for the Presidency.
Defending the Sudanese repression of political parties and dissent:
The irony of this quotation is that most people think that if there is any area of politics that should be nonpartisan or bipartisan, it is governing the voting and election process of our democracy. Yet, many who actually do the redistricting, are extremely partisan in the process.
