LinkedIn on Monday, May 11, 2026
Full disclosure, I’m a registered Democrat, the son of Eisenhower/McCain Republicans, who is socially liberal, but fiscally conservative. Culturally, given the religion into which I was born, I am a member of a small, but historically prominent minority that is over-represented in Congress by a multiple of three. As for that over-representation, gerrymandering has had nothing to do with it.
The thing is, my dislike for gerrymandering, even when it is to favor those discriminated against, is bumping up against my profound distain for discrimination itself. I want to make sure those who are the subject of discrimination have representation in Congress, but I don’t like gerrymandering as the means to accomplish that objective. Maybe you can help me out.
First things first, I have no idea how we might define apolitical Congressional districts that just divide a state into contiguous districts of equal population without regard to who happens to live here or there. But then, just because I don’t know how to do something doesn’t mean there isn’t a way to do it.
What I do know is that I’m a person who believes that two wrongs seldom make a right. That just because Republicans or some White people may want to reconfigure Congressional districts to prevent the election of someone Democratic or Black shouldn’t make it okay for voters who are a minority in their state to gerrymander districts to elect more of their own kind.
To be clear, I am most decidedly not in favor of gerrymandering to diminish the power of one’s political opponents or members of any minority to elect someone to Congress. That said, there’s nothing anywhere that says that your representation in Congress should be the same as the percentage of the total population that others like you represent.
Suppose there was such a rule mandating proportionate representation in the House. What makes any minority, however defined, think they deserve any number of whole bodies from their group in Congress? Forget about Black voters or voters in the minority political party in a particular state. What about women who are half the population but less than 30% of the House? Other than numerically, can it truly be said that women are underrepresented? Can’t men represent the concerns of women among their constituents?
“NO!”
Whoa. I heard that. But then I would certainly trust my wife, were she in the House, to represent my rights and those of my son and grandsons as effectively and aggressively as she would represent her own rights and those of my daughter and granddaughters. And if she can’t or wouldn’t, I could always work and vote to elect someone else, not necessarily a man, who would represent others of my gender more equitably, more effectively – as if I would ever do that.
How about short people? Do they deserve proportionate representation in Congress by height? What about atheists and other minority religious groups? White nationalists, heaven forbid? Gay people? Dog versus cat lovers? …Do you get my point? If you’re going to encourage gerrymandering to accomplish proportionate representation, where do you draw the line? …And do you vote against someone who is otherwise well-qualified for office just because their group is already over-represented in the House?
People in any and every minority may believe that they should be present in Congress in the same proportion that they are in society, but they have no such right – nor is it necessary. White President Lyndon Johnson was a champion of non-White minority rights. Barack Obama was elected President with very substantial white-voter support and wouldn’t have been elected without it. Substantially more White people voted for him than Black people – White people who must have believed that Obama, a Black Democrat, would do a better job representing their interests than his White Republican opponent.
Likewise, you don’t have to be a gay President to fight for the rights of gay people to be who they are and for their equality as Americans. And so on.
The point is, just because you’re a minority doesn’t mean you won’t be represented in Congress by someone who doesn’t look or think exactly like you do. And, if you’re not well represented by those currently in Congress from your district, make your point and work to elect someone else to represent you. What you don’t need or deserve is your own Congressional district.
I get it that many Black people, particularly in certain red states, don’t, and probably shouldn’t trust White people to represent their interests. But that reality, however reprehensible, isn’t justification for their rigging the system in their favor the way Trump’s supporters are gaming Congressional districts in their favor. Real, legitimate change takes time, but there are other, better, more permanent ways to solve the problems of prejudice, discrimination and the general lack of empathy among many of our elected representatives for the concerns and needs of their constituents who are different than they are.
The Republicans who are currently pushing gerrymandering think that breaking up majority Democratic/Black districts will save them. Will save them by replacing Democratic/Black Congressmen and -women with White Republicans. Maybe, but probably not. Why? Because, in times of Republican Party declining popularity, which is where we are, spreading the Black vote around may actually tip election results in favor of Democratic candidates running in majority White Republican Congressional districts.
In any case, mid-term elections are likely to replace Republicans in the House with Democrats by many times more than the few seats gerrymandering by Republicans is likely to save. We need to put an end to gerrymandering whomever it favors. In the meantime, it’s not where Democrats should be focusing their time and money to ensure they take over the House and maybe the Senate too as a result of mid-term elections in November.
-Les Cohen
