Republicans’ proposal on fair maps remains unfair

By Kelly Fenton

Shamelessness is a powerful weapon. If, in your single-minded plot to retain power, you are willing to engage in cartoonish hypocrisy and transparent doublespeak – without a hint of embarrassment – you have a decided advantage.

Robin Vos, in his preposterously cynical column regarding the GOP’s preposterously cynical 'non-partisan' redistricting proposal, shows just how willing he is to do so.

Where to start? Anywhere, really.

That the man who spent more than 1 million taxpayers’ dollars in the investigation into a lie regarding 'fraud' in the 2020 election would decry the money being spent on the fight over fair maps – a fight that is necessary only because of his own party’s grotesque gerrymandering – is hypocrisy on steroids.

That he seeks to portray the GOP’s offer of the so-called 'Iowa model' as a good-faith compromise that Democrats ought to embrace is cynicism on growth hormones. The fact is, this isn’t in any way the Iowa model that Democrats have long sought to employ as our redistricting policy. Even the former Iowa Republican state chairman scoffed at this proposal, noting that the judicial review that would ultimately decide fair maps if the legislature and governor can’t agree – and which makes the Iowa model a guarantor of democracy – has been removed from Vos’s proposal.

Meaning the GOP would continue to decide how the maps are drawn. If this was fair, they’d never have proposed it.

Shamelessness presupposes gullible voters. Let’s prove to Vos we’re much smarter than he imagines.

*Blog posts represent the views of the author, but do not necessarily reflect the views of the local, state, or national Democratic Party*