House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to support the effort of former Attorney General Eric Holder to redraw electoral maps in ways that favor Democrats, despite her supposed opposition to gerrymandering.
PAC to the Future, Pelosi’s leadership PAC, gave $300,000 to Holder’s National Democratic Redistricting Committee in late 2020. This despite the fact that Pelosi said in 2019 that partisan gerrymandering efforts “compromise the integrity of our democracy.”
Holder’s organization aims to influence the once-a-decade redistricting process that can determine which party will take control of Congress. According to Politico, the group will serve as an intermediary between the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and state legislatures, providing data and legal resources.
PAC to the Future’s finances are overseen by Paul Pelosi, the speaker’s husband. The PAC is the only politician-linked political committee that has donated to Holder’s group in the last two years.
“This year, the Democratic Majority passed H.R. 1, the For The People Act, which works to end partisan gerrymandering by requiring all states to establish independent, nonpartisan redistricting commissions to draw open and transparent statewide district maps after each Census,” Pelosi said in 2019. “We will continue to fight partisan gerrymandering, ensure every citizen’s vote counts and oppose any attempt to compromise the integrity of our democracy.”
Another source of funding for Holder’s outfit: George Soros. The Hungarian-born billionaire’s Democracy PAC, which itself is, in turn, largely funded by his nonprofit network, gave the National Democratic Redistricting Committee a six-figure donation.
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Various unions have also donated to the Holder group, including Service Employees International Union, Transport Workers Union, and the American Federation of Teachers.
As the Free Beacon notes about the organization’s leadership and origin:
The group’s board is composed of individuals from a host of left-wing groups, including Ali Lapp, executive director of the Pelosi-linked House Majority PAC, and Noam Lee, executive director of the Democratic Governors Association. It has also been aided by top Democratic lawyer Marc Elias, a partner out of the D.C. office of the Perkins Coie law firm who has led challenges against Republican-drawn electoral maps in recent years.
The National Democratic Redistricting Committee was born out of a quiet strategy session between former president Barack Obama, Pelosi, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), and former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe before Obama left the White House. The group identified breaking up Republican-controlled legislatures as a top priority. Holder has said the group’s mission is “personal” to Obama, who resented Republicans for disrupting his agenda in the House of Representatives.
The coronavirus outbreak has affected redistricting efforts. Complications related to the virus have led the Census Bureau to push back the release of the population count from March to September, a delay that will force states to scramble to redraw their congressional maps in time for the 2022 midterms.
Holder has threatened to bring forth lawsuits alleging gerrymandering if he doesn’t get his way in North Carolina.
“North Carolina really is, in some ways, ground zero for partisan and racial gerrymandering,” Holder said Friday in a speech to the UNC School of Law. “And the only way, I think, to crack that which is happening in North Carolina is through the courts, and use those decisions to get a more fair Congressional delegation from North Carolina.”
Pat Ryan, a spokesman for North Carolina’s Republican Senate leader, Phil Berger, called Holder a “charlatan.”
“Eric Holder is the worst kind of phony partisan operator,” Ryan stated in an e-mail. “He pretends to care about ideals like ‘fair maps,’ but it’s just a veneer to hide his true partisan goal of electing more Democrats.”
The latest Census has also been plagued by questions surrounding illegal migrants. The Trump administration unsuccessfully attempted to add a question to the Census to ask the respondent’s citizenship status. The effort was ultimately abandoned after labyrinthine legal battles.
The redistricting question is immensely important for the 2022 midterms. Democrats’ current hold of the House of Representatives is by a majority of only 10 seats, meaning Republicans only need to pick up 11 to take the chamber back.
Because it is state legislatures that perform the redistricting and Republicans control the majority of state legislatures in the nation, the GOP is poised to take control in 2022, making Holder’s work of great importance for Democrats.
