Divide and conquer? Why mid-term redistricting in Kentucky would be a bad idea 

Louisville makes up Kentucky’s 3rd Congressional District. Its former rep in Congress writes that Nashville provides a cautionary tale against splitting the state’s largest city into multiple districts. (Getty Images)

The ugly specter of mid-term gerrymandering may be rearing its head in Kentucky, and the potential disruption to our state’s federal representation is impossible to overstate.

It started in Texas when President Donald Trump urged lawmakers there to redraw their congressional district boundaries in order to create more Republican seats and help protect the GOP’s slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Predictably, Texas Republicans, supported by Trump acolyte Gov. Greg Abbott, complied. In response, California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has initiated a process designed to do the same thing in his state, which could balance any Republican gains in Texas.

Historically, redistricting is done every 10 years following the decennial census. This makes sense because House seats are allocated based on population, which can change significantly over 10 years.

It is highly unusual for states to redraw district lines between censuses unless they are ordered to do so by the courts. In fact, since 1970, only Texas (twice) and Georgia have redistricted for partisan advantage. But now a redistricting battle is underway, and every state with one-party control and seats held by the minority party is under pressure to enter the fray. Kentucky is in that category.

My former seat, Kentucky’s 3rd Congressional District, the one now occupied by Morgan McGarvey, is one of the most “logical” districts anywhere. It currently includes all but roughly 20,000 people who live in Louisville Metro, and none outside the city lines. There is no confusion as to what member of Congress represents the interests of the Louisville community, including, for example, the University of Louisville. The mayor and the U.S. representative for the 3rd District have essentially the same constituencies, making coordination of multi-governmental efforts very effective and efficient.

Now there is discussion among some Republicans in Frankfort about splitting the Louisville community into three different congressional districts, presumably making it almost impossible, in the current environment, for a Democrat to be elected. This strategy was discussed briefly after the 2020 census, but the five Republican members of the Kentucky House delegation, along with Sen. Mitch McConnell, convinced Republicans in the General Assembly that it was a bad idea.

Under the concept under discussion back then, for example, a portion of Louisville would have become part of a district that extended south to the Tennessee border. Understandably, the Republican members of the federal delegation were happy with their “safe” districts and didn’t want a bunch of Louisville Democratic voters in their jurisdictions.

I don’t believe McConnell ever made any public comments about the idea, but I’m sure he understood the political risk of doing something so damaging to his hometown, and also the University of Louisville, to which he has always been fiercely loyal.

Now the idea apparently has resurfaced, as some Republican members of the Kentucky legislature somehow think they haven’t done enough to disenfranchise many Kentuckians, especially Louisvillians.

Federal court upholds Tennessee’s U.S. House map, rules it’s gerrymandered but not racially

Wiser heads must prevail. Tennessee offers a vivid lesson as to the damage such a move would do. Legislators there split Nashville into three districts during their decennial process. Now the state’s capital has three people representing it in the U.S. House, and this is one case in which more is not better.

The math is simple. Each congressional district across the country includes roughly 750,000 people. If you divide a district by three, that means in Nashville, 250,000 people are placed in a new district with 500,000 other Tennesseans, most of whom have little in common with them. If you are their representative, whose interests will have your priority? Clearly it is the 500,000, who will most likely have given you your victory margin.

Right now, Nashville has a Democratic mayor. He must work with three Republican representatives on any federal initiative. I recently spoke with a political scientist at Vanderbilt University who outlined the problems with such a setup. Vanderbilt, for example, has had to reorient its government relations efforts to deal with multiple Washington offices rather than one. I won’t go into all the problems caused in Nashville by this strategy, but suffice to say, Nashville has not benefitted from the redistricting, and neither has anyone else in Tennessee, except Republican candidates.

Missouri is about to do the same thing to Kansas City, breaking up its largest city and economic engine for strictly partisan electoral advantage, and in that case, essentially disenfranchising a large Black population from federal representation.

Hopefully, this idea will be nipped in the bud. No one should want the University of Louisville to have three representatives, none of whom would consider that institution a priority if they also represented Western Kentucky University or Morehead. It’s true that Louisville’s critical airport has only one representative, but how much interest would someone have in that critical facility if they also represented Bowling Green or Owensboro? Similar examples are numerous.

Louisville has never had a Black representative in Congress, but Black voters have a decisive impact on who represents them in Congress. That would not be the case if the district is sliced apart. It is a certainty that such a plan would be challenged in court on racial discrimination grounds.

Most Americans don’t like gerrymandering, which serves nothing but partisan electoral ambitions. They believe, as I do, that voters should choose their politicians; politicians should not choose their voters. I am less and less optimistic that today’s Kentucky Republican officials will consider the public interest, but hope springs eternal.

(Kentucky Lantern is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com.)