On December 4, 2021, retired General Wesley Clark published an opinion piece the Washington Post urging the Democratic-controlled Maryland General Assembly to refrain from gerrymandering its Congressional districts, notwithstanding larger scale gerrymandering going on Republican states around the country. I wrote a letter to the Editor taking exception to Gen. Clark's suggestion:
Like the proverbial generals who are always fighting the last war, retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark urged Maryland to lead on resisting gerrymandering in the upcoming redistricting. But Gen. Clark is fighting a war that was lost on June 27, 2019. On that date, the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that the court would not step in to stop partisan gerrymandering, no matter how coarse.
Sixty years ago, the Supreme Court saved democracy in America by fashioning the one-person, one-vote standard for legislative and congressional districts. This time, the court declined to act to save American democracy. With the coarsest congressional gerrymandering now occurring in large red states such as Texas, Ohio and Florida, for Gen. Clark to urge that relatively small, blue Maryland act as if the court had set legally enforceable standards of fairness is akin to unilateral disarmament. One would think Gen. Clark, as a former NATO supreme commander, would understand the risks of unilateral disarmament.
David S. Fishback, Olney
On December 12, it was published, along with three similar letters. See here.
I am proud of the members of the Maryland General Assembly who successfully chose not to unilaterally disarm.
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