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Virginia’s Republican top representative and former Attorney General Eric Holder defended the Democrats’ proposed changes to the Old Dominion congressional map, accusing Republicans of “stealing seats” in Missouri and Texas.
Voters go to the polls on Tuesday to decide whether they can “restore justice” – in the words of the Democrat’s own poll – by approving a new congressional map that will redraw Virginia’s districts to favor Democrats over Republicans 10-1.
In a CBS News interview, anchor Margaret Brennan pressed Holder on the need for a new map, noting that the president’s party — this time the GOP — already historically does well in midterm elections.
The owner dismissed this move as an acknowledgment that the Democratic Party cannot win “on its own” and said that it can definitely win if it is a fair fight.
GLENN YOUNGKIN ACCUSES GOV SPANBERGER OF ‘UNLAWFUL AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL’ GERRYMANDERING IN VIRGINIA MAP FIGHT
“What were we supposed to do, nothing?” Holder asked, citing Texas’ decision to redraw its districts at the behest of President Donald Trump and similar Republican-led redistricting efforts in Missouri and North Carolina.
Holder did not say that Indiana’s legislative Republicans resisted calls to redraw their map in favor of the GOP, and Maryland Democrats also rejected a proposal to redistrict their districts, ultimately keeping House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris’ Eastern Shore seat.
The governor said that Democrats cannot allow Republicans to “stack the table” nationally and “try to steal seats.”
“What we’re trying to do is meet with them and try to make the system as fair as possible, and that’s what this is all about,” he said.
Holder’s comments sparked criticism online, as Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and others pushed back on Obama’s previous “wingman” concept.
“It’s part hacking and ‘seat stealing’ if Republicans do it,” Lee told X.
VA DEM REJECTS CLAIMS OF ‘POWER’ IN SPANBERGER RECONCILIATION AS GOP WARNS 10–1 MAP WILL DIFFER RELATED VOTE
“If it’s a Democrat, it’s about ‘making the system as fair as it can be’ – the Democrat mentality is troubling.”
Fox News contributor and media critic Joe Concha noted that Brennan also did not point out many recent cases of Democrats doing the very things Holder criticized Republicans for.
“Margaret didn’t bother to backtrack and point out the fact that several green states have been doing this for years,” Concha said.
Critics often point to the fact that all of New England does not have a Republican member of congress, despite the true D-to-R population.
Like Virginia’s proposed map, which includes several heavily drawn districts in Fairfax County and one deliberately drawn to connect inner cities like Charlottesville, Lynchburg and Roanoke, Democratic states like Illinois have drawn similarly poorly drawn maps.
Eric Sorensen and Nikki Budzinski’s districts form thin, winding lines connecting various Illinois cities that are nowhere near each other and are not in a straight line or concertina.
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Attorney General Eric Holder delivers remarks at the 103rd NAACP National Convention at the George R. Brown Convention Center on July 10, 2012, in Houston. (Michael Paulsen/Houston Chronicle)
Sorensen covers Rockford, Moline, Peoria and Bloomington, while Budzinski snakes from East St. Louis to Decatur and Urbana while fortunately collecting a small line of rural areas that may be in between.
In Maryland, until recently, the third district was in several separate pieces connected only by waterways and tributaries – to the extent that a federal judge contemptuously called it a “broken-winged pterodactyl” flying over the Balt-Wash lands.
