政治场景 民主党和共和党正在进行一场“竞相堕落”的竞赛——而最严重的后果将远远超出下个月的中期选举。
The Political Scene Democrats and Republicans are in a race to the bottom—and the worst consequences will extend far beyond next month’s midterms.
在1922年的中期选举中，密苏里州的选民被邀请直接就一系列广泛的议题发表意见。总体而言，他们持拒绝态度。一项提高政客薪酬的修正案被否决。（Plus ça change。）同样被否决的，还有重新划定该州国会选区的法律。两年前，共和党在该州取得全面胜利，随后通过了一张明显的党派划分选区图。民主党——在 gerrymandering 问题上也并非圣人——请求举行公投以逆转这一损害，1922年3月，密苏里州州务卿确认他们已收集到足够的签名以进入选票。超过60%的选民投票反对共和党的 gerrymander。事情就这样结束了。
In the midterm elections of 1922, voters in Missouri were invited to weigh in directly on a wide range of issues. Mostly, they were in a rejectionist frame of mind. An amendment to hike politicians’ pay was defeated. (Plus ça change.) So, too, was a law that redrew the state’s congressional districts. Two years earlier, Republicans had swept the state, then passed a blatantly gerrymandered map. Democrats—no saints themselves, when it came to gerrymandering—petitioned for a referendum to reverse the damage, and, in March, 1922, Missouri’s secretary of state confirmed that they had enough signatures to reach the ballot. More than sixty per cent of the electorate voted against the Republican gerrymander. And that was that.
上次我写到重新划分选区的争论时，大约一年前，我曾指出特朗普当然不是选区划分的发明者；这一做法几乎和美国本身一样古老，许多党派——其中一些已经不复存在——都曾是愿意的参与者。（特朗普的行动之所以不同寻常，在于它发生在十年中期——通常情况下，重新划分选区是在十年一次的人口普查之后进行，以适应人口变化——但即便如此，这也并非全然新鲜事。）
When I last wrote about the redistricting wars a year or so ago, I noted that Trump did not invent gerrymandering, of course; the practice is about as old as America itself, and many parties, some of which no longer exist, have been willing participants. (Trump’s crusade unusual in that it took place mid-decade—typically, redistricting follows the decennial census, to account for population changes—but even this wasn’t entirely new.)
总统毫无疑问地拉开了最新一轮的序幕，他鼓励德克萨斯州的共和党人重新划定边界，理论上这将使五个民主党选区对共和党更为友好（“我们理应再赢得五个席位，”他说）。在其他地方，北卡罗来纳州似乎为共和党划出了一个可夺取的席位，密苏里州也似乎如此， pending 公投活动的结果。与此同时，加利福尼亚州的选民投票决定暂停一个通常负责绘制州选区图的非党派委员会，并将五个共和党选区改得对民主党更有利——这是对德克萨斯州的明确回应。
The President did, unquestionably, start the latest round, by encouraging Republicans in Texas to draw new boundaries that would, in theory, make five Democratic districts friendlier for the G.O.P. (“We are entitled to five more seats,” he said ) Elsewhere, North Carolina had carved out one pickup opportunity for Republicans, as, it seemed, had Missouri, pending the referendum campaign. Californians, meanwhile, had voted to suspend a nonpartisan commission that typically draws the state’s map, and make five Republican districts friendlier for Democrats—an explicit response to Texas.
其他红州——尤其是印第安纳州——的重新划分努力尽管承受着白宫的巨大压力，却仍然停滞不前。因此，特朗普夺取席位的整体成效仍然不明朗。
Redistricting efforts in other red states—Indiana, most notably—had stalled, despite intense pressure from the White House. The over-all success of Trump’s seat grab was thus unclear.
尽管最高法院三次介入，密苏里州国会选区划分的争夺战很可能还没有结束。布恩县书记员列侬预测，选举获胜者是否能够进入国会将存在不确定性；毫无疑问，将会为此展开诉讼。与此同时，选民将在“人民而非政客”最终成功推动进入选票的公投中发表意见，他们可能选择批准有利于共和党的新选区划分，以用于下一个选举周期。
Despite the Supreme Court’s triple intervention, the battle over Missouri’s congressional map likely isn’t over. Lennon, the Boone County clerk, predicted that there will be uncertainty as to whether the election winners can even be seated in Congress; surely, there will be litigation to that end. Meanwhile, voters will have their say in the referendum that People Not Politicians ultimately succeeded in forcing onto the ballot, and could opt to approve the new, G.O.P.-friendly lines for the next election cycle.
即使他们不这样做，州立法者似乎也准备好再次尝试。华盛顿大学法学教授特拉维斯·克拉姆告诉我，下次共和党人可能会瞄准来自圣路易斯的民主党籍国会议员韦斯利·贝尔的席位，他的选区此前曾受《投票权法案》保护。那些在卡莱斯案后未重新划区的南方州显然正在为2028年之前的重新划区做准备。例如，得克萨斯州等州可能会重新审视其卡莱斯案前的选区划分，并变得更加激进。
Even if they don’t, state lawmakers seem poised to try again. Travis Crum, a law professor at Washington University, told me that next time Republicans might target the seat of Wesley Bell, a Democratic congressman from St. Louis, whose district was previously protected under the V.R.A. The southern states that didn’t redistrict post-Callais certainly seem to be shaping up to do so ahead of 2028. And states like Texas, for example, could revisit their pre-Callais redraws, and get even more aggressive.
当米切尔和我交谈时，他将 redistricting 战争比作“我们出去喝得酩酊大醉，然后撞了车。”也许，他建议“我们早上醒来时意识到需要改变自己的行为。”赌政治家不会这样做而输掉钱几乎从不发生。（如今，下这样的赌注比以往任何时候都更容易。只需问劳里·巴克豪特。）但末日并非必然。如果政治家们认为这项努力不值得， redistricting 战争可能会自行平息；到了某个时候，他们将在不危及现有席位的前提下，遇到调整选民分布的极限。旨在促进马里兰州和纽约州未来民主党 Gerrymandering 的公投很可能轻易失败。
When Mitchell and I spoke, he compared the redistricting wars to “us going out, getting shitfaced, and crashing the car.”Maybe, he suggested “we wake up in the morning and realize that we need to change our behavior.”It’s rare to lose your shirt betting against politicians doing that. (And nowadays, it’s easier than ever to place the bet. Just ask Laurie Buckhout.) But Armageddon isn’t a certainty. There’s a chance that the redistricting wars could fizzle on their own, if politicians conclude the effort isn’t worth it; at some point, they will butt up against the limits of moving voters around without endangering existing seats. The referendums aimed at facilitating future Democratic gerrymanders in Maryland and New York could easily fail.
在密苏里州选民于1922年否决共和党提出的选区划分方案后，围绕该州重新划分选区的党派争议似乎有所平息；1930年，民主党州委员会主席宣称：“划分选区时不应有政治因素——或者说根本不应有政治因素。”然而，这些话后来被证明是空洞的：在1932年选举之前，当时控制州立法机构的民主党人未能制定出共和党州长能够接受的选区划分方案。
In the years after voters in Missouri rejected the Republican map of 1922, partisan passions around redistricting in the state seemed to cool; in 1930, the chair of the Democrats’ state committee declared that “there is no politics—or should be none—in the laying out of districts.”These words would subsequently prove hollow: prior to the elections of 1932, the Democrats in control of the state legislature failed to produce a map that was acceptable to the Republican governor, and in the absence of a compromise the state was forced to elect its members of Congress “at large,” with no district lines at all. (In a sense, the whole state temporarily became a multi-member district, but voting was not proportional; indeed, Democrats claimed every single seat.)
由于未能达成妥协，该州被迫采取全州“at large”选举方式，即没有任何选区划分，全州范围内选举国会议员。（从某种意义上说，全州暂时成为一个多成员选区，但投票并非按比例分配；事实上，民主党人赢得了所有席位。）此后数十年过去，选区划分问题在密苏里州乃至全国范围内始终保持争议性。
Decades passed and redistricting remained a contentious issue, in Missouri and nationally.