How Email Could Undo GOP Gerrymandering

Slate: “The master Republican mapmaker Tom Hofeller is among the visionaries who understood how sophisticated new GIS software and powerful new data sets provided an opportunity for the GOP to gerrymander itself decadelong advantages in the U.S. House of Representatives and state legislatures nationwide. Hofeller trains state legislators and junior line-drawers, however, with a PowerPoint so old-school that it looks like it might have been designed on a Commodore 64. There are no special effects to clutter Hofeller’s most important laws of redistricting: Avoid recklessness. Always be discreet. Avoid email.”

Said Hoefeller: “Emails are the tools of the devil. Remember — A journey to legal hell starts with but a single misstatement or a stupid email!”

“Time and again, Hofeller’s political allies have failed to heed his advice. The most recent example: newly disclosed emails—part of a federal court challenge to the constitutionality of the Michigan map by the League of Women Voters—that reveal just how determined GOP operatives, mapmakers, and congressional staffers were to design maps that would provide Republicans with a full decade of dominance.”