Taxation Without Representation

The rallying slogan no taxation without representation originates from colonial times and the Revolutionary War. More recently the slogan has been used by Washington DC and Puerto Rico who pay taxes to the American government but do not have representatives in Congress. But I feel this phrase applies to another case today - gerrymandered districts which leaves many people without any chance of having someone represent their interests in Congress.

I live in such a district - North Carolina Congressional District 13. This was redrawn for the 2024 election in a way that so strongly favors the Republican candidate as to make it a foregone conclusion that they will win. In 2024 this went even further when during the approach to a run-off election for the Republican nominee when Brad Knott received an endorsement from Donald Trump. Even though his opponent in the run-off , Kelly Daughtry, had been leading in the polls, a Trump endorsement settled the result. Daughtry withdrew and Knott received 90.8% of the vote to win the run-off. Then Brad Knott when on to get 58.6% of the vote in the general election against a self funded Democrat who had never been in politics. The NC Democratic Party had written off District 13 and did not provide any significant resources to the Democratic candidate.

So the only “vote” that counted for electing my Congressional Representative was Donald Trump’s - all because of gerrymandering.

The North Carolina Republican’s gerrymandering for US Congress districts started for the 2022 election. That attempt was blocked by the NC Supreme Court and the 2022 election used court drawn districts which led to 7 Democrats and 7 Republican winners. But also in the 2022 election the Republicans put 2 more conservative members on the NC Supreme Court. This lead to a reversal of the ruling about the original map. So the Republican’s redrew the map again for the 2024 election and switched the balance to 10 Republicans and 4 Democrats. So NC alone accounts for 3 seats of the 5 seat majority of the Republicans in the House.

I call on everyone to work to support fair redistricting. If your state already has fair redistricting, defend it. If your state does not, like mine, fight for it.