South Carolina Power Attorney: Fill & Download for Free

One Sunday in 2009, Republican strategist Chris Jankowski sat down to peruse The New York Times. An article on the upcoming 2010 census pointed out that demographic shifts could have a huge impact on U.S. national elections.[1]For Chris, this was a revelation. He had been seeking an opportunity like this for the past ten years.The fallout from his brilliant idea would impact every national election.Jankowski’s insight focused on partisan gerrymandering.Gerrymandering has a particular definition in American election cycles. Every ten years, the United States conducts a census, determining population and demographics for each state. Based on these results, the 435 member House of Representatives reapportions its congressional seats.[2]State legislatures use this constitutionally-mandated gift to draw districts for each House seat. If districts are drawn perfectly (according to those currently in power), a congressional seat can remain in one party’s hands for decades.[3]In effect: politicians pick their own voters, not the other way around. Both parties have redistricted like this for decades.Jankowski had a unique perspective on the practice. He had worked in the South Carolina State Attorney General’s office in 1998, with a front row seat for the historic Tobacco Settlement. The attorneys general of 46 states had banded together to sue major tobacco companies, resulting in a windfall of hundreds of billions of dollars to state governments.[4]According to reporter Noel King, in NPR’s Planet Money podcast:Chris saw that states acting together could wield a ton of collective national power.[5]With this idea, the political strategist could elevate the importance of state politics at the national level. Jankowski quickly formed a group called the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) in 2002.[6]He searched for an issue that states could unite behind. He found it in while reading The New York Times in 2009.Image: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/01/this-is-the-best-explanation-of-gerrymandering-you-will-ever-see/Jankowski and his group began pitching his plan for the 2010 elections. He called it REDMAP, or the “Redistricting Majority Project.”[7]They sought to flip state houses to Republican control, so their party could lead the redistricting process. This would cement Republican power in Washington for years to come.During the pitch meetings, a familiar face appeared to offer his own advice.Karl Rove ducked in on one of the pitch meetings: “People call us a vast right-wing conspiracy, but we’re really a half-assed right-wing conspiracy. Now it’s time to get serious.”[8]This was an easier sell to political donors once Jankowski laid out the plan’s cost.In many cases a dollar goes much farther in terms of impacting a congressional seat, if you spend it on a state legislature seat.“For 25 cents on the dollar, I can take 25 congressional seats OFF the table for the next 10 years.”[9]Chris found that he could impact state elections for a fraction of the money spent on national House seats. He raised $30 million to spread around the country. In contrast, some Senate campaigns by themselves cost well above $100 million.[10]The US has 7,383 state legislature seats.[11] Elections for these seats focus on very local concerns. No one had attempted to influence these local races on such a broad scale.Chris’s group began identifying and prioritizing states which might lose or gain a seat after the 2010 census. His team bought campaign ads in far-flung districts. Money began flooding in to state legislature races that had never seen this level of campaign spending. Many local candidates, even the beneficiaries, had no idea where the money was coming from.[12]The massive effort was a historic success, even beyond Jankowski’s expectations. At the time, the Tea Party was sweeping into Congress. But political pundits marveled at something else.Republicans gained nearly 700 state legislative seats, and flipped 21 state houses from Democrat to Republican. They ended up with majorities in state legislatures in 25 states.[13]Chart: Rasmussen Reports. GOP Makes Historic State Legislative Gains in 2010Chris was one of the few strategists playing the long game.Despite this resounding success, REDMAP’s work was incomplete. This was only part one of the plan.Jankowski concentrated on what happened after this effort. The newly elected Republican state legislators began re-drawing Congressional district lines.In the 2012 Congressional election, Democratic House candidates received 1.1 million more votes overall than their Republican opponents. But Republicans still dominated the House of Representatives with a 33-seat majority.[14]Jankowski is unrepentant about his effect on modern US elections. Planet Money podcast reporters asked if he felt bad about his efforts.I don't feel bad. I do not feel bad. I don't apologize. I mean, there are so many variables in a given election. It's troubling to me that people just want to say, boom, this was bad, you've undermined democracy.[15]Democrats have their own version ready for the 2020 elections. We shall see what effect BLUEMAP might have on local races.Footnotes[1] How A Political Consultant Changed Voting Districts Nationally[2] Gerrymandering -- explained[3] Gerrymandering -- explained[4] Analysis: State attorneys general: New Republican power[5] Episode 845: REDMAP[6] Episode 845: REDMAP[7] The G.O.P. Plan That Turned America Red[8] How Republicans came to win just about everything[9] Episode 845: REDMAP[10] Episode 845: REDMAP[11] State Partisan Composition[12] How A Political Consultant Changed Voting Districts Nationally[13] How A Political Consultant Changed Voting Districts Nationally[14] Republicans won more House seats than more popular Democrats, though not entirely because of how districts were drawn[15] Episode 845: REDMAP

Most of you weren’t yet born when this man was president. He totally redrew the political lines in the US. Before his time in office as president, nearly all African Americans voted Republican and ALL Southern whites voted Democrat. During the twelve years FDR was president (during the Great Depression and the second world war), this was the case and FDR looked the other way because he had “bigger fish to fry” and refused to deal with the plight of the “American Negro”. When his successor, Harry Truman finally got around to integrating (desegregating) the armed forces, he was vilified in the South and during the 1948 presidential election, the most racist wing of the Democratic Party even walked out at the party convention to form their own political party, the Dixiecrats, and then nominated Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina to be their leader and candidate for President.During the Eisenhower presidency, there was generally a lot of foot dragging and then eventually, a half-hearted attempt to enforce the new law of the land — i.e. the Brown vs. Board of Topeka, Kansas (1954) — the beginning of public school integration that ordered the integration of all public schools in the United States “with all deliberate speed”. JFK, who had to worry about Cuba and the Soviet Union moving their missiles 90 miles off the U.S. mainland, had too much on his plate to really enforce the law other than a brief stand off between the then Governor of Alabama, George Wallace, and the Assistant Attorney General of the US (Katzenbach) in the doorway of the admissions office of the University of Alabama as well as sending out the troops to see that James Meredith was allowed to become the first negro to enter the University of Mississippi.It then fell to Lyndon Baines Johnson to “git ‘er done” and he did just that with great flourish. LBJ had been the immensely powerful leader of the US Senate before he was sidetracked briefly into the vice presidency under JFK. But once he entered the White House in November, 1963, his great shining moral victory was the final enforcement of the Brown Decision. The upshot of all of his efforts was the realignment of the political parties to their present colorings. After LBJ, the “solid South” (meaning the white Southern vote) became solidly Republican and virtually all the black vote — in Northern cities or Southern blacks anywhere — shifted to the present alignment, voting solidly Democrat. Johnson called his old friend in the senate, John Stennis of Mississippi, and stated that “I’ll make those niggers vote Democrat and like it” when threatening Stennis to either support the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 or lose his seat among the old Democratic Southern elite in the senate.By the time Republican Barry Goldwater ran in 1964 against LBJ, the white Solid South was in total rebellion against the Democrats and voted Republican for the first time in American History, and most if not all blacks anywhere voted Democrat for the first time ever. By 1972, white Southerners were permanently and mostly Republicans. It has been that way since that time. This most significant major change in political alignment in the United States was due to the backroom political arm twisting and collar-grabbing tactics of Lyndon Baines Johnson, the most influential US President in the last 60 years without question. He was in complete control of political allignments in the United States during the time he was President of the United States. He died shortly after the inauguration of one of his old political nemeses, Richard Nixon, for a second four-year term as president. Always personally self-debasing, he interpreted it as a rejection of his presidency. Little did LBJ realize at the time that Nixon would become the first president to resign from office on August 9, 1974, simply because the Watergate Scandal had yet to erupt on January 22, 1973.

I highly respected Lindsey because he helped me sue the US govt for my husband’s wrongful death. The VA killed him with negligence during that time in 2014 when the VA was embroiled in scandal.But. I’m a Democrat. A blue dog Dem. At first I appreciated his blunt criticism of Trump.I’ve watched him go down in flames. He didn’t stand up for his friend John McCain when Trump said horrible things about him.Now it’s clear he took $800,000.00 from the Russians. That disgusted me.Ever since he played golf with Trump, he has become this embracing, little Trump sycophant.South Carolina is disgusted and embarrassed. We want him gone(the Dems and never Trumpers, anyway)It used to be he served all constituents. Didn’t matter what their political party.Now he’s just crazy with his thirst for power: the US Attorney General job.He’s just another conman now. Working for a corrupt administration.Fly away Lindsey. You’re starting to smell.