Let's do it back to them.
I have never lived in North Carolina, but I have great filial affinity, affection and appreciation for the Tar Heel State, home of my father's large family and the native soil on which my first ancestor in my father's line landed from Spain in 1837.
In the 112trh Congress, about to entertain us with it's Lame Duck finale, there are a majority of 7 Democrats in the 13 member North Carolina Congressional delegation. But, after GOP controlled redistricting, the balance will instead be 4 Democrats and 9 Republicans in the upcoming 113th Congress. That 4:9 ratio presumes that Democrat Mike McIntyre holds on to his slim 507 vote lead. If he loses, the imbalance will be worse.
Of course, it is not as though no one saw this coming. The Washington Post put it none too subtly in their piece titled North Carolina: The GOP's Golden Goose of redistricting
"Republicans would be disappointed in North Carolina if they didn't pick up two seats," said Dallas Woodhouse, the state director for the conservative group Americans for Prosperity. "Three would probably be the maximum."
Either way, North Carolina would likely constitute the GOP's biggest gains in 2012. And much of the GOP's redistricting energy will be spent in this state.
They almost got four seats from us.
I'm a little sensitive to this sort of thing. I lived in Texas in 2003 when the criminal, Tom DeLay, masterminded the off year redistricting of that great state in order to steal Democratic Congressional seats. It is even more of a travesty in this case that it was back in Texas because unlike Texas, North Carolina is really a very balanced, purple place, as demonstrated in MattTX's well received diary.
North Carolina is worth fighting for and we can only hope that worthy Democrats step forward in the Tar Heel State to usurp these 1st term Republicans that North Carolina has so improvidently sent to reinforce the GOP Talibanistas in the House of Representatives.
But I say if Republicans can do this, then so can Democrats. And I have the perfect place for us to start, right now, with an off year legislative redistricting plan designed to unseat Michelle Bachmann in 2014 by jiggering her district, the Minnesota 6th CD, where she has just barely survived a close election. In the regular round of redistricting after the decennial census, Minnesota kind of missed out. Unlike North Carolina, where Democrat, Bev Purdue, caved to draconian redistricting by her GOP controlled statehouse, Minnesota's Mark Dayton dug in his heels and prevented post-2010 ascendent Republicans from doing the same up North. As a result the courts imposed a map that more or less prerserved the status quo. After last week's election, though, the Minnesota DFL has a Governor and control of both the House and Senate.
To all Kossack friends in Minnesota, call and write your DFL leadership. It's time to redistrict Minnesota.