On Fox, Scott Walker attacks Obama and Eric Holder for GOP-drawn congressional districts that were found illegal
Walker: “They just go in from one state after the next and they sue until it's blue”
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published
From the May 7 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:
STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): Sue until it's blue. Our next guest sounding the alarm on the left's judicial power grab, as some have described it, saying it's time for Republicans to wake up and see how unelected judges are redrawing maps to help elect more Democrats. Here to explain, Scott Walker, former governor of Wisconsin and national finance chair chairman for the Republican redistricting trust.
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DOOCY: What does sue until it's blue mean?
SCOTT WALKER (FORMER GOVERNOR OF WISCONSIN): Well, what you've got is Eric Holder, with the support of Barack Obama, spending hundreds of millions of dollars across the nation and they just go in from one state after the next and they sue until it's blue. They are using a litigation process to take redistricting out of the hands of the people we elect, the people we hold accountable in our state legislative bodies, and trying to send it to the courts where they have friendly folks, many of whom have been appointed by some of their allies and they are trying to sue to change the makeup really for the, I think, for a generation to come in terms of putting Democrats in power.
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WALKER: This is the whole strategy of the left is to keep going until they find a friendly judge, someone who is not directly elected and accountable to the voters and try and sue. They did it firsthand in Wisconsin. They tried to take over our Wisconsin Supreme Court. Thankfully we fought back just about a month ago. But their strategy was, last year, this year, and next year, to take over the Wisconsin Supreme Court so they'd have a friendly activist majority in the Wisconsin Supreme Court. They are doing it in Ohio, as you mentioned, the're doing it in Michigan. You already look, even in last year's elections, there's about 15 seats in four different states where they already used the litigation process to try and make it competitive. That's at least part of the reason why Nancy Pelosi is now the speaker. They want to make her and people like her permanently in charge of the U.S. House. We can't let them do that, we have got to fight back for truly fair maps. If we've got fair maps, our ideas work. If we've got a competitive marketplace to sell our message to the American people, we can win district by district. But we can't do it if it's always stuck in the courts.
DOOCY: But governor, isn't it up to the state legislatures to figure out how to draw a district on the map?
WALKER: Well, that's exactly right. That's the way most people want it. They want it with people who they elect who are accountable. What they do though is they go from state to state and they try and litigate. They sue, they pick a state and then they sue until it's blue and that's the strategy we have seen used over and over again. There is a lot of folks out there, unelected bureaucrats, these commissions they create which are clearly partisan, where you put power in the hands of people who aren't elected, and then these judges -- many of these federal judges who have lifetime appointments and they love nothing more than to be activists out there.
Related:
NY Times: Ohio Congressional Map Is Illegal Gerrymander, Federal Court Rules
WaPo: Federal judges rule Michigan gerrymandering unconstitutional, order maps redrawn by 2020
Previously:
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