By STEVE BRAWNER
What’s the country’s biggest threat? According to U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, it’s not a nuclear-armed Iran, China attacking Taiwan, or the nearly $40 trillion national debt.
“It is the profound division in the body politic that prevents the legislative branch of the greatest country this world has ever known, that prevents that legislative body from doing its most basic function,” he said in Springdale Wednesday. “And then you have to ask, ‘How did we get here?’ …
“Let me tell you how we got here. We got here because we couldn’t control ourselves in the area of redistricting.”
Womack, who represents the 3rd Congressional District in northwest Arkansas, made his comments at a conference of the state’s engineering firms and the Arkansas Department of Transportation.
While part of his remarks covered infrastructure, he spent most of the last 10 minutes discussing partisanship and gerrymandering. The latter is the centuries-old process where majority parties redraw congressional districts using sometimes squiggly lines to ensure their states elect more of their own party members. Democrats and Republicans both do it.
Womack said that when he first arrived in Congress in 2011, perhaps 80 congressional districts would be decided in the November general elections. That’s when there’s a contest of ideas between Republicans and Democrats.
Now, he said there are only 30-35 competitive seats decided in November. Both parties know each election cycle that each has about 200 seats in the bag.
Because the districts are dominated by one party, most elections are decided by the generally more partisan voters who vote in the majority party’s primaries. That reality encourages the candidates to become more partisan.
“They’re going to make promises, and they’re going to articulate positions that would make them the most conservative or the most liberal so that they can win that party primary and be that elected representative,” he said. “So if you want to know how both parties, like heavyweight boxers, ended up in their corners, that’s how.”
Womack said issues facing the country will require bipartisan action, which becomes harder when the election process is so partisan.
Certainly, the country is divided irrespective of the congressional redistricting process. Gerrymandering isn’t really the issue in Arkansas, where many voters are culturally conservative and therefore more likely to vote for the more culturally conservative party. Republicans would be certain to win in three of the state’s congressional districts and very likely to win in the 2nd District however the lines are drawn.
Democrats would seem to have a chance in the 2nd because it includes Little Rock, which has a large minority population that often votes for Democrats. But the district’s other counties are majority Republican. Rep. French Hill has defeated strong Democratic opponents through the years. In fact, those elections haven’t been that close.
Nevertheless, Republican state legislators redrew the lines following the 2020 census to split portions of Little Rock into the safe 1st and 4th districts while bringing Republican Cleburne County into the 2nd.
Without mentioning Arkansas, Womack took his own party to task. He said Texas Republicans took things a step further this year by instigating a mid-decade redistricting to help Republicans win an extra five seats. California responded by doing the same for Democrats, who already hold 43 of that state’s 52 seats. Someday, the November congressional elections could become irrelevant, he said, and all the action will be in the primaries.
Womack said he could speak more freely “because I know that I have a lot more yesterdays in my profession than I have tomorrows.”
It has been a challenging year. His wife of 41 years, Terri Womack, died Jan. 18 after a brief, painful illness. President Trump pardoned Womack’s son, who was serving eight years in federal prison for methamphetamine distribution. The move allowed him to be at his mother’s side before she passed.
Democrats probably will retake the House of Representatives in the November elections. If that happens, Womack will lose his powerful chairmanship of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development. Occupying that position has helped him address his growing district’s many transportation needs. The state’s other House members likewise would lose their committee chairmanships.
The four have been in Congress a while now. Eventually, their tomorrows in politics will run out. It’s not hard to imagine Womack, 69, being first.
As they retire, their congressional seats will open. Others will be elected to fill them.
Most of the action will be in the primaries, of course.
Steve Brawner’s column is syndicated to 24 outlets in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com.