WASHINGTON -- President Reagan, declaring he will not 'be sitting around the Rose Garden in 1988,' told Republicans Thursday night he will campaign against the 'national scandal' of Democratic gerrymandering.
Referring to the age-old practice of legislatures drawing the congressional district boundaries to help one party or the other, Reagan called for election of Republican governors in 1988 and 1990 as 'the only shot we have at getting a fair deal' in Democratic-controlled state legislatures after the 1990 census changes the number of congressional districts in many states.
'A fair deal -- that's all we're asking for, an end to the anti-democratic and un-American practice of gerrymandering congressional districts.'
Gerrymandering is named after Massachusetts politician Elbridge Gerry, who created the art of drawing districts shaped like salamanders to protect certain candidates. Gerry served as vice president from 1813 to 1817 under President James Madison.
Reagan charged that the redrawings have resulted in Republicans winning more popular votes for Congress in contested races but losing a majority of seats in the House.
'The fact is, gerrymandering has become a national scandal,' he told the Republican Governors Club, a fund-raising association to help GOP statehouse candidates.
'The Democratic-controlled state legislatures have so rigged the electoral process that the will of the people cannot be heard. They vote Republican but elect Democrats,' Reagan said.
'But it just isn't the district lines the Democrats have bent out of shape -- it's the American values of fair play and decency. And it's time we stopped them.'
Reagan's raising the issue of gerrymandering was the third time he has done so in a month, and it provoked a rambling departure from the text of his speech. He said the problems Republicans have faced for the past half century has been due to Democratic Congresses when the GOP holds the White House.
He said it has always been his goal to 'restore the federal system and return to the states the authority and autonomy that has been unjustly seized by the Democratic Party.'
Although Republicans have challenged redistricting in courts, 'Ultimately, it's in the state legislatures that the battle for fairness must be won. That's why we need more Republican governors to oversee the process, and why Republicans have to campaign with all heart and soul for Republican state legislative candidates,' he said.
'I promise you this -- as far as the president of the United States is concerned, he's not going to be sitting around the Rose Garden in 1988. I'm going to be out on the campaign trail -- telling the American people the truth about how the electoral process has been twisted and distorted ... I'm going to be telling them, in the name of the American system, in the name of fair play -- vote Republican in 1988.'