Schwarzenegger: It’s ‘time to terminate gerrymandering’

Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) is calling on the Supreme Court to “terminate” gerrymandering, the process of drawing congressional districts in such a way as to give one party an electoral advantage.

Speaking at an anti-gerrymandering rally outside the nation’s highest court on Tuesday, the former “Celebrity Apprentice” host and “Terminator” actor railed against a “fixed system” in which “politicians are picking the voters.”

“It’s a fixed system — that’s what gerrymandering is all about,” he said. “And this is why I say that the only one that can fix it is the Supreme Court, and that’s why we’re here today, at the Supreme Court — to ask them to fix this problem of severe gerrymandering.”

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“You know it’s a system where the politicians are picking the voters, rather than the voters picking the politicians. So I say it’s time to say hasta la vista to gerrymandering. And it is time to terminate gerrymandering.”

Schwarzenegger’s comments came as oral arguments begin in Gill v. Whitford, a case regarding whether a 2011 redistricting plan passed by Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled state legislature was so excessively gerrymandered that it amounted to a constitutional violation.

Racial gerrymandering has already been struck down by the court. And the Supreme Court has said that lower courts have the power to decide partisan gerrymandering cases, but has never weighed in on how to decide when the practice goes too far.

Schwarzenegger, 70, has long pushed for an end to gerrymandering. He said Tuesday that Congress was clearly unwilling to address the issue, and that the Supreme Court would have to step in and decide on the issue.

“Einstein already said a long time ago that the ones that create the problem cannot fix it,” he said. “And so Congress will never, ever fix this problem, because they have one interest and one interest only, and this is to stay in power.”