The Gerrymanderer’s Daughter

December 20, 2019 8:09 AM

The Gerrymanderer’s Daughter: “LEXINGTON, KY. – Almost a year and a month to the day after Stephanie Hofeller turned American politics on its head by reaching out to Common Cause North Carolina about her family affairs, she stood in the middle of her small Kentucky apartment with a Marlboro Light hanging from her lips and a glass of red Kool-Aid in her hand. She exhaled a thick haze of white smoke and then took a deep breath before delving into what her life has been like in the aftermath of releasing the personal files of her dead father – notorious GOP mapmaker Tom Hofeller.”

Stefanie Hofellerinherited her father’s laptop and extensive documents concerning his work as a major consultant in the GOP’s push for local and national redistricting designed to create unassailable GOP majorities in an era of smaller and smaller GOP membership.

Previously, previouslier, previousliest.

posted by mwhybark (7 comments total)

Okay, I already thought Stephanie Hofeller deserved a statue but this interview is fantastic:

“I’m his legacy; his grandchildren are his legacy,” she said. “My character is a reflection of him, too. Just because he was too short-sighted to hitch his wagon to my star doesn’t mean that wasn’t the case. I can’t think of any better way to elevate him than to try to correct his mistakes.”

posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:26 AM on December 20, 2019 [22 favorites]

It's been amazing seeing all his insider notes and strategies. Tom Hofeller and his gerrymandering GOP colleagues have always worked somewhat in the open, they have no shame and certainly no legal fear about their work to subvert democracy. Hell, NC congressmen put their racist intent in writing. But despite that openness there's a lot of detail and nuance that just never came out in public. Private notes, strategies. All revealed thanks to a quick-thinking daughter making the most of a poorly planned inheritance.

I appreciate seeing this personal story of her and her motivations. What a sad story for her life and her marriage to an abusive husband. I'm glad she had the strength to move on past that. I'm also glad she has the strength and interest to release these files.
posted by Nelson at 8:26 AM on December 20, 2019 [11 favorites]

ooh this is a good one to dig into on a Friday! thank you.

(also can we remove the tracker ID in the main article?)
posted by a halcyon day at 9:58 AM on December 20, 2019 [1 favorite]

Mod note: Good catch, done.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:11 AM on December 20, 2019 [2 favorites]

Holy smokes! I had never heard of any of this story - crazy amazing.
posted by EinAtlanta at 6:12 AM on December 22, 2019

The Hofeller Files. Or, at least, Stephanie's copy.

Stephanie Hofeller has now put all of the files* online.

* of which she had copies.
posted by bz at 12:14 PM on January 5, 2020 [2 favorites]

Notably, this is a complete image of her father's household computer, which was not solely a gerrymandering evil-o-tron. So there is personal data galore in the dump, including her own. Her response to people flagging that as a potential privacy nightmare has been that she didn't want any hint of redaction or rewriting that could be a basis to claim she doctored the substantive files, and it's her data to release anyway, so that's what she's doing.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:52 PM on January 6, 2020 [1 favorite]