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The Trump gerrymandering tour has not been going well. So far, it has succeeded in Texas, where new districts could dislodge up to five Democrats, and Missouri, where lawmakers voted to muscle out Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) by splitting up Kansas City. But Texas is under a legal challenge and, more importantly, still gives Democrats opportunities to hold onto at least two of the five seats, while the Missouri map could get challenged by referendum (surprisingly, without much help from national Democrats) and delayed into 2028. The Missouri Attorney General is now suing the signature gatherers, amazingly claiming that they are trying to silence the will of the politicians.
Meanwhile, California’s Election Rigging Response Act, which would draw new maps to likely offset losses in Texas with gains for Democrats, looks like it will sail to an initiative victory on November 4. Utah was forced by a judge to redraw its Congressional maps, giving one or maybe two Democrats a chance to win there. So accounting for what’s actually in place today, the outcome of the redistricting wars could be Democrats +1 or maybe even more.
Several other states are considering map changes; the fight is not over. But we don’t really have to look to Indianapolis or Tallahassee or Topeka or Columbus or anywhere else to figure out who will gain an advantage. You just have to look to One First Street, NE in Washington, D.C., the home of the Supreme Court.
Oral arguments were heard on Wednesday in a pair of consolidated cases from Louisiana (known by the primary case involved, Louisiana v. Callais) that will determine the future of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, really the only section that remains operative. The Court heard Callais last term, but took the unusual step of rehearing it at the beginning of their new session, and the way oral arguments trended on Wednesday, observers are fairly convinced that Section 2 will be severely damaged, if not dismantled, in a final ruling.
What that means is that states could draw racially discriminatory maps, robbing minority voters of the fair chance to elect representatives. In practical terms, it means that a host of “minority opportunity” districts in the South will be obliterated. According to an analysis from Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter, overturning Section 2 could result in a direct shift of 19 districts to Republicans.
That goes well beyond the smaller handful of seats that could change hands as Trump tries to intimidate state legislators into rigging maps. If it were only up to Trump, Republicans would get a minimal advantage next year. But it’s John Roberts’s Supreme Court that has the real power to put the country on the road to rotten boroughs and locked-in partisan dominance.
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