All posts tagged "Gerrymandering"

GOP gerrymandering in Texas is predicted to backfire as Democrats seize the opportunity to claim a regretful bloc of key President Donald Trump voters, according to a new report.

A southern Texas congressional district has become more favorable for Democratic challengers as a Hispanic community that "flocked" to Trump in 2024 experiences significant regret, Politico reported Sunday.

"I don't think Latino voters that voted in 2024 will stick around," Massey Villarreal, a Houston-based businessman who used to chair the Republican National Hispanic Assembly, told Politico. "[Trump] is targeting the Latino community. He's separating families. He's breaking businesses."...

Democrats are about to lose a key piece of their electoral power and won't be able to win it back with gerrymandering, a new analysis warned.

"The loss of Black representation in the South cannot be offset with a few more liberal white representatives from Wisconsin," Elie Mystal, The Nation's justice correspondent, wrote in a Friday piece. "The inability of Black people in Memphis to elect a fighter like Justin Pearson is not mitigated by spitting out another corporate Democrat from Hoboken."

Mystal examined the electoral landscape in the wake of the Louisiana v. Callais Supreme Court decision that gutted protections for Black voters' voting power and has sparked a redistricting war, especially in the South. ...

Red-state lawmakers had to stop working and leave the state house while debating a redistricting bill because of a blaring fire alarm and major flooding.

"Crazy moments unfolding at the Alabama State House," reported journalist Jeff Sanders from X on Wednesday. "During Senate debate over the redistricting bill involving Senate Districts 25 and 26, fire alarms suddenly began sounding after an already tense day."

Sanders added that Alabama lawmakers had to deal with a tornado warning on top of their contentious debate about gerrymandering their state. Although the state senators called for a recess to evacuate the building, they did manage to cast their votes to pass a proposed redistricting first, Sanders reported. ...

The proposed map for a redistricted red state ahead of the midterms has voters and lawmakers sounding the alarm.

"This is insane," wrote Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN), reacting to the proposed map for Tennessee redistricting on X. "It's a blatant, corrupt power grab that would destroy the Black community's and our entire city's voice."

Cohen was referring to the city of Memphis in Shelby County, which will be carved up to water down the Democratic representation, he blasted. ...

Alabama GOP lawmakers moved to toss out votes already cast for its May 19 primary amid a gerrymandering push without notifying voters of the changes.

According to reporting on Tuesday by Democracy Docket, the Alabama lawmakers began taking votes on Tuesday to change the congressional and state senate maps as a primary election is underway. The legislation in front of state lawmakers would allow the state to nullify votes already cast in some of the congressional races and later hold special elections under the new maps, the Democracy Docket reported.

Alabama lawmakers have also shot down efforts to let voters know about the changes. Democratic State Sen. Vivian Davis Figures lost an effort to pass an amendment to notify Alabama voters about the changes. ...

The Supreme Court has fired the starting gun for a "race to the bottom" in a gerrymandering war that will be "a nightmare for democracy," according to a new legal analysis.

In a Slate report on Thursday, political writer Jim Newell cautioned that the GOP has "carte blanche" to gerrymander after the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Louisiana v. Callais, a decision that weakens protections in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 against racial redistricting.

"The political effect of the decision in Callais will be to set off a new wave of extreme partisan gerrymandering," Newell wrote. "The redistricting scramble ahead of the 2028 election will make the battle we’ve seen thus far look like a skirmish."...