Gerrymandering is not illegal on a national level. There is no federal law that sets standards for how election district boundaries are to be drawn. The Supreme Court has ruled that gerrymandering with the purpose of disenfranchising racial groups is illegal, but that it's outside of its authority to rule on partisan gerrymandering. Some states have set their own guidelines for how districts will be set up, many with "independent" or bipartisan commissions created for the job.
What gerrymandering doesn't do: it has no effect on presidential elections. The undemocratic features of the Electoral College are a whole 'nother issue, but other than in Nebraska and Maine, how Congressional districts boundaries are drawn have no effect on how electoral votes are allocated. (After the last census, Nebraska Republicans attempted to gerrymander District 2, which frequently elects Democrats, by dividing the majority Democratic City of Omaha between Districts 1 and 2, effectively eliminating the potential for one electoral vote going to a Democrat. More recently they tried to revert to a winner-take-all allocation of electoral votes, which would have accomplished the same thing).
Gerrymandering on the Congressional level affects the party balance of the House of Representatives. Since the Republican-Democratic split has been so tight recently, the Republicans are looking for any advantage in order to retain their majority. But the effects of gerrymandering don't start with Congressional maps, but with how state legislative maps are drawn. The process always begins with a Republican majority, however slight, in a state legislature. Once they have that majority, if it's a state where the legislature draws the district maps, then they are free to gerrymander so that a slight majority turns into a large majority or even a super- or veto-proof majority. A veto-proof majority is important because in some of these states the governor and other statewide elected officers are Democrats. Wisconsin is a prime example. The electorate is very evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, even though the legislature is overwhelmingly Republican. They failed to achieve a supermajority but still work to frustrate the plans of the Democratic governor. (Several states that had an outgoing Republican being replaced by a Democrat as governor passed last-minute legislation limiting or reducing the governor's authority)
Texas is a state that votes around 53% Republican in statewide elections, so the Governor, Attorney General and both Senators are all Republicans. I have no argument against that. The majority wins; no problem. The problem, even before the current redistricting, is that instead of having a slight majority in the Congressional delegation, the Republicans had around two thirds of the House seats, or a 2 -1 advantage. The latest redistricting will theoretically increase that advantage to three quarters of the seats, or a 3 - 1 advantage, simply by moving around some boundaries. What makes this particularly egregious is that it's being done, not as a result of population changes after a decennial census, but after only four years, at the behest of the president.
California is taking steps to neutralize Texas' action by doing their own redistricting. California is unique already in that primaries are open and the two top vote getters advance to the general election, even if both are of the same party. Currently of California's 52 House seats, all but nine are Democrats, so I don't know how much more they can do. California generally votes for Democrats in statewide elections by just under 60%, so it's reasonable to assume that California is already gerrymandered. Other states will need to step up.
In a perfect world there would be a standard method of drawing district boundaries. This New York Times article has some ideas, but I doubt we're close to a universal solution. The problem with gerrymandering isn't simply that one party is able to illegitimately keep power, but that large percentages of the electorate are disenfranchised. The Electoral College method of electing presidents already does that, accelerated partisan gerrymandering is just going to make a bad situation worse.
The Texas situation is an isolated case. Republicans have been acting to make it harder for people to vote via a variety of methods for years.
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