Gerrymandering On Steroids

Gerrymandering is not illegal. There is no federal law that sets standards for how election district boundaries are to be drawn. However the Supreme Court had ruled that gerrymandering with the purpose of disenfranchising racial groups is illegal, based on the Voting Rights act of 1965, but that it's outside of its authority to rule on partisan gerrymandering, which is not illegal. . However, recently the court has ruled that you have to be able to prove that the intent of gerrymandering is racial disenfranchisement (which is virtually impossible), opening the door for a large number of Southern states to immediately redraw their congressional districts in order to water down the ability of Black citizens to elect representatives of their choice, which "coincidently" happen to largely vote for Democrats. 

Gerrymandering is not new. Its name comes from Elbridge Gerry, one of the Founding Fathers who was famous for his odd-shaped congressional districts, and it's been a feature of partisan politics since his time. What does gerrymandering do? What gerrymandering doesn't do is have an 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 has no effect on how electoral votes are allocated. 

What gerrymandering of congressional districts does do is affect 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 one party gaining a 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-majority, which is effectively veto-proof. A veto-proof majority is important because in some of these states the governor and other statewide elected officers are of the other party. 

Usually redistricting takes place once every ten years, after the results of the decennial census are finalized. This determines the population of each state, which in turn determines how many representatives in Congress each state is entitled to. It also tracks any population shifts within a state. For example, after the 2020 census, the number of Nebraska's congressional representatives was unchanged (3), but the population shifted somewhat from rural to urban. In order to keep each district's population the same (or close to it) district borders needed to be adjusted. Nebraska Republicans attempted to gerrymander District 2, which sometimes 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). 

A side note: a one-party House of Representatives delegation is not proof by itself that partisan gerrymandering took place. This blog article analyzes the situation in New England, where none of the states in that region send Republicans to Congress. 

In addition to New England, the following states have no Republican representatives:

• Delaware (1 district, 41% Republican)
• Hawaii (2 districts, 37% Republican)
• New Mexico (3 districts, 45% Republican)

There are also a number of states with no Democratic representatives: 

• Alaska (1 district, 41% Democratic)
• Arkansas (4 districts, 34% Democratic)
• Idaho (2 districts, 30% Democratic)
• Iowa (4 districts, 42% Democratic)
• Montana (2 districts, 38% Democratic)
• Nebraska (3 districts, 39% Democratic)
• North Dakota (1 district 30% Democratic)
• Oklahoma (5 districts, 32% Democratic)
• South Dakota (1 district, 34% Democratic)
• Utah (4 districts, 38% Democratic)
• West Virginia (2 districts, 28% Democratic)
• Wyoming (1 district, 26% Democratic) 

Obviously, in states with only one congressional district gerrymandering is impossible. There are six of these nationwide. Two-district states theoretically can be gerrymandered, but it's more difficult. There are seven of these and all of them are represented by one party. Most of these states' minority party voters make up 30-40% of the total voters. In these states it's impossible to to achieve proportionate representation unless the parties are roughly equal. The only choices are 0% or 50% — in the latter the minority is over-represented in the former (which is usually the case) under-represented. There's no completely fair option. Gerrymandering becomes more feasible as the population, and therefore the size of the House of Representatives delegation, increases. 

 States with independent or bipartisan redistricting commissions typically look for the following when drawing district lines:

1. Equal population distribution
2. Contiguity
3. Compactness
4. Respect for existing boundaries
5. Minority representation
6. Preservation of communities of interest

While partisan maps will attempt to draw district lines so each district contains roughly the same amount of people (constitutionally required), and I'm not aware of any non-contiguous districts, but #'s 3-6 are usually thrown out the window in order to maximize representation by the majority party. 

The gerrymandering that takes place during decennial redistricting is bad enough. Though some states have independent redistricting commissions, other states' redistricting is controlled by the legislature, which is often itself gerrymandered to favor one party. 2025 has been a free-for-all of mid-decade redistricting, starting with Trump's request that Texas redraw their map in order to maximize the likelihood that an additional four or five Republican are elected to the House of Representatives this year. California, which had an independent redistricting commission, held a referendum to suspend it, and did their own redistricting, canceling Texas' projected pickup of five Republican seats. Since then, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Tennessee have changed their maps to favor Republicans; in addition to California, Utah has potentially added one Democratic majority district. Currently, this gives Republicans a potential eight seat  advantage. 

In the wake of a Supreme Court decision virtually eliminating the possibility of creating majority-minority districts, some southern states, in particularly Alabama, South Carolina and Louisiana, are racing to eliminate their remaining Democratic districts that were created for this purpose. Tennessee has already done so, splitting up Black majority Nashville — allocating it's inhabitants to three surrounding districts. The Tennessee legislature had previously done the same thing to the Black and Democratic city of Memphis. Several other states, both majority Republican and majority Democratic are considering their own redistricting. The biggest blow to Democratic redistricting was the Virginia case. 

Virginia law stated that, in order to change the redistricting guidelines the following had to happen:

• The House of Delegates had to pass a resolution for a referendum to amend the state constitution to allow redistricting 
• An election had to have occurred
• The House of Delegates had to pass the resolution for the referendum a second time after an election (in other words, there had to be an election between the two House of Delegates actions)
• The State Senate had to vote to approve the resolution
• The Governor had to sign off
• The referendum needed to be put up for a vote of the people
• The referendum had to receive a majority of the votes
• The district maps could then be redrawn by the legislature

The Virginia legislature did all of these things, however, Republicans mounted several legal challenges resulting in rulings to remove the amendment from the ballot twice, which were overruled by the Virginia Supreme Court twice. Finally, after the referendum had taken place, a judge ruled that the requirement that there be an election between the two resolutions was not followed. The reasoning was that early voting had already started when the first resolution was voted on. The Virginia Supreme Court agreed. Virginia appealed to the Supreme Court which declined to hear the appeal. 

Much of what the Republicans are doing isn't technically illegal. They are relying on two things: the willingness of the Supreme Court to interpret the law in novel ways, ignoring precedent, usually in ways that benefit Trump and the Republicans; and capitalizing on the fact that many of the norms and customs that we observe are not in fact written down anywhere. They are also counting on the sad truth that the Democratic Party leadership for the most part thinks that they can play fair without being permanently shut out of any meaningful role in government. 

Trump, starting back during his 2016 campaign, planted the seeds for his cult to be convinced that a loss for him meant that the election was rigged or stolen. He still complains about 2020 being stolen from him. His appointees refuse to give a straight answer when asked who won the 2020 election. Their ravings, without ever being based on facts, involve vast conspiracies that include poll workers all over the country, voting machines that mysteriously change votes, and phantom ballots. But what is going on now doesn't require any of that. Republican are changing the very systems that facilitate our ability to vote. Voter I.D. requirements are put in place while simultaneously making it more difficult to secure identification...in Democratic majority areas. Early and mail voting faces new restrictions. Voter rolls are purged, disenfranchising legitimate voters. Polling places are moved to inconvenient locations...in Democratic majority areas.. Ballot drop off locations are eliminated...in Democratic majority areas. The Voting Rights Act, which has stood for over 60 years, according to the Supreme Court majority, has been misinterpreted for those six decades. Now, ignoring 200 years of precedent, they're not even hiding the fact that they're nullifying the votes of Democrats, and not incidentally, Black voters with the hyper-gerrymandering. Why now?

The electorate is pretty evenly split. Trump's share of the vote was only 1.5% greater than Harris', a statistical dead heat. In the House of Representatives if just three Republican districts had flipped to Democrats, then the Democrats would have had the majority. The Republican Senate is only three seats, despite the huge advantage given to rural, Republican leaning states. Elections are won and lost not on who has more registered voters, but on the tiny minority of unaffiliated or undecided voters. Republicans razor-thin margins are endangered due to an unpopular president. Sure the cultish core of Trump voters would still vote for him if he dropped a nuclear bomb on Florida, but it's not the cult base who'll decide an election. Trump got elected mainly because voters on the fence believed that he would be better than Biden on immigration, the economy and keeping us out of war. He's arguably got immigration under control (by authoritarian and fascistic means) but we're in a war and his promises to cut energy prices in half, reduce inflation, and roll back prices not only haven't happened, but have gotten worse. Unless he dies (he's not going to be removed via the 25th Amendment) he'll be president for 979 more days. The only way to address his malign influence is to remove his allies from Congress. 

He and his Republican allies know this. They've been working assiduously to make it harder for Democratic-leaning people to vote. Now, through this unprecedented mid-decade gerrymandering on steroids, they are attempting to erase Democratic votes. The one hope the Democrats have at this point is that the anger at Trump is so great that there will be a record turnout of voters choosing Democrats — that some of these new "Republican" districts will surprise them due to all the Democratic voters that have been moved into them. There's also the Senate, which isn't affected by gerrymandering. 

November is a long way away.