The Supreme Court is allowing California to use its new congressional map for this year’s midterm election, clearing the way for the state’s gerrymandered districts as Democrats and Republicans continue their fight for control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
The state’s voters approved the redistricting plan last year as a Democratic counterresponse to Texas’ new GOP-friendly map, which President Trump pushed for to help Republicans hold on to their narrow majority in the House.
And in an unsigned order released Wednesday, the high court’s majority denied an emergency request by the California’s Republican Party to block the redistricting plan. The state’s GOP argued that the map violated the U.S. Constitution because its creation was mainly driven by race, not partisan politics. A lower federal court rejected that claim.
Hey - maybe this shouldn’t be legal at all? Why is neither party proposing an amendment outlawing this?
Laws are useless without consequences.
The GOP will never support clean cut voting laws, they have to manipulate the votes to win anything they haven’t had the numbers to win an election since Nixon. That’s the reason our voting laws are convoluted in the first place.
There isnt any need for a constituonal amendment to stop gerrymandering. A simple act of Congress will do it
And, to be absolutely clear, nothing less than an act of Congress will stop it nationwide. And any anti-gerrymandering measure that isn’t nationwide is an endorsement of partisan gerrymandering in red states.
I don’t see how an act of Congress could do it for the same legal reasons Trump can’t “nationalize” elections, and the same reason I believe the supreme Court upheld this.
The States have the right to organize how votes are performed, but no one in the U.S. has a right to vote in reality. They have a right to not be discriminated against during voting.
Let’s say Florida decided they won’t have a popular vote for president and the currently elected representatives vote on the electors.
Every person in Florida just lost their right to vote, but they did not discriminate in doing so, and it could be legal. The residents would have to be pissed at their State government for allowing such a vote to pass… But federally, it could be constitutional.
Gerrymander remapping has been deemed unconstitutional in other states specifically because they were trying to manipulate representation of certain races to change the results.
Proposals have been made.
H.R.7910 - FAIR MAPS Act
S.3750 - Redistricting Reform Act of 2024
But the majority party rarely sees an incentive to change the rules they won under. And a minority party never has the votes to overturn a majority-written set of maps.
So, this CA law is removing the anti-gerrymandering legislation that CA Democrats got enacted. The Democrats proposed a state-wide initiative to stop gerrymandering. It won, and we were all happy. Now we have to remove that legislation because Republicans in other states are going the other direction.
If you think getting 20 Republican governors to sign up for a Constitutional amendment that will destroy the chances of a Republican majority US House is a doable do, then I have a bridge to sell you. The thing is, even proposing it would cost the taxpayers million in all the logistical crap that would happen to have a vote for something guaranteed to fail.
Because it already exists. This is a temporary law.