SCOTUSblog reports.
"The court’s order came exactly two months after the justices, over a dissent by the court’s three Democratic appointees, granted a request from Texas to allow it to use a new map intended to allow Republicans to pick up five additional House seats in that state.... The challengers [in the California case] argued that the state’s goal all along had been 'offsetting a perceived racial gerrymander in Texas.'... The state countered... that the new map was not racially motivated. More broadly, it contended, the challengers were 'asking the Court to treat California’s map differently from how it treated Texas’s map, thereby allowing a Republican-led State to engage in partisan gerrymandering while forbidding a Democratic-led State from responding in kind.'"
"The court’s order came exactly two months after the justices, over a dissent by the court’s three Democratic appointees, granted a request from Texas to allow it to use a new map intended to allow Republicans to pick up five additional House seats in that state.... The challengers [in the California case] argued that the state’s goal all along had been 'offsetting a perceived racial gerrymander in Texas.'... The state countered... that the new map was not racially motivated. More broadly, it contended, the challengers were 'asking the Court to treat California’s map differently from how it treated Texas’s map, thereby allowing a Republican-led State to engage in partisan gerrymandering while forbidding a Democratic-led State from responding in kind.'"
So both states — and all states — can politically gerrymander to their heart's content. The Court isn't going to look too closely at whether something racial is really going on.
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73 comments:
I hope and half expect that one party or the other will eventually miscalculate and hand MORE seats to their opponents than they gain through redistricting.
It could happen with the Hispanic, Asian, and other voting shifts of recent years.
Why aren't the three "principled" liberal justices dissenting on this one?
(Rhetorical question).
Whole Republican counties - will be represented by democrats.
Our current Chief Justice famously wrote, "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." When the government sees skin color rather than individual rights the result is always facially unconstitutional. Pun intended.
Here in Utah, a famously Republican state, we get our districts gerrymandered by far left advocacy groups in Virginia. Just ask our judges, who consistently threw out our districts that our legislature drew up, over and over, and then "Because there's no time left" just adopted a district map drawn up by the far left.
So in Utah our districts are now drawn by no one in the state. Just far left groups from the east coast.
Think that will "pass constitutional muster" to have a judge throw out every map until the judge can just adopt the farthest left map possible?
So now we in Utah get a district that the National Democrat party is saying "might be one of the most far left districts" in the country, more than most inner city ones. The explicit justification was "Democrats are not represented in Utah, so the map must be drawn to give Democrats a seat!"
When asked "Does this logic apply to, say, Massachusetts, where they have 8 Representatives and zero Republicans" the answer is "shut up. It only works for Utah where Democrats can steal a seat. Bigot!"
No real change as I see it. Texas potentially new Congressional party make-up will look a lot like California has in the past. California has always had heavy political gerrymandering. They will now just maximize it to the full extent possible. If every state does this, it won't go well for Democrats.
If, drawing lines, trying to maximize your party's advantage, you regard black people as likely Democrats, are you discriminating based on race? If you don't want the courts to take over the line-drawing, you have to say no. How would the courts even do it themselves? They know they'd be going by race too. It's unworkable. So it's been left up to the state legislatures... at least for now.
In a one-sentence order, the justices turned down a request from a group of California Republicans that would have required the state to continue to use the map in place for the last several federal elections in the state while their challenge to the map moves forward.
Doesn't sound like a final decision, at least in the California case.
"So both states — and all states — can politically gerrymander to their heart's content." Except where lefty judges crush GOP actions. Advantage: Dems. Equal justice under law.
Althouse asks "How would the courts draw lines themselves?" And it appears the answer is "We don't! We just adopt the maps the Democrat party or its NGOs give us! That's the correct thing to do: give Democrats the win, every time!"
Has a judge ever thrown out a Democrat friendly map because it "discriminates"? Or is that something that only happens to Republican maps?
Ironically, yesterday and today on Morning Blow, Scarborough was quoting chapter and verse from the Constitution about how the States run their elections, in his reaction to Trump telling Bongino he wants fedgov to take over the elections in 15 states.
I was thinking the whole time, wow, Joe, you lived half your life in the post-VRA Deep South. Surely you have seen evidence that fedgov gets to screw with States' election arrangements? CC, JSM
When you look at the Congressional Black Caucus, which makes the Detroit City Council look like the House of Lords, then this whole Racial business reveals itself. The Dem leaders want the Steppin Fetchits and the Supreme Court can’t even pretend that blacks representing blacks makes sense
If Republicans Governors are putting Judges on the Utah Courts that overrule the legislature and give the D's an extra seat, then maybe you need a new bunch of Republican judges.
IRC, the 3 democrat SCOTUs judges wrote a big long dissent over accepting the Texas map. Here, they are silent. Shouldn't they be even more outraged that the SCOTUS majority is trampling on their principles? Of thats right, here it helps the D's - so no outrage from the wise latina and her sisters.
Gentlemen...start your UHauls!
We need a Constitutional Amendment setting up districts based on geography. AI could draw them up with specific goals like keeping them simple polygons (I like rectangles) and roughly equal populations of CITIZENS.
MLK blvd. should always be a border and never fall within a district.
Diversity gerrymandering.
Republicans will never match Democrats in willingness to cheat, which is why they must pass rules making it harder: photo ID, one day voting, paper ballots, no mail in, except military and severely handicapped, no, fat doesn't count.
Just advancing the self-segregation of the country. Another step on the way to a National Divorce.
goose / gander
Illegals are alienating the People and our [unPlanned] Posterity, while leftists gayily, gleefully commit democracide with Diversity, Equivocation, and Inane Choices, choices.
RCOCEAN: And the Utah Legislature just passed a bill adding new judges to the Utah appellate courts and is trying to reign in the judicial branch.
There's actually been a long simmering feud between the judicial branch and the legislature here in Utah, going back at least to the 1980s.
Of course, our current governor's political philosophy appears to be "Surrender to the left in order to be nice!"
prestation?
Blue State Gerrymandering removes Republican representation in Red areas in those states.
Red State gerrymandering doesn't really do that.
so again - it's unfair and unjust.
Yeahs hes a mitt bot 2.0
Susan Crabtree on X: "@RCPolitics Shangri-La Industries was once owned by the late billionaire and Democratic mega-donor Steve Bing, who committed suicide by throwing himself off the 27th floor of his Century City condo in 2020 during Newson's Covid lockdowns. He only had $300K to his name -- even though he once https://t.co/NrOUTpkRFa" / X https://share.google/ZjFe6Hrq4kjiCrXeO
Gerrymandering's sole purpose is to deny representation to citizens. I am surprised the courts are ruling that way. Maps should be drawn such that area is maximized verses perimeter. Very easy for AI to generate a map that keeps the best ratio and balances for over-all state totals for party voting. so if a state has 20 reps and is 55/45, then the reps are 11/9. Every state gets one rep of each party minimum. This keeps the "screw your neighbor" mentality of the representation process. Update every 10 years.
Open season for R redistricting … if they had any guts. Which they don’t.
Vance - Trump got 60% of the vote in Utah. And you think if republicans get only 75% of the house seats, that it's unfairly gerrymandered in favor of the democrats? How do you figure?
“ Vance - Trump got 60% of the vote in Utah. And you think if republicans get only 75% of the house seats, that it's unfairly gerrymandered in favor of the democrats? How do you figure?”
If that percentage is the same everywhere then no matter where you put the lines the Republicans would have the majority and would win that district. So they should win 100% of the districts. But they probably aren’t absolutely equally distributed there are probably cities with more Democrats and so on.
Jim5301: Do you care one whit about the zero percent representation Republicans have in Massachusetts? Maryland has one Republican and 7 Democrats. Maryland has far more than 12% of the state voting Republican.
But you don't care do you. It's only the poor poor Democrats who have a "Constitutional right" to be represented by Democrats. Republicans? As Democrat Newsome said something along the lines of 'We want to make them extinct."
Do you agree with that? You must, since your comments on this thread say NOTHING about California explicitly destroying 5 Republican seats. That's not bothering you, but me complaining that a judge is forcibly redistricting Utah to favor Democrats DOES bother you.
So I can see arguing in favor of a presumption of 100% and requiring that presumption to be rebutted with evidence of non-uniform distribution of Republicans and Democrats.
The minority doesn’t end up with a proportional amount of power. Things are structured to exaggerate the power of the majority. If there’s even a tiny majority in a state for one party, the senators from that party are going to exercise 100% of the Senate power. They’re going to have the governorship. That’s 100%.
Althouse, the Utah scenario is absolutely dictatorial. The state legislature put up maps. There's an "Independent commission" that is also supposed to put up electoral maps. What Utah got, however, is boundaries drawn up by Virginia Democrat organizations that the judge selected and said 'This is the law." And now Democrats are literally attacking the GOP signature gatherers that the state GOP is using to gather signatures to repeal the "Independent commission" law.
It's blatant, anti-people stuff going on here courtesy of National Democrats and the judges. We have our congressional boundaries being set by people no one voted for, who don't live in Utah, just because a judge wants it, and now we have violence from the left trying to prevent the people from changing it.
The Court isn't going to look too closely at whether something racial is really going on.
Which is a shame, because in CA there clearly was.
OTOH, the plaintiffs dropped the ball. They needed to provide an entire State map , not just an alternative map for one district
Vance - If Wisconsin has 51% republicans and perfectly gerrymandered then all U.S. representatives and all state legislators will be republicans. 51% democrats, they will all be democrats. Doesn't seem like a good idea either way.
Jim, you are still only whining about Utah and saying not a word about Republicans having zero representation in multiple states.
Why is it "wrong" for Utah but not wrong for Massachusetts?
These claims that Republicans make sure to allow proportional representation when they do it are laughable at best. Of course they are presented without data.
Texas decided to play this game for the midterms and you guys are just bitter California gets to do the same thing
Not a fan of Newsome, but if Dems win House this November I see it redounding to his benefit in 2028 primary should he run. California Republicans must be pissed at Texas Republicans.
The dems have gerrymandered their states into oblivion
Vance - Assuming your facts are right, then it is "wrong" for MA as far as I'm concerned. Happy?
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-02-04/bass-directed-watering-down-of-palisades-fire-after-action-report-sources-say
"Why is it "wrong" for Utah but not wrong for Massachusetts?"
Democrats are the "Heads I win, tails you lose" party.
But they probably aren’t absolutely equally distributed there are probably cities with more Democrats and so on.
People are sometimes surprised to learn that Salt Lake City proper is majority non-Mormon, and the liberals who live there are REALLY liberal. Even the Mormon liberals, of whom there are some. There hasn't been a Republican mayor of SLC since former Senator Jake Garn in 1972-74.
There are other outposts of left-wing idiocy in the Utah hinterlands, Park City and Moab being the most noteworthy. There is also a very isolated, picturesque little village way down south named Boulder that has become something of an artists' colony, with some of the hippiest hippies I have ever met. It's also a foodie destination, with several excellent restaurants led by the Hell's Backbone Grill, which has a Zagat score of 26 and a James Beard Award nomination. The chefs' outspoken left-wing politics are detestable, but I've eaten very few meals I enjoyed more. Worth a detour if you are in the Four Corners/Lake Powell/Zion region.
Vance - Assuming your facts are right, then it is "wrong" for MA as far as I'm concerned. Happy?
I can confirm - other than for governor, which is at times won by RINO's (Romney, Baker, etc.), no republican has a chance in any state-wide or national election. In the last election, the state swung 8% more republican in terms of overall votes, but there are still 0 republican senators or congresspeople. It is bad enough that in the Boston area, you are never sure who is actually up for election because the incumbent Dems don't bother to run ads - the only ads you see are for the NH candidates.
How would the courts even do it themselves? They know they'd be going by race too. It's unworkable. So it's been left up to the state legislatures... at least for now.
The courts did it for decades in Texas. More information here from The Brennan Center for Justice (which seems leftist biased based on this other article related to Texas).
Here is an article from 2012 regarding court drawn maps in Texas:
"Last year nine groups of minorities filed suit in the federal district court in San Antonio challenging the Legislature's maps. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott asked a federal court in Washington to clear the maps as required by federal law, but it declined. The San Antonio court said the Legislature's maps cannot be used in the 2012 election pending the trial in that court.
So now the court must produce temporary maps."
Boohoo... they had to do something because they chose to ignore democracy and rule by court mandate.
It makes more sense to have the maps drawn by people who are theoretically more likely to be voted out of office (legislators) than by people who are relatively less likely (judges). But of course we know that this is a power grab. And that it's a preview of the next power grab.
There's a problem with democracy: voters can and sometimes do make bad decisions. Often enough, bad decisions are not fixable.
Its a den of scum and villainy (the brennan center)
There is no unbiased way to draw congressional district lines- whatever you pick will favor one party over the other by accident if nothing else. I suspect either California Democrats or Texas Republicans will end up hating the results very, very much.
The minority doesn’t end up with a proportional amount of power. Things are structured to exaggerate the power of the majority. If there’s even a tiny majority in a state for one party, the senators from that party are going to exercise 100% of the Senate power. They’re going to have the governorship. That’s 100%.
I don't think that is true. 51% is not always lock step. Compromises are much more likely when the minority has some influence, it has zero chance when there is 100% control with 100% real control, the senators can work deals such that the "purple district" senators can divide their "opposition" in such a way that it looks like that re trying to balanced, but the vote always seems to go the Blue way. So 55/45 on every bill, and those purple senators keep their seat because they compromise a lot, just not in any way that matters, and how could anyone prove it?
Now if we are going wit the 100% logic, why not just have a statewide vote and a slate of people from R and D, and whoever gets 50%+1 gets their whole slate?
The dems have been stealing seats since the 80s specially after the 2020 census
I think the TX gerrymander is going to bite the Rs in the ass, unfortunately.
JFC. We're going to have a civil war, aren't we?
Trump's aggressive push for mid-decade redistricting to engineer Republican gains in the 2026 midterms has backfired significantly.
In California, voters took charge through the democratic process. In a special election, they approved Proposition 50 by a 64.4% margin. This voter-approved measure authorized new congressional maps—drawn by the legislature as a direct counter to Texas's moves—potentially flipping up to five seats toward Democrats.
By contrast, Texas lawmakers ignored broader public will and enacted a partisan redraw at Trump's urging, aiming for up to five additional Republican-leaning seats.
Compounding the irony for Republicans: A Democrat just flipped Texas Senate District 9—a seat in a district Trump won by about 17 points in 2024—in a stunning January 2026 special election runoff victory (57%–43%). This upset highlights emerging GOP vulnerabilities even in red strongholds, despite the congressional map tweaks.
In the end, California's voter-driven strategy neutralized Texas's gains on the national House map, while signs of backlash in Texas suggest the overall strategy has fueled Democratic energy rather than securing a clear Republican edge.
Yancy Ward said: "There is no unbiased way to draw congressional district lines- whatever you pick will favor one party over the other by accident if nothing else. I suspect either California Democrats or Texas Republicans will end up hating the results very, very much."
This is probably the best way to do it:
"Section 1. Congressional districts within each state shall be determined using the shortest splitline algorithm applied to decennial Census population data.
Section 2. Congress shall establish uniform technical specifications for implementing the algorithm, including methods for handling islands, enclaves, and other geographic irregularities.
Section 3. No state law or regulation shall alter district boundaries determined by this algorithm."
Governor Newsom sold that gerrymander as a referendum on Trump.
In a state dominated by Democrats the result of that special election was a no-brainer.
Now my district will be won by a Democrat from LA County, I'm in Orange County.
Republicans will probably end up with 3 seats, down from 9 out of a possible 5.
Every big seat in the State government is held by a Democrat.
Right now, we're at the "eat the rich" stage. Next comes the mileage tax.
I laugh when Democrats call Trump an Authoritarian, it's nothing but self-projection.
And the "my democracy" champions will do everything to nullify Democracy at every opportunity.
Embrace the suck.
The legislatures have the power to use it wisely and to abuse it as well. It's the "if you can keep it" Ben Franklin overarching secret clause and secret sauce of the US Constitution. The cause of the problem is that not enough citizens bother to vote to begin with.
Meanwhile, New England's only GOP representation is Susan Collins.
Why Not use postal zip codes? They are contiguous, do not cross state lines and the census people can tell you how many people live in each zip code. So start with the lowest numbered zip code and keep adding until you get to whatever the required number is (750,000 people) that will be congressional district #1, start again for #2 etc.
Their would be exceptions with islands and weird borders, and huge parts of Nevada have no post offices, but those could be solved by legislation.
No one wants a solution to this problem of gerrymandering because it benefits the fuckers who can gain from the problem.
This may not matter in the end. Or did I miss the ruling on the minority/majority case out of Louisiana? I haven’t been following but it seems like some states were waiting for that ruling which is part of this term’s docket. Or am I mistaken? I could be! It’s been a bit since it was before the court and I haven’t kept up with its progress. SCOTUSBlog is not quite the same after it changed hands so I don’t go there as much anymore unless there is an Oral argument before the court or when I have time to tune in to the live chat for court rulings.
Mark said...
Texas decided to play this game for the midterms and you guys are just bitter California gets to do the same thing
No, Mark, we are bitter that CA Democrats and VA Democrats decided to ignore legal requirements about timing in order to do this, and the CA Democrats clearly violated the law about racial gerrymandering and got away with it.
Both States have rules about how long the "State Legislature offering up Constitutional Amendments" process is supposed to take, and both were ignored. The corrupt Dems running the CA courts ignored this, so far the VA courts are being more honest.
But teh fact that the TX map drawer was perfectly happy to testify under oath about what he did, and how he did it, and the CA one wasn't, tells anyone with a brain that the TX redistricting was done legally, and the CA one wasn't.
It's easy to do an honest redistricting, here's your rules:
1: Honor political, physical, and historical boundaries.
2: City people should be in "city people" districts, suburban w/ suburban, rural w/ rural. Because each group has different needs (mass transit being only the most obvious example), and a representative can not honestly represent both the needs of city voters & the needs of rural voters
3: Similar population
4: Contiguous borders
The problem is that if you follow these well known and well established principles, the Democrats lose out. Because their voters like to cram themselves into cities where the population votes 70%+ for Democrats, and that means their city based districts are "inefficient" of votes.
So Dems are going to be opposed to any sort of honest districting until such time as they stop representing "city voters"
It’s worth noting that the reason California redrew the maps [to gain five seats] was a direct result of Texas doing the same thing [netting them five seats] earlier last year. The one difference is that Texas made their gerrymandering through the legislature while California did theirs through a statewide proposition and let the voters decide. It being a Democratic state pretty much assured the results. But letting the voters decide rather than the legislature directly redraw the maps at least has the appearance of reflecting voter approval. Though I am pretty sure if Texas did a proposition they would have had the same results. But clearly both sides do gerrymandering and this SCOTUS decision helps both parties play their games.
You can tell yourself that Cali is payback for Texas but that just shows you're a Democrat hack. Texas was trying to GET TO 2024 Cali style redistricting and Cali just went and did MORE redistricting to stay ahead of Texas in the abuse of the minority party calculus. Dems even think it's okay that New England, with roughly half the population of California, has no GOP representation in the House and one non MAGA GOP is the Senate. Really.
"Dems even think it's okay that New England, with roughly half the population of California, has no GOP representation in the House and one non MAGA GOP is the Senate. Really."
No real surprise there. They think it's okay to attempt to imprison and kill their political opponents.
Our gerrymandering = patriotic
Their gerrymandering = a threat to democracy
I can't imagine how they could say "no" to CA jerrymandering after saying "yes" to TX. To me, the problem is squeamish Reps who value "doing the right thing" over winning in a game where winning is the object. They should work on a "doing the right thing" Constitutional amendment as principle and work on winning as a strategy.
GRW3 said...
I can't imagine how they could say "no" to CA jerrymandering after saying "yes" to TX
Then you're at best an ignoramus.
The CA redistricting was explicitly racist, with he guy drawing the maps saying that he had worked to increase Hispanic voting power.
The TX redistricting was explicitly non-racist, strictly for power 9which is legal), with the Texas map drawer cheerfully spending two days under oath explaining exactly what he did, and why. Unlike the CA map drawer, who fought and dodged to avoid being put under oath
2024 Election results, CA & TX:
President:
CA: Trump 38.3% Harris 58.5%: GOP 2 Party %: 39.6%
TX: Trump 56.14% Harris 42.46% GOP 2 Party %: 56.9%
House:
CA: GOP: 9 (17.3%) Dem: 43 (82.7%): GOP -18.3%
TX: GOP: 25 (65.8%) Dem 13 (34.2%)L GOP +8.9
IOW, as sweetie wrote: Only an ignoramus or a lying Democrat hack would try to claim that the CA gerrymandering was about "fairness". It was about "making sure Dems can keep on stealing"
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