Tag: gerrymandering

Supreme Court rules against new Missouri redistricting map again

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Missouri’s new congressional map again after two separate courts gave conflicting rulings.

Republicans had planned to use the new map in November’s elections. It was drawn last year to give Republicans an advantage in Congressional elections in the hopes of keeping a Republican majority in the House of Representatives. Plaintiffs People not Politicians asked the high court Wednesday for an emergency ruling.

The pause in using the map will stay while a legal fight goes through the courts. The Supreme Court justices didn’t offer any reason for blocking the new map.

A snag in the elections, though, is that Missouri already held primaries using the new map.

The Missouri Supreme Court had ruled that the state couldn’t use the map for this fall’s elections. The state appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh rejected the appeal, kicking it back to the state. At the same time, Federal Judge Stephen R. Clark ruled that the state could use the map, which added more chaos to the elections. It was Clark’s ruling that the Supreme Court decided Thursday.

On Tuesday, Secretary of State Denny Hoskins told local elections officials that the federal judge’s ruling should be followed instead of the Missouri Supreme Court. That court has summoned Hoskins to explain why they shouldn’t find him in contempt.

It’s now unclear what next steps the state will take.

Some map opponents have said the state could continue because the districts are still numbered the same.

“The law is the law, the Missouri Constitution is clear as was the Missouri Supreme Court,” Richard von Glahn, executive director of People Not Politicians Missouri, said in a statement.

Those opposed to the new map collected more than 300,000 signatures to push a referendum on the map, but Hoskins said he didn’t believe that redistricting could be decided in a voter referendum. He refused to add it to the ballot, triggering the legal battles.

Keep reading

In Huge Win, Federal Appeals Court Rejects Democrat Effort to Reinstate Missouri’s 6R-2D Congressional Map

A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected a Democrat effort to reinstate Missouri’s 6R-2D Congressional map.

Last year, the Missouri House of Representatives, controlled by Republicans, passed a sweeping new congressional map that would reduce Democrat representation to just one seat.

In a 90-65 vote, GOP legislators approved a redistricting plan that dismantled the Democrat stronghold of the 5th District in Kansas City, and partitioned it across rural Republican-dominated districts, according to AP News.

On Wednesday, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals denied a stay of the lower court’s order reinstating the GOP-favored map.

The three-judge panel included: Loken (George H. W. Bush), Stras (Trump) and Justin D. Smith (Trump).

Wednesday’s order comes amid a dramatic legal battle that unfolded this week.

A federal judge on Tuesday afternoon ordered Missouri to use its new GOP-favored congressional map just hours after the Supreme Court denied the state’s emergency application.

Keep reading

Supreme Court Denies Missouri’s Emergency Appeal to Use State’s New GOP-Favored Congressional Map in Midterms

The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied Missouri’s emergency appeal to use the GOP-favored Congressional map in this year’s midterm elections.

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh denied Missouri’s emergency application without comment.

Missouri will now have to use its 2022 Congressional map.

The Missouri Supreme Court last Thursday threw out the state’s new congressional map that favored the GOP and eliminated one Democrat seat.

The new map will only go into effect in 2028 if voters approve it during the 2026 midterms.

Last year, the Missouri House of Representatives, controlled by Republicans, passed a sweeping new congressional map that would reduce Democrat representation to just one seat.

The “Missouri First” map promised a fierce partisan restructuring ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Keep reading

Maryland Gov. Cheers State Supreme Court Ruling on Redistricting Plan to Remove Sole GOP Congressional District – Rep. Andy Harris Responds

Maryland Governor Wes Moore released a video statement on Saturday, announcing that a ballot initiative to erase the state’s single Republican district was approved by the Maryland Supreme Court and vowing to use the ruling to disenfranchise state Republicans. 

Per Politico:

The Maryland Supreme Court on Thursday gave Democrats a victory in the state’s protracted redistricting battle, allowing the Legislature’s proposed amendment on redistricting that party leaders want to clear the way for a 2028 gerrymander to appear before voters in November.

If approved by voters on Election Day, the measure known as Question 3 will prevent future Democratic redraws from being subjected to strict compactness and geographic standards that undid their last attempt at an 8-0 map in 2022.

Following the ruling, Democratic Maryland Governor Wes Moore applauded the ruling, claiming it means “that the power of our democracy belongs in the hands of the people.”

Keep reading

Judge Halts Another Democrat Scheme To Rig State Congressional Maps

Democrats have done a lot of weaselly things in the pursuit of power, but their ploy to grab a congressional seat by a quick and crooked change to Maryland’s constitution is a real doozy. 

A Maryland judge this week saw through the legally tortured redistricting scheme and put the kibosh on the hastily made ballot question. 

Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Robert J. Thompson on Wednesday enjoined the Maryland State Board of Elections from putting an amendment question on the Nov. 3 ballot that the legislature unlawfully conceived. 

“Because the legislature did not follow the very laws it enacted, the court finds the enactment of HB2100 to be legally deficient,” Thompson wrote in his pointed opinion. The Board of Elections immediately appealed the decision to the Maryland Supreme Court. 

Shrugging Off the Law 

The rushed plan effectively seeks to wipe out the Old Line State’s sole Republican-held congressional district, just as Democrats tried and failed to do in Virginia earlier this year. 

As court records spell out, the General Assembly just last session passed a bill that established new content requirements for statewide ballot questions and set a July 1 deadline for amendment questions to be submitted to the Board of Elections. Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat with presidential aspirations, backed the Senate bill. The law went into effect on June 1. 

A month and a half later, Moore issued a proclamation calling the General Assembly into “Extraordinary Session” to begin on Aug. 3. The purpose? To “pass legislation to amend the State constitution to clarify and reaffirm that the provisions which govern the requirements of our State legislative districts to not apply to Maryland’s congressional districts.” 

But the special session convened more than a month after the July 1 ballot certification deadline. The General Assembly disregarded a law that it recently had passed. It was fresh of mind. They couldn’t have forgotten about it. 

Keep reading

Hakeem Jeffries Humiliated as Maryland Gerrymander Scheme Crashes in Court

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has suffered another embarrassing setback in his campaign to capture congressional seats through aggressive Democratic redistricting.

This time, a Maryland judge blocked a proposed constitutional amendment that could have threatened the state’s lone Republican congressional district, as reported by Red State.

Jeffries, who represents New York’s Eighth District, personally traveled to Maryland to encourage Democrat lawmakers to pursue the plan.

His lobbying effort now looks like another wasted trip in a growing series of legal defeats for his party.

Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Robert J. Thompson ruled Wednesday that the amendment cannot appear on the November ballot.

He found that lawmakers missed a statutory deadline, presented voters with misleading ballot language, and violated Maryland’s single subject rule.

Keep reading

Democrats Rigging Maryland’s Future Elections: Heading For One Party Rule

Maryland Democrats are calling a special session August 3–5 for one reason and that is to change the rules before they break them.

For centuries, redistricting has followed clear standards.
1. Equal population
2. Contiguous districts
3. Compact maps
4. Respect for communities of interest

Maryland Democrats know the maps they want to draw violate those principles, so instead of following the law, they’re trying to rewrite it.

Their plan? Stitch together places like Columbia with the Eastern Shore while carving rural Cecil County out of District 1. Their plan is to dilute rural voices and dismantle real communities to serve a partisan agenda.

Let’s be crystal clear. This isn’t reform! It’s an attempt to rig the system and avoid getting sued for it.

At the same time, the Governor has sadly but not surprisingly injected race into the debate. He is dividing Marylanders instead of defending a fair and constitutional process.

The Democrats in leadership are no better than those they are criticizing in other states.

This is about power and not the best interests of Marylanders. Marylanders should be outraged.

Keep reading

Colorado Supreme Court Blocks Democrat Redistricting Effort

The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday blocked the Democrats’ effort to redraw its congressional map.

The proposed map would have added three more Democrat seats in the US House of Representatives.

Colorado’s high court unanimously struck down two attempts at redistricting.

Colorado’s Congressional map will remain at 4D and 4R.

Politico reported:

Democrats just suffered a major setback in their plans to counter Republican redistricting gains before the 2028 elections.

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Monday that all five proposed redistricting ballot measures in the state — three led by Democrats and two led by Republicans — violated the state’s constitution, preventing either party from implementing new maps by undoing the independent commission that currently controls the process.

Colorado’s eight House seats are currently split evenly between both parties, and one of Democrats’ most ambitious redraw efforts would have created a map where seven of the districts favor the party.

Because Democrats would have needed a measure on the ballot this fall in order to redraw for 2028, the timing of the ruling makes it all but impossible to redraw.

The court issued two opinions on the redistricting measures Monday, and both were unanimous decisions against proposed remapping efforts.

Meanwhile, Republican-led states have successfully eliminated racially gerrymandered districts going into the midterm elections.

Keep reading

Dems Have A Voter Problem. Gerrymandering Was Never Going To Fix It

In November 2024, 47% of Virginia voters cast ballots for Republican congressional candidates. Under the map Virginia Democrats tried to push through, those voters would have ended up with exactly one Republican district out of 11. Going from a 6-5 to a 10-1 split was what Democrats called “restoring fairness.”

To get it done, Democrats bypassed a bipartisan redistricting commission that Virginia voters had specifically created in 2020 to end partisan map-drawing. They drafted the new map behind closed doors. They passed a constitutional amendment on Oct. 31, 2025, even though early voting for the general election had been underway since Sept. 19 – violating the state constitution’s requirement that an intervening election occur between the two legislative votes. They missed the requirement that amendments be posted publicly 90 days before a vote. And they put a ballot question before voters asking whether they wanted to “restore fairness” – language a circuit court judge called “flagrantly misleading.”

Every step of this process required ignoring a rule or deceiving a voter.

That is not a party making a policy argument. That is a party that has decided winning at any cost is more important than following the rules.

When the Virginia Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that the effort was unconstitutional, Democrats did not stop and reflect. Instead, they doubled down. Rather than accept the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision, House Speaker Don Scott and Attorney General Jay Jones filed an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, riddled with spelling errors and mistakes. U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the ruling “unprecedented and undemocratic.” U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said four unelected judges had “cast aside the will of the voters.” Most revealingly, the New York Times reported that, on a call with Jeffries, Virginia Democratic members of Congress discussed lowering the mandatory retirement age for Virginia Supreme Court justices from 73 to 54 – the exact age of the youngest justice in the majority. This would force the entire court to retire and create an opportunity to replace them with justices who would reinstate the map. Today’s Democratic politicians are showing their true colors: These are radicals in moderates’ clothing. Republicans should respond accordingly.

Republicans should not mistake what happened in Virginia for a one-off procedural accident. Democrats’ willingness to bypass a voter-approved bipartisan commission, ignore constitutional rules, mislead voters on the ballot, and then float court-packing to overcome their illegality is a window into how the modern Democratic Party operates.

But Democrats’ bizarre map was never going to solve their underlying problem.

People are voting with their feet by moving to well-run red states. The 2030 census is projected to shift eight to 10 electoral votes from blue states to red ones – a 16- to 20-point shift that will dramatically tighten the path to the White House for a Democrat candidate.

If Democrats want to compete in the years ahead, they will need to move to the middle to meet voters where they are. Instead of seeking to rig the game, Democrats should persuade voters on the issues the voters actually care about. They should support mainstream, commonsense ideas that they have too long resisted. School choice polls at roughly 74% nationally. Voter ID polls at 84%. Cracking down on welfare fraud polls at 71%, including 62% of Democrats. These are easy wins just waiting for politicians of both parties. It doesn’t take a political genius to realize that Democrats should stop their sprint to the left and side with the majority of voters instead.

Virginia’s brief attempt at gerrymandering was a disgrace and a national embarrassment. Democrats’ unhinged reaction to its defeat was even worse. But the aftermath should be a moment of reflection and readjustment for both parties. Voters are looking for leaders who listen to their concerns, make government work for them, and improve their lives. Democrats should seek to win, fair and square, by pursuing commonsense policies the people want. This is how our system is supposed to work. Otherwise, Democrats – and voters – will continue to see red.

Keep reading

Supreme Court Allows Alabama to Use Congressional Map that Favors Republicans – Sotomayor Fumes

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday evening allowed Alabama to use its 2023 congressional map that favors Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections.

Last week, Alabama asked the Supreme Court to intervene after a lower court blocked its new congressional map.

Alabama’s request to toss out its racist, gerrymandered congressional map comes after the Supreme Court last month declared Louisiana’s newly-drawn Congressional map an unconstitutional gerrymander.

The case, State of Louisiana v. Phillip Callais (and the related Press Robinson v. Phillip Callais), stems from Louisiana’s woke lawmakers caving to left-wing judges and creating a second “majority-minority” congressional district.

Last week, a three-judge panel ruled that Alabama’s new congressional map violated the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

Alabama state officials asked the Supreme Court to overturn the lower court’s decision.

On Tuesday evening, the Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision upheld Alabama’s Congressional map that will likely result in 6-1 R-D.

Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor fumed in a dissent with whom Jackson and Kagan joined.

“Before the Court are two paths. Down one lies an orderly election, held under a tried-and-tested congressional map that protects Black Alabamians’ right to vote and with which all voters, elections officials, and candidates alike are familiar,” Sotomayor wrote.

“Down the other lies a chaotic election, held under a never-before-used congressional map that intentionally discriminates against Black Alabamians, that Alabama adopted in unashamed defiance of a prior court order directly affirmed by this Court, and that will require officials to change the voter registrations of hundreds of thousands of voters in just days at best, a task that Alabama previously represented would take months,” Sotomayor said.

“The majority chooses the second path and disregardsboth democratic values and the rule of law. I respectfully dissent,” she wrote.

Keep reading