Tag: gerrymandering

Despite Headlines, There Is No Reduction in Voting Rights

Liberals and Democrats are claiming that the Supreme Court is poised to make a ruling that will restrict voting rights because race will no longer be considered in districting.

This is false.

Under the U.S. Constitution, all adults aged 18 and over have the right to vote, and they will continue to have that right. No ruling or policy under consideration eliminates or limits that constitutional guarantee.

What critics are truly upset about is that race will no longer be used to determine electoral districting. The Trump administration argued that race had been overemphasized in the process, violating the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. The move aims to ensure that district boundaries are drawn based on population and geography, not racial calculations.

This debate, and the exaggerated claims that someone is losing their rights, reveal a deeper divide between the two parties. Republicans argue that equality means the same rules for everyone, regardless of race. Democrats, on the other hand, insist that equality requires different rules for different groups based on race

The Supreme Court appeared inclined to further restrict the use of race in redistricting. During recent arguments, conservative justices, including Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts, questioned whether race-based remedies should continue indefinitely, suggesting that the Court may soon impose new limits on when race can factor into drawing congressional maps.

The Court’s three liberal justices, however, warned that weakening Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act would effectively dismantle the law and reduce minority representation in Congress.

Democrats argue that Section 2 is essential for protecting minority voting rights and warn that a conservative victory in the current Louisiana case could trigger widespread redistricting. They claim this would reduce the number of minority-held seats, particularly across the South.

However, the United States does not have a quota system, and no congressional seats are specifically designated as “minority seats.” Fair, race-neutral voting would simply result in all seats being awarded to the candidates who receive the most votes, regardless of race.

The Court’s decision, expected by mid-2026, could mark another major rollback of federal race-based policies, following the 2013 elimination of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act and the 2023 decision ending affirmative action in college admissions.

Democrats claim that minority “voting power” or “electoral influence,” will be diluted. The Act prohibits voting practices that “deny or abridge the right to vote on account of race.” Over time, courts have interpreted “abridge” to include not only preventing people from voting but also drawing district lines that intentionally dilute minority voting strength. Democrats argue that the Act ensures the right for every vote to carry equal weight and influence.

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Here Are 6 Key Moments From SCOTUS Arguments In Landmark Race-Based Redistricting Case

UPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES — The U.S. Supreme Court held oral arguments in a pair of high stakes redistricting cases that could significantly reshape American electoral politics.

Known as Louisiana v. Callais and Robinson v. Callais, the matter focuses on a dispute over the use of race in Louisiana’s congressional map. While the state’s initial map included a single black-majority district, a lawsuit and subsequent legal battle led lawmakers to redraw the map to include a second black-majority district, producing another legal battle that centered on the state’s allegedly unlawful use of race when creating the new map.

During oral arguments, the justices probed parties on the facts of the respective cases and the longstanding judicial conflict over provisions of the Voting Rights Act (Section 2) and 14th Amendment (equal protection clause). Here are some of the biggest moments from the hearing.

Jackson Said What About the Disabled?

Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has never been one to shy away from making ill-advised statements, whether they be in interviews or opinions. So, it wasn’t surprising when the Biden appointee suggested race be considered by states in redistricting because black Americans are systemically “disabled” and don’t have legitimate access to the elections process.

“Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act against the backdrop of a world that was generally not accessible to people with disabilities, and so it was discriminatory in effect because these folks were not able to access these buildings,” Jackson said, effectively arguing that it doesn’t matter whether such discrimination is intentional or not.

“I guess I don’t understand why that’s not what’s happening here. … We are responding to current-day manifestations of past and present decisions that disadvantage minorities and make it so that they don’t have equal access to the voting system, right? They’re disabled … We say that’s a way in which you see that these processes are not equally open.”

Thomas Asks a Simple (Yet Meaningful) Question

As the longest serving member of the current court, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas has often served as a critical voice of reason in many matters that come before the highest bench in the land. One of the ways he does this is through simple, yet meaningful, questions to parties in oral arguments.

While questioning Louisiana Solicitor General Ben Aguiñaga, Thomas asked “what role” the federal district court’s block on the state’s initial map “play[ed] in development of” the new map that included a second black-majority district. The state solicitor general disclosed that the court’s order is the “only reason” Louisiana drew a new map.

“Justice Thomas, [that court decision] is the only reason [this new map] exists,” Aguiñaga said. “We fought tooth and nail in the Robinson litigation itself in telling the courts that we did not think the Constitution permitted us to draw a second majority-black district. As you know, under protest, we drew [the new map] because the threat was that the federal courts would do it if we didn’t.”

“We would never pass [the new map] in the first instance without Robinson, Justice Thomas,” he added.

[READ: In Race-Based Redistricting Battle, Louisiana Urges SCOTUS To Uphold America’s ‘Color Blind’ Constitution]

DOJ Official Silences Sotomayor

Arguing on the side of Louisiana, Principal Deputy Solicitor General Hashim Mooppan got into a testy exchange with Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor over the Pelican State’s creation of a second-black majority district.

In debating the racial and political motivations behind the creation of maps like Louisiana’s, Mooppan noted the racial double standard that exists where if the block of voters in question were white, there wouldn’t be a debate about whether there should be an additional district tailored to their community.

“If these were white Democrats, there’s no reason to think they would have a second district. None,” Mooppan said. “And so what is happening here is their argument is, because these Democrats happen to be black, they get a second district. If they were all white, we all agree they wouldn’t get a second district. That is literally the definition of race subordinating traditional principles.”

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“Black” voting districts are unconstitutional, unfair, and condescending

The map shows the contorted Congressional District in Louisiana that is at issue in the Supreme Court case that was argued yesterday.

You won’t see this map in most of the news reports on the case – not because it’s not newsworthy, but because it is. This picture speaks a thousand words about the absurdity at issue.

All parties to the case – and the Supreme Court Justices, as well – agree that this strange amalgamation was created for the express purpose of establishing a district that is supposedly Black* so that Blacks could be assured of electing Black representatives.

(I say “supposedly Black” because most Blacks in Louisiana, as in other American states, are actually of mixed race.)

There are several problems with this notion of Black Congressional Districts. First, it assumes that people identifying as Blacks can be represented in Congress only by other people identifying as Blacks. Why is that the case? I’m white and I’ve voted for Black candidates, and I’m sure many Blacks have voted for white candidates. In fact, Donald Trump got a substantial share of the Black vote last year.

Second, the flip side of concentrating Blacks into Black districts is to concentrate whites into white districts. If we’re to have separate Congressional Districts, should we also have separate schools? Separate drinking fountains?

In a region of the country with a sordid Jim Crow history of “separate but equal,” having separate Congressional Districts strikes me as a vile throwback.

Third, what happens if one of the white districts in Louisiana elects a Black? That would result in Blacks having too many seats, right? Conversely, what happens if a Black district elects a white? Does that mean we need to go back to the racial gerrymandering board to re-draw the districts again?

Fourth, this notion that Blacks are entitled to Congressional representation in exact proportion to their population (or more in the event a Black gets elected in a white district) would seem to apply equally to other races.

In Washington State, for example, about 10% of the population is of Asian descent. Many of their ancestors were exploited and discriminated against. Should we gerrymander the Congressional Districts in Washington to ensure that 10% of the representatives are Asian?

What do we do if the Asian voters don’t go along? What do we do if they “wrongly” vote for a white or Black or Hispanic rather than for the Asian candidate that they’re supposed to vote for? What if they vote for politicians on the basis of policy, not race? Or on the basis of the content of their character, not the color of their skin?

Gee, that’d be horrible, huh?

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Obama Does Ad for Gavin Newsom on Redistricting – Accuses Republicans of Trying to ‘Rig’ the Next Election 

Former President Obama just will not go away. It seems like every other day, he is on a podcast, doing an interview, or making news by commenting on the issues of the day.

At the same time, he seems like the incredible shrinking man, because his legacy is being gutted by Trump’s second term.

Now he is doing ads for Prop 50 in California, in which he accuses Republicans of trying to rig the next election.

Breitbart News reports:

Barack Obama Claims Republicans Want to ‘Steal’ Seats, ‘Rig’ Election in Ad for Newsom’s Gerrymandering Proposal

Former President Barack Obama and California Governor Gavin Newsom are urging Californians to vote in favor of Proposition 50, a ballot measure that would replace the state’s independent redistricting system with a legislature-approved map projected to eliminate several Republican-held congressional districts.

On Tuesday, California Governor Gavin Newsom posted on X, “Listen to @barackobama,” sharing a new video featuring former President Barack Obama encouraging voters to support Proposition 50 in the state’s November 4 special election.

In the video, Obama says:

“California, the whole nation is counting on you. Democracy is on the ballot November 4. Republicans want to steal enough seats in Congress to rig the next election and wield unchecked power for two more years. With Prop 50, you can stop Republicans in their tracks. Prop 50 puts our elections back on a level playing field, which preserves Independent Redistricting over the long term, and lets the people decide. Return your ballot today. Vote yes on 50.”

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In Race-Based Redistricting Battle, Louisiana Urges SCOTUS To Uphold America’s ‘Color Blind’ Constitution

Is the use of race in the redistricting process unconstitutional?

That’s a key question the U.S. Supreme Court will be considering in a pair of high-profile cases set to be argued before the justices on Wednesday. Known as Louisiana v. Callais and Robinson v. Callais, the matters provide the court with the opportunity to end longstanding conflicts between the Constitution and race-centric voting provisions that have plagued states and the redistricting process for decades.

We believe these cases are “good vehicle[s] for the Supreme Court to address some of these issues that have been percolating for a very long time,” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill told The Federalist.

As The Federalist previously reported, the origins of the dispute date back to spring 2022, when the Louisiana Legislature drafted a congressional map with a single black-majority district. This prompted a group of plaintiffs — represented by left-wing groups like the ACLU — to sue, alleging that the map “dilut[ed] black voting strength” and therefore violated Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Following an injunction barring the map’s implementation by a district court judge, continued litigation in the case ultimately resulted in the state redrawing the map to include a second black-majority district. This led to another lawsuit from a different group of plaintiffs, who claimed the state unlawfully prioritized race in the map’s creation and therefore violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. A three-judge panel on a separate district court agreed with these plaintiffs and blocked the new map’s implementation.

While the Supreme Court agreed to take up the case and was expected to issue a verdict during its 2024-2025 term, the justices announced on the final day of the session that it would be rehearing arguments in the case this fall. The court notably issued an order in early August instructing parties in the case to address the question of “[w]hether the State’s intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution.”

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HERE WE GO AGAIN – In California Election For Congressional Redistricting – “See Through” Ballot Envelopes Allow You to See How Voter Voted

Another California election and another corrupt result in the works.

California doesn’t have elections.  They have madness and those with oversite gaslight the entire sham. The state is codifying unconstitutional election activities and like communist takeovers throughout history, no one is stopping them. 

BALLOT HARVESTING and MAIL-IN BALLOTS

Since California went to ballot harvesting the results have been devastating for the GOP in Orange County, California and across the state. Heritage reported in 2019:

Vote harvesting is the collection of absentee ballots from voters by a third party who then delivers them to election officials. The term “vote harvesting” was essentially unknown to the general public until the North Carolina State Board of Elections overturned the results of the 2018 election for the Ninth Congressional District due to illegal vote harvesting, what the board called a “coordinated, unlawful and substantially resourced absentee ballot scheme.”

It was also raised as a concern in California after the unexpected losses of Republican-held congressional seats, including in Orange County, a traditional Republican stronghold, where the registrar of voters said that individuals were “dropping off maybe 100 or 200 ballots” at a time.

Ballot harvesting is still in place and all registered voters receive a ballot for the election in the mail.  The chain of custody surrounding ballots harvested in the state is not adequate or is non-existent.  Who knows where the completed ballots come from?

VOTER IDENTIFICATION

Not only is it almost impossible to determine where a ballot came from, it is also impossible to determine who the ballot came from.  Local governments in the state can’t ask for ID’s from voters.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed legislation that prevents local governments from requiring voters to present identification at the polls, a law aimed at curbing conservative efforts in cities like Huntington Beach.

Californians literally have no idea who sent in the millions of ballots counted in the 2024 Election.

ELECTION OBSERVER VOTER SIGNATURE CHALLENGES DENIED

We can add to the above list this additional lack of transparency.  Election observers were prevented from the reasonable ability to observe the 2024 Election.  If they identified anything, they lacked the ability to do anything about it.

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Democrats Claim Racism as New Maps Force Them Out of Texas Strongholds

The Democrat stronghold in Texas is collapsing, and their own lawmakers are now turning on each other. 

After Republicans passed new congressional maps—pushed at the request of President Donald Trump—Democrats now face the reality of fewer safe seats and the possibility of political extinction in key parts of the state.

Representative Lloyd Doggett, one of Austin’s longest-serving Democrats, has already announced he will step aside if the new maps hold. 

His exit would clear a path for Greg Casar, but it also highlights the brutal truth: Democrats don’t have enough blue districts to go around anymore.

The biggest shakeup is in Houston. 

Representative Al Green, who has represented the 9th District since 2005, saw his district effectively redrawn. 

Only 5% of his old base remains. Most of it was folded into the new District 18, once held by Sheila Jackson Lee and Sylvester Turner. 

With a special election scheduled, Green is expected to jump into that race—but he’ll be battling other Democrats in what is now a three-seat squeeze. 

Houston went from having four Democrat seats to three, guaranteeing that at least one Democrat seat is now vacant.

Dallas-Fort Worth Democrats face the same disaster. 

Marc Veasey of Fort Worth has been pushed into Dallas, where Julie Johnson already sits. 

Her district, however, is now heavily Republican, meaning she must either take on Veasey or run a suicide campaign. 

Meanwhile, Jasmine Crockett survives unscathed in her district, and Republicans like Beth Van Duyne stand ready to pick up the pieces.

Democrats have responded with lawsuits. 

The NAACP, LULAC, and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law claim the maps discriminate against minorities. 

But this playbook is nothing new. Back in the 1990s, Democrats used redistricting to carve out majority-Black and majority-Hispanic districts for political gain.

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Guess Which Billionaire Just Dropped $10 Million to Help Gavin Newsom’s Redistricting Crusade

Democrats’ favorite billionaire is funneling oodles of cash into helping California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s redistricting plan.

Newsom has raised a shocking amount of money in a short period of time to push Proposition 50, a ballot measure that would redraw California’s congressional districts in a way that would give Democrats more seats in the House of Representatives. The New York Times reported that Newsom “has raised rougly $70 million in less than two months.”

And guess who’s shelling out the big bucks? You guessed it: George Soros.

The Times noted that Soros has poured about $10 million into the redistricting effort, which makes the Soros family the largest single backer of the initiative. This development comes as President Donald Trump is calling for an investigation into the family.

In a recent post on Truth Social, Trump insisted that George, and his son and heir Alex, “should be charged with RICO because of their support of Violent Protests, and much more, all throughout the United States of America.”

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Missouri House OVERWHELMINGLY Passes New Congressional Map — Slashes Democrats Down to Just ONE Seat

The Missouri House of Representatives, controlled by Republicans, passed a sweeping new congressional map that will likely reduce Democratic representation to just one seat in the U.S. House delegation.

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

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

Republicans are poised to secure seven of the state’s eight congressional seats.

Missouri Independent reported:

Gov. Mike Kehoe called the legislature back into session after weeks of pressure from the President Donald Trump for GOP-run states to redraw congressional districts to ensure more Republican seats before next year’s midterm elections.

In Missouri, the effort targeted the 5th District, currently held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City, by carving it up and dispersing its voters into three districts that give Republicans an electoral advantage in seven of the state’s eight congressional districts.

“This is a superior map,” said state Rep. Dirk Deaton, a Noel Republican sponsoring the proposed new congressional map. “It better represents the state of Missouri.”

In addition to the gerrymandered map, Republicans also took aim at the citizen initiative petition process. The House approved a plan Tuesday that would require constitutional amendments put on the ballot by Missouri voters to attain both a simple majority statewide and a majority in all eight congressional districts in order to pass.

Based on last year’s election results, that change would mean as few as 5% of voters could defeat any ballot measure. The proposal would also ban foreign contributions to initiative petition campaigns…

If it passes the Senate, the issue would go on the statewide ballot in 2026 and require a simple majority to approve.

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Democrats Face Disaster as Another State Joins the Redistricting War

Democrats have long relied on gerrymandering to tilt the map in their favor. For years, they got away with it. But that winning streak is over. Republican-led states are finally striking back—methodically, aggressively, and with precision—reshaping congressional districts right under the left’s nose. While blue states scramble to hang on, Republicans are systematically gaining ground ahead of 2026.

The newest state to enter the redistricting wars is Florida, and Democrats have every reason to panic. With its latest moves, the Sunshine State is poised to shake up the congressional battlefield and give the GOP a decisive edge in the midterms.

Florida’s push comes on the heels of Texas’s, where Republicans wasted no time correcting the damage from the 2020 Census undercount. Despite Democrats’ stunts and loud public protests, Texas redrew its maps and neutralized the left’s advantage. That victory laid the blueprint, and now Florida is ready to double down—reworking districts mid-cycle and ensuring Republicans don’t leave a single seat on the table.

Meanwhile, blue state governors like Gavin Newsom in California and J.B. Pritzker in Illinois are in full scramble mode, feverishly drawing new maps in a desperate bid to blunt GOP momentum and cling to power. Accuracy and fairness in representation aren’t even part of the equation for them—it’s all about preserving their stranglehold on Congress. The obsession runs so deep that even Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey is vowing to gerrymander her state—despite the fact that Republicans don’t hold a single congressional seat there to begin with.

That, of course, is the real problem for Democrats. When it comes to the redistricting wars, Democrats have already gerrymandered their states so much they are running out of levers to pull. Their grip is loosening, and they know it. Demographic changes and voting patterns are swinging hard against them, and with each passing year, the data tells a grimmer story for the left: Americans are leaving their high-tax, high-crime, heavily regulated states for Republican-led havens where opportunity actually means something. 

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