Tag: gerrymandering

Governor Kay Ivey Calls Special Session to Redraw Alabama Maps – Delivering a COMPLETELY REPUBLICAN Congressional Delegation

It is now official.

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey has called a special session of the Alabama Legislature for Monday, May 4, ordering lawmakers back to Montgomery to redraw the state’s congressional maps after the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling declaring race-based gerrymandering unconstitutional.

In a formal proclamation issued Friday, Ivey stated the Legislature would consider “primary elections” legislation and redraw districts whose boundaries were altered by prior court rulings, injunctions, or judicial orders.

That means Alabama Republicans are moving swiftly to reclaim control of congressional lines that had been reshaped through years of legal warfare and activist court intervention.

For years, Alabama has been at the center of a bitter redistricting battle after left-wing groups sued to force the state into creating a second Black-opportunity congressional district. Federal courts repeatedly interfered with maps passed by elected lawmakers, overriding the will of Alabama voters.

But the legal landscape changed dramatically this week after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the use of race as the predominant factor in redistricting, dealing a massive blow to the race-based mapmaking agenda pushed by Democrats and activist groups.

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Barack Obama Weighs In On Supreme Court “Gutting” Voting Rights Act by Striking Down Louisiana’s Racially Gerrymandered Map and It Instantly Backfires

Former President Barack Obama lashed out at the United States Supreme Court for crippling the racial gerrymandering schemes practiced by his party, and Americans were quick to put him in his place.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, the Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling on Wednesday, correctly declaring Louisiana’s newly-drawn Democrat-friendly Congressional map an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

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

While the decision does not abolish the Voting Rights Act (VRA) or Section 2, ABC News notes that it raises the bar for challenges to election maps that liberal critics claim limit the ability of minority voters to elect candidates of their choosing, even if lawmakers did not intend to discriminate.

Leftist Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan whined in her dissent that the “gutting of Section 2 puts that achievement in peril.”

“If other states follow Louisiana’s lead,” Kagan added, “the minority citizens residing there will no longer have an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.”

Obama agreed with Kagan that the VRA was gutted and slammed the Court for not only “weakening” minority voting power but “abandoning its vital role in ensuring equal participation in our democracy.”

“Today’s Supreme Court decision effectively guts a key pillar of the Voting Rights Act, freeing state legislatures to gerrymander legislative districts to systematically dilute and weaken the voting power of racial minorities – so long as they do it under the guise of ‘partisanship’ rather than explicit ‘racial bias,” Obama wrote.

“And it serves as just one more example of how a majority of the current Court seems intent on abandoning its vital role in ensuring equal participation in our democracy and protecting the rights of minority groups against majority overreach,” he added.

“The good news is that such setbacks can be overcome. But that will only happen if citizens across the country who cherish our democratic ideals continue to mobilize and vote in record numbers – not just in the upcoming midterms or in high-profile races, but in every election and every level.”

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Republicans Could Gain DOZENS of House Seats After SCOTUS Outlaws Racial Gerrymandering — Here’s How

Republicans could pick up as many as 27 additional House seats following the Supreme Court’s decision to curb race-based redistricting, a shift that could reshape the 2026 midterm map.

The projection stems from analysis of how congressional districts may be redrawn now that states are no longer required to prioritize race when complying with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Estimates indicate that weakening Section 2 enforcement could ultimately produce even larger gains, with Axios reporting that 27 seats could shift toward Republicans over time.

The changes would be concentrated primarily in Southern states, where previous maps were challenged and altered to create additional majority-minority districts.

With the Court ruling that racially gerrymandered maps are unconstitutional, states now have broader authority to redraw districts using traditional and political considerations rather than racial targets.

The impact could be significant given the current balance of power in the House, where relatively small seat changes determine control.

The Louisiana case at the center of the ruling involved a dispute over a second majority-Black district added after legal challenges.

A group of voters later sued, arguing the map relied too heavily on race, and federal courts agreed before the issue reached the Supreme Court.

The Court’s decision effectively limits how Section 2 can be used to force states into drawing districts based on racial composition.

This removes a major legal obstacle for Republican-led legislatures seeking to revisit congressional maps ahead of 2026.

Ongoing legal battles in Texas and Florida suggest that mid-cycle redistricting efforts are already underway, with courts allowing those maps to remain in place while challenges proceed.

Republicans are also expected to benefit from structural advantages in turnout and district geography, which, combined with new map flexibility, could further strengthen their position.

The ruling does not eliminate the Voting Rights Act but significantly narrows its application in redistricting cases, reducing the likelihood of successful legal challenges based on racial representation claims.

While most pollsters believe that Democrats will take back the House in November, there are some signs that a so-called “blue wave” is not a foregone conclusion.

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DeSantis proposes new Congressional map for Fla., giving GOP 4 extra seats

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has proposed an overhaul of the state’s congressional map, designed to net the Republican Party 4 additional seats in the U.S. House. This move is widely viewed by Democrats as a strategic “tit-for-tat” response to recent Democrat redistricting victories in states like Virginia and California.

Nonetheless, by establishing a projected 24–4 GOP advantage, the governor’s proposal reportedly seeks to ensure Florida’s congressional delegation accurately reflects the state’s massive shift in voter registration, which now sees Republicans leading Democrats by over 1.5 million voters.

This update would modernize the current split to better align with the state’s significant population growth and clear political mandate. Supporters have described the move as a necessary step to solidify Florida’s influence and provide a decisive Republican firewall in the House ahead of the 2026 midterms.

“Florida got shortchanged in the 2020 Census, and we’ve been fighting for fair representation ever since,” DeSantis (R-Fla.)told Fox News Digital. “Our population has since grown dramatically, and we have moved from a Democrat majority to a 1.5 million Republican advantage. Drawing maps based on race, which is reflected in our current congressional districts, is unconstitutional and should be prohibited.”

“Our new map for 2026 makes good on my promise to conduct mid-decade redistricting, and it more fairly represents the makeup of Florida today,” DeSantis added.

DeSantis’ latest congressional map proposal follows similar mid-decade redistricting efforts in states like Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio, which are collectively expected to bolster the GOP’s seat count in the U.S. House.

While the move also coincides with a recent shift in Virginia that will highly likely favor Democrats, sources familiar with the governor’s thinking similarly argued that the Florida redraw is primarily driven by the state’s massive population growth and a significant shift in voter registration since the 2020 Census.

DeSantis has maintained that the update is necessary to ensure fair representation for Florida’s expanded electorate and to move toward a more “race-neutral” map, rather than acting as a direct retaliation for political developments in other states.

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VA Gerrymander Language Is So Dishonest, Dems Refuse To Defend It In Court

Attorney General Jay Jones, D-Va., attempted to defend the commonwealth’s redistricting ballot initiative in an appeal to the state Supreme Court, while doing his best to dance around the amendment’s misleading language.

In a spring special election Democrat legislators presented Virginians with a constitutional referendum to gerrymander the state’s 11 U.S. House districts, shifting the balance of power in the delegation from six Democrats and five Republicans to 10 Democrats and one Republican. Democrats sold their proposal using the following language: “Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?” (Emphasis added.)

Virginia voters voted in favor of gerrymandering, based on that language.

A blanket ruling from the circuit court in Tazewell County nullified the vote and blocked the referendum from being officially certified the day after the redistricting measure passed. The court noted that the language Democrats used on the ballot was “flagrantly misleading” and did not “accurately describe the proposed amendment as it was passed by the General Assembly.”

Jones appealed to the state Supreme Court, but in his motion to stay, he made no effort to address the central language question on the ballot — the phrase “restore fairness in the upcoming election.”

“It asks voters whether to amend the Constitution to allow the General Assembly to ‘temporarily adopt new congressional districts,’ while ‘ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census,’” Jones’ motion states.

As Republican state Del. Wren Williams noted, Jones “quotes the words before that line. He quotes the words after it. But he selectively skips the eight words that are the entire reason we are in court to begin with.”

“If the language were defensible, he would have defended it. A lawyer who believes in his ballot question quotes his ballot question. What is there to hide from those reading your Motion? Or may be reading the ballot question for the first time,” Williams added.

Jones only makes reference to the “fairness” language once, where he brushes it off as “rhetorical choices,” stating that “reasonable observers may disagree about whether the accompanying reference to ‘fairness’ reflects persuasive framing.” “Rhetorical choices,” however, are a means by which people understand language and ideas, and “rhetorical choices” are the very things that can make something misleading or clear.

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Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves Calls Special Session For Redistricting

Mississippi’s Republican Governor Tate Reeves on Friday evening announced he is calling a special legislative session for redistricting once the US Supreme Court rules on voting rights (Louisiana v. Callais).

Governor Reeves said the legislature will convene 21 days after the Supreme Court issues a ruling.

President Trump’s Department of Justice, through Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Harmeet Dhillon and Solicitor General John Sauer, told the US Supreme Court that race-based congressional districts must end once and for all.

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.

Here are the key takedowns:

  1. No More Race-First Districts Without Proof: Plaintiffs must prove their proposed majority-minority district is “superior” to the state’s map under race-neutral rules, including political goals. Otherwise, it’s just assuming racism where none exists.
  2. Decouple Race from Party: The brief slams how courts let Democrats hide behind “polarized voting” that’s really just partisan divides. “Plaintiffs must decouple party from race when determining whether majority and minority voters vote differently,” it states. No more using black voters’ loyalty to Democrats as an excuse for gerrymandering.
  3. Real Evidence of Discrimination Required: Echoing Shelby County v. Holder (which gutted outdated VRA provisions in 2013), the DOJ says current conditions don’t justify this nonsense. Voter turnout is sky-high, minorities are winning elections everywhere – including in Congress, where black representation is at record levels.

Full statement from Tate Reeves:

I don’t typically make news on a Friday afternoon, but today I am going to make an exception:

I’m calling a special session.

During the recently completed regular session, the Legislature discussed drawing new maps to comply with a decision from a federal judge from the Northern District of Mississippi – a decision that has been appealed to the 5th Circuit and the appeal has been heretofore stayed pending future U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

The entire world knows the Callais decision has not yet been handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court. It is a decision that could (and in my view should) forever change the way we draw electoral maps.

It is my belief and federal law requires that the Mississippi Legislature be given the first opportunity to draw these maps. And the fact is, they haven’t had a fair opportunity to do that because of the pending Callais decision.

For those reasons, I am using my constitutional authority to allow the Mississippi Legislature to use their constitutionally recognized right to draw these maps once the new rules of the game are known following Callais.

It is my sincere hope that, in deciding Callais, the U.S. Supreme Court will reaffirm the animating principle that all Americans are created equal and that when the government classifies its citizens on the basis of race, even as a perceived remedy to right a wrong, it engages in the offensive and demeaning assumption that Americans of a particular race, because of their race, think alike and share the same interests and preferences – a concept that is odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.

The special session will take place on the calendar day that falls 21 days after the U.S. Supreme Court issues the Callais decision.

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Judge Rules Virginia Redistricting Referendum Unconstitutional

A Virginia judge ruled on April 22 that the state’s redistricting referendum approved by voters a day earlier was invalid, nullifying the election results.

Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones said he would immediately file an appeal.

“Virginia voters have spoken, and an activist judge should not have veto power over the People’s vote,” Jones said in an X post.

Tazewell Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley entered an injunction blocking certification of the election.

Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said the legal fight was just beginning after language used in the ballot question raised a lot of interest among the opposition.

The question voters faced was the following: “Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?”

Cuccinelli expects the case to move quickly through the appeals process.

“The ‘yes’ folks probably are going to look back at Tuesday and think that was the easy part because they have so badly violated several constitutional provisions,” Cuccinelli told “The Scott Jennings Show.”

The referendum faces three legal challenges in addition to the one decided on April 22.

“Here’s my prediction, the referendum gets tossed out in May,” Cuccinelli said in an X post.

Three of the lawsuits challenge the referendum on procedural grounds, arguing that Democratic Party lawmakers didn’t follow the law regarding timing requirements and legislative steps when passing the measure to place it on the ballot.

The fourth argument is about how the electoral districts were drawn and challenges the maps on contiguity requirements.

Tens of millions of dollars were spent to pass the redistricting referendum as Democrats across the nation continue their quest to redraw congressional seats in favor of taking back the U.S. House.

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Virginia passes ‘egregiously’ gerrymandered redistricting map favoring Democrats

Virginians voted in favor of Democrat Gov. Abigail Spanberger and Democrats’ effort to completely overhaul the commonwealth’s congressional map to favor Democrats, the Associated Press reported Tuesday evening.

The Associated Press called the race in favor of “yes” at 8:50pm eastern time with an estimated 81% of the votes counted. At the time of the call, 50.3% voted in favor of the redistricting effort, while 49.7% voted against.

The AP called “yes” despite the slim margin because the outstanding ballots were in areas breaking hard for “yes.”

While 6 Democrats and 5 Republicans currently represent Virginia in Washington, the new Virginia congressional map will likely give Democrats a 10-1 advantage after the midterms. Democrats will hold this massive advantage despite the fact that Virginia went blue by less than 6% in the 2024 presidential election and voted for Spanberger by 15 points in the 2025 gubernatorial election.

The new congressional map is expected to result in 10 Democrats and one Republican by stretching congressional districts in Northern Virginia and areas of Charlottesville deep into southern and eastern portions of the state that are rural and reliably red.

Even prior to Tuesday night’s election result, voters in Virginia expressed concern with the language on the ballot. The Virginia Supreme Court decided to wait until after the election to hear the case over whether the language was fair. Notably, this is the same court that decided the current map was a fair one to begin with.

A recent poll conducted by Heritage Action found that nearly 50% of voters were confused by the term “restore fairness.”

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Trouble in Virginia: Leftists Pay Canvassers To Gain college student support for Democrat Gerrymandering

According to a recent report at Campus Reform, “Left-wing activists are paying canvassers to promote a Democrat-led redistricting effort on Virginia college students, according to a recent job posting.”

This listing, posted on Indeed, sought applicants for a “Community Canvasser – Vote YES on Redistricting” position.

The goal would be to support a Democrat plot to “support a gerrymandering referendum in the upcoming election.”

The listing read like a typical far-left campaign pitch, saying “With Trump and MAGA-controlled legislatures in other states working to rig congressional maps, Virginians are at risk of having their voices diminished in Washington,” the post claims. “Virginians vote April 21st on a constitutional amendment that gives voters, not politicians, the power to protect fair representation for Virginia.”

As has been reported extensively, this gerrymandering proposal in VA would redraw congressional districts to favor the Dems.

This job mentioned is being pitched by a group known as “The Outreach Team, which advertises itself as “the national engine of campaigners and organizers powering the progressive movement” on its web page. It boasts of its partnerships with a number of prominent left-wing organizations, including Planned Parenthood, the NAACP, and the Biden-Harris campaign.”

In other words, this is a grassroots leftist effort to skew the elections towards the Democrats and put them at an advantage over Republicans.

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Obama Films Desperate Video Pleading with Virginians to Approve Redistricting Referendum That Could Flip Up to Four House Seats to Democrats

Barack Obama released a video on Thursday calling for Virginia voters to approve a constitutional amendment on the April 21 special election ballot that would temporarily suspend the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission and let the Democrat-controlled General Assembly redraw congressional district maps.

The measure, framed by supporters as a response to Republican-led mid-decade redistricting in other states, would allow lawmakers to adopt new congressional maps for the 2026 midterms and beyond, continuing through the 2030 census.

Democrats say the proposed maps could shift Virginia’s current 6-5 Democratic advantage in the U.S. House delegation to as many as 10-1.

In the video, Obama stated:

“By voting yes, you can push back against the Republicans trying to give themselves an unfair advantage in the midterms.”

The former president continued, “By voting yes, you can take a temporary step to level the playing field. And we’re counting on you.”

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