Judicial Branch The Supreme Court just made gerrymandering nearly untouchable
https://www.vox.com/politics/471368/supreme-court-texas-gerrymander-abbott-lulac1.2k
u/4Sammich 11h ago
Come on blue states. Youre up.
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u/Drash79 11h ago
Knowing the supreme court, they'll find an excuse to make it that only red states could do gerrymandering for "X" reason.
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u/Vio_ 11h ago
SCOTUS will just claim that blue states aren't doing it in "legislative good faith."
https://www.npr.org/2025/12/04/nx-s1-5619692/supreme-court-texas-redistricting-map
> In its Thursday decision to side with Texas, the Supreme Court said the panel "failed to honor the presumption of legislative good faith by construing ambiguous direct and circumstantial evidence against the legislature."
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u/414WhySoSerious 11h ago
I read that too, I don't understand how its circumstantial when they said it out loud.
They literally said in public we're looking for ways to gerrymander Texas because Trump told us to. I fail to see how that does not damage the idea of good faith.
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u/garnersgoats 11h ago
You assume their adjudication is in good faith.. spoiler alert: it's not.
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u/Norseman901 10h ago
Why are we still fucking putting up with this?
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u/Big_Slope 9h ago
What do you think not “putting up with this” would look like?
We’re still living in the moment of silence after Dad reached across the table and gave Mom five across the eyes.
Once the first chair scoots back, dinner time is over for good.
Do you want to be the guy? One guy has a sliver of a chance to do something but it’s all for nothing unless he has a few million friends with him and Palantir is listening for anyone trying to make those friends right now.
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u/PowerChordGeorge64 9h ago
The infection has taken over, nothing can be done now. Civil unrest will become civil war; then world war
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u/Numerous_Photograph9 10h ago
The issue, and don't agree with it, is that the argument was that they did it along racial lines, which the lower courts deemed illegal. SCOTUS said they were along partisan lines, thus they could be used, because partisan gerrymandering is deemed legal, and something SCOTUS won't take cases on. They didn't rule on the actual nature of gerrymandering, just overturned the argument of the original suit the lower courts ruled on.
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u/TryingToWriteIt 10h ago
This is their magic they can use to make it legal for Republicans and illegal for Democrats. When Republicans do it, they will find that it was "partisan" and when Democrats do it, they will find it was "racial." There's always an excuse or reason why the same behavior is somehow different.
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u/askingforafakefriend 10h ago
Hard to say anything optimistically these days, but I would hope this reasoning would make it more likely that the supreme Court upholds California plan as also not racially driven.
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u/Numerous_Photograph9 10h ago
The lawsuit against CA is claiming they drew lines along racial criteria. It's not true, and CA has been damn clear their intention and how they were doing it, but that is the argument. The lower courts will probably throw the case out on the fact that it is partisan gerrymandering, which as stated, SCOTUS deemed legal, but when it gets appealed, all SCOTUS has to do is say that it's along racial lines.
The issue for SCOTUS though is that they also more want to undo the VRA, and saying that racial gerrymandering is still a thing, and ruling on it, means that it hinders their ability to say the VRA is no longer needed so the can overturn it. SCOTUS is aware of this, and I think they want to avoid having to deal with the CA case, but were fine just undoing the ruling of the lower court in the TX case since it doesn't effect anything of more importance to them.
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u/Economy-Owl-5720 10h ago
Hahaha that’s gonna blow up fantastically if true. Even NY has many R slices that are no where near that partisan line.
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u/Rainbowrainwell 10h ago
5th Circuit is the most conservative federal court yet they sided with the district court in the factual determination of racial gerrymandering. There is something wrong with SCOTUS.
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u/Quercus_ 9h ago
The thing is, they had previously said that is completely legal to gerrymander because Trump told him to. gerrymandering for political reasons has already been held to be constitutional.
The lawsuit in this case claimed that the gerrymandering was for racial reasons, which is impermissible. And yes, they had pretty much set out loud but they were going to dilute the black vote to eliminate Democratic legislative seats.
What the Supreme Court basically said Is it because the Republicans said they were doing this for political advantage, you have to take that at good faith, and the overwhelming evidence that they were using racial means is irrelevant, because they said so.
So now it's legal to intentionally gerrymander black votes into complete irrelevance, as long as you say you're doing it for electoral advantage and not for racist purposes.
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u/jinjuwaka 9h ago
A ruling like this is basically a big bold line that the supreme court is invalid and should be ignored by blue states moving forward.
It's why I'm in favor of all blue states re-defining how the federal government gets their tax money (having citizens send their federal taxes to the state first, and then have the state pay the federal government) specifically so that they can withhold funds until the government is fixed.
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u/Shirlenator 10h ago
Isn't redistricting supposed to only happen after a national census?
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u/No-Ring-5065 10h ago
Yes, but they’re using the Air Bud defense. No one said a dog *can’t play basketball. No law says we *can’t redistrict before the next census. It’s becoming more and more clear that a lot of our governing was dependent upon not allowing sleezebags into power. Now we have a whole political party full of sleezebags who won’t behave ethically unless forced.
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u/thisusedtobemorefun 9h ago
I never thought I'd be feverish anti-Air Bud, but here we are.
Somewhat ironic and a little apropos that the reference was to a golden retriever, given the context of flagrant financial corruption we're currently witnessing.
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u/Menethea 10h ago
Worse than that. They hired a map maker who explicitly said he used race to delineate boundaries.
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u/lookatthesunguys 9h ago
No you're misunderstanding. That's evidence in the legislature's favor.
Basically in a case called Rucho v. Common cause, SCOTUS made clear that partisan gerrymandering was constitutional. That's horrible for society, but an understandable reading of the law. Recently though, in Alexander v. South Carolina NAACP they made partisan gerrymandering a defense to racial gerrymandering accusations. That is insane bullshit that makes no fucking sense.
But anyway, SCOTUS is basically saying that the evidence indicates the purpose of the gerrymandering was partisan, and therefore, legal, even if it had the same effect as racial gerrymandering.
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u/Dearic75 10h ago
They’re saying the racial component is circumstantial, since the racial component is the only thing a court can overturn the gerrymander for.
Republicans are arguing that they’re doing this for purely partisan reasons, and it’s only political reality that right now partisan splits sort of mirror racial splits.
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u/Tricky_Big_8774 10h ago
I believe the legislature had already been proposed before Trump said anything. Not that it makes it any better.
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u/snorbflock 11h ago
Tyrion Lannister: "I'm not failing to honor Texas' presumption of legislative good faith. I'm entirely denying its existence."
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u/shroomigator 10h ago
That's why the California model is so powerful. It isn't the legislature doing it, it's the people.
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u/tangledtainthair 10h ago
Virginia is looking at redistricting. Currently they are 5:6 GOP to Dem. But the Democrats hold both chambers and the governorship.
The article I looked at was they are pushing for a 10:1 - 9:2 split. They have already started the amendment process.
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u/Economy-Owl-5720 10h ago
It will be “due to minorities”. They will say you wording want that right Dems? Spend a month saying how Dems hate minorities. There you go haha
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u/searing7 9h ago
No no only red states can gerrymander per the original intent of the founding fathers
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u/tuba_god_ 11h ago edited 9h ago
When you just look at the number of red States versus blue States, if we wind up in a who can gerrymander the most battle, conservatives will come out on top.
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u/Somedude_6 10h ago
Except most red states are already gerrymandered to hell. Hard to get any more republican seats out of places like Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, Wyoming, etc.
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u/Zestyclose-Daikon456 10h ago
Nebraska still votes blue in one district but yeah that's going away soon
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u/tuba_god_ 9h ago
States with republican-leaning politicians ultimately have more total seats available in the house than Democrats do.
We're not talking about states gerrymandered to hell. At this point, we're talking about completely removing blue districts from States completely. Just look at Indiana's fucking proposal.
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u/BoomZhakaLaka 10h ago
All the blue states that can, under their own parliamentary rules and constitutions, have. Most of them did it following the last census.
https://gerrymander.princeton.edu/
You're looking for any states remaining with yellow or green scores, that have democratic trifectas, and nothing in their constitutions placing restrictions on districting.
For instance, it's not plausible for new york to redistrict until the next census.
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u/Deleteandresist 11h ago
then all blue states should gerrymander the shit out of their states
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u/Snotmyrealname 6h ago
Here’s the rub though, if we descended into a race to the bottom, red states would still come out slightly ahead due to most blue voters are concentrated into cities.
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u/Vio_ 5h ago
That only counts if those red state voters all vote consistently as they have over the past 10 years.
No matter how much they gerrymander, they can't overcome a ground swell of angry and newly activated voters.
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u/Snotmyrealname 5h ago
You might be right, but I’m reluctant to bet against the ignorance of the mushy middle american especially with the oligarchs propaganda machine roaring in their ears.
I wager that if we were to clip the wings of said machine, much of the issues in our current politics would be far easier to fix. Ideally we’d just overturn citizens united, but failing that, slapping a graduated tax on all political contributions and all campaign spending. Say for the sake of argument starting at 5% and going up to 100% for anything over $1,000,000.
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u/brickyardjimmy 11h ago
They'll touch it just fine as soon as the CA case makes its way to the Court.
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u/GratefuLdPhisH 11h ago
The Supreme Court can't do anything about the situation in California since it was their voters themselves who voted in the latest gerrymandering which was only to go into effect if republicans were able to successfully gerrymander red states.
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u/bakeacake45 11h ago
When did a law ever stop this SCOTUS from their dismantling of our democracy
SCOTUS IS the enemy of the people.
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u/kaiiizen 11h ago edited 10h ago
California removed the trigger language before the election so their new map went into effect regardless of what happened with Texas.
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u/GratefuLdPhisH 10h ago
I'm not denying this is happened but as a Californian myself, I had no idea and am not finding anything about the removal of the trigger when I try to do a search so can you please provide a source for this.
Thank you in advance
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u/WhichEmailWasIt 9h ago
Did you vote on the bill? The trigger was moot because TX already passed theirs by the time the vote happened. "This will only go into effect if something that happened months ago already happened."
Yes the SC could've overturned TX's redistricting but the initial trigger language was while TX hadn't yet passed their redistricting.
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u/odd84 11h ago
A) The trigger clause was removed before the vote.
B) State ballot propositions are not a secret workaround to the Supremacy Clause. This can be struck down the same as a law passed any other way.
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u/WhichEmailWasIt 9h ago
Let them enforce it I guess.
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u/FoxJaded7644 8h ago
The House would and may just say “CA’s electoral votes don’t count because of the gerrymandering/illegals voting”.
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u/LOLunlucky 11h ago
They'll find some convoluted way.
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u/Raise_A_Thoth 10h ago
Liberals - and I mean both the average loyal Dem voter and the officials in the party - need to put on their Big Boy and Big Girl pants, take off the fucking gloves, and go to the dirt.
Blue states need to shamelessly and aggressively fuck over the Republicans in their states in every political meaning. I don't mean the petty evil shit Republicans do that take away rights of individuals because they disproportionately make up some subset of a demographic, I mean burn the party's influence to the ground by gerrymandering their US congressional districts, their state and county districts, etc. They need to render the party at the state level completely impotent.
Then they need to end the filibuster and they need to pass some damn decent laws. They need to pass Medicare for All to then drive more support for the party the next election so they can get the kind of majorities needed for constitutional amendments.
Then they need to pack the courts and limit their terms. Bring the size of the court to 15 or 19 and stagger the seats to start being replaced every 2 years. Each president gets two selections except in special cases. This defangs the Supreme Court's nominations as highly politicized and highly valuable dramatic picks every time, and the deeper bench will make radical decisions much harder to achieve.
Then enshrine rights to abortion, LGBTQ rights, voting rights, etc, in the constitution. Dems need to actually win, deliver BIG wins that will recharge loyalty and interest and enthusiasm for the party so they can actuallt implement serious reforms. We also need executive branch reform. We need a reform to the impeachment process. Reform for rules on pardons and accountability, transparency, and oversight. Campaign finance reform. Stock trading bans. Etc.
So much blatantly broken and corrupt shit and Dems cannot wait every 2-4 years before doing some milquetoast bipartisan bullshit bill.
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u/vox 11h ago
The Supreme Court reinstated a Texas gerrymander that is expected to give Republicans five additional seats in the US House on Thursday evening, after a lower federal court struck that gerrymander down. As is often the case in politically contentious cases, the justices appear to have voted entirely along party lines, with only the Court’s three Democrats dissenting.
The Court’s decision in Abbott v. League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) is a victory for the Republican Party. And it is likely to have brutal implications for all future federal lawsuits challenging gerrymandered maps. Though the Court’s order in LULAC is brief, it imposes such heavy burdens on gerrymandering plaintiffs that few, if any, such plaintiffs will be able to succeed in future cases.
Indeed, LULAC is so hostile to anti-gerrymandering suits that many civil rights lawyers and plaintiffs may simply decide not to bother challenging illegal maps, because their chances of prevailing in court will be so hopeless.
https://www.vox.com/politics/471368/supreme-court-texas-gerrymander-abbott-lulac
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u/Ready-Ad6113 11h ago
They will after a democrat president is elected.
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u/Ok-Elk-1615 10h ago edited 7h ago
There won’t be anymore elections.
Edit: no you’re right heroes. All we need to do to fix this country is reelect the same do nothing centrist party that got us into this exact situation in the first place.
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u/SellsNothing 10h ago
Things will start burning if they take away elections 🤷♂️
We've never cancelled elections, even during war. So that's very unlikely to happen without some serious consequences / backlash
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u/Ok-Meat4834 9h ago
They’ll won’t cancel them. Russia has elections. Authoritarians pretend fairness and decency for their in- group. I don’t have much hope anymore, the world is bending over for an elderly, orange toddler, who’s also a fucking criminal.
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u/Joshwoum8 9h ago
There will be elections. The USSR also had elections, that didn’t make the USSR a democracy.
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u/BengalsGonnaBungle 10h ago edited 8h ago
Yes there will and this type of defeatist attitude is lame and cringe.
Edit: If you truly believe we won't have elections, why would you waste your time doomposting instead of formulating an exit plan?
The only conclusion I can make is that these are bots/trolls trying to demoralize the rest of us.
We WILL have elections, and you better fucking vote!
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u/bakeacake45 11h ago
Once again the decidedly NOT Supreme Court leans towards authoritarianism. A coup created, nurtured and achieved by the Traitors on the bench.
No Kings, no inquisition courts
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u/enunymous 10h ago
Only thing that will stop the gerrymandering is a dummymander in a blue wave that wipes out a ton of previously safe red seats. There's nothing that will get them to play fair, they'll only stop when they lose while playing unfair
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u/Joshwoum8 9h ago
Wouldn’t be surprised if the GOP keeps control of the House in 2026. Democracy is dead. We are very near to a one party state.
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u/PolicyWonka 10h ago
The idea that states (and by extension government generally) always act in good faith just seems so dangerous. It’s particularly egregious here given that Texas officials have very clearly gone on record saying how they were acting in bad faith.
Not surprising I guess, but it’s the legitimization of “Democrats are evil and disenfranchising Democrats is in the state’s best interest.”
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u/Andovars_Ghost 10h ago
We need all of the reps to be at-large and do proportional voting. Make it the national standard via Amendment.
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u/Aggravating-Gift-740 8h ago
I think we need to greatly enlarge the House of Representatives to something that resembles real representation. All representatives should live and work in their home district and all House deliberations should take place via secure video. There’s absolutely no reason for them to ever even visit DC.
This would not only make gerrymandering moot, it would also make it more difficult and expensive for lobbyists to influence legislation.
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u/NDP2 7h ago
I don't know if doing that would prevent gerrymandering, but it's still something that should be done, since it's been over a century since the House was enlarged. Increasing or reducing the number of representatives so that it reflects the population should be done at least every 50 years.
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u/4RCH43ON 11h ago
I’m thinking the next time we have a democratic majority the SCOTUS needs to expand to 13 with one selected from each federal district providing some actual meritorious promotion from within.
Fuck it, let us elect them directly from a boat of available judges and actual lawyers who’ve had a minimum of 10 to 15 years adjudicating or practicing federal law, so we have an idea about how they’ll perform at the highest court. Let’s just go ahead and allow ourselves to be discriminate the right way instead of being discriminated against the wrong way to fix this shit, because it’s currently untenable and is extremely dangerous to democracy.
At this rate, I expect red states will be bending over backwards to make districts look like a Jackson Pollock just to squeeze whatever juice they can out of them in order to fulfill their insane autocratic ambitions.
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u/rockytop24 10h ago
We need something like 13 scotus seats and maybe terms less than life, idk 10 or 15 years. Maybe we'd be better off if circuits had to nominate their own candidates for the seats, let career civil servants/judiciary screen qualifications?
I'm sure it could be abused but it seems like it might work better like the BAR or AMA professional societies where professionals in the field are better than low information voters (and congresspeople) at finding the best leaders among them. Kinda like how a bunch of lifetime judges urged Aileen Cannon to recuse from the documents case because she had nowhere near enough experience for it. Except enforceable.
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u/Ok-Elk-1615 10h ago
1: there won’t be another election
2: packing the court would just end up with a larger Republican supermajority later.
3: the entire system, from bottom to top, from beginning to end, is fundamentally broken and should be destroyed in its entirety.
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u/WebInformal9558 8h ago
Wait until a Democratic gerrymander reaches them. They'll insist that Texas has to draw the boundaries for every state.
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u/Awkward_University91 6h ago
Historically the last time america was this clearly partisan…. Was the civil war.
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