Florida’s constitution prohibits both partisan and racial gerrymanders, but the FL Supreme Court is deeply Republican so we’ll see what happens.
Meanwhile, in TX a federal court voted 2-1 to throw out the new map, decision written by a Trump appointee, basis for finding racial discrimination includes a letter from Trump’s DOJ telling TX to consider race in drawing their map. Dissent is from a 79 year old Reagan appointee who is off his rocker. It’s both hilarious in how unhinged it is and sad that someone who no longer has any marbles is still on the court.
There is a special rule on redistricting cases that they go to SCOTUS virtually automatically. The only interesting part is the question of how rapidly will SCOTUS make a decision.
A friend of mine testified in the previous TX redistricting lawsuit that was halted because of this more aggressive gerrymander. She told me that in the South Carolina case upholding partisan gerrymandering, Thomas set out a 3 prong test that is virtually impossible to meet for a gerrymander to be deemed illegal. In the prior TX case, she was excited that it was the first time she was able to demonstrate all 3 prongs were met, and was wondering what new rule Thomas would make up to rule in favor of TX. I imagine that the current map is even more clear cut.
Going to laugh when all those new +5 GOP districts that they created in the latest map to spread out the R vote move more than 5% because America is starting to hate Trump.
I don’t have the mental energy right now to read the decision, but probably should because the majority apparently uses an intellectually bankrupt argument to dismiss my friend’s testimony that mathematically showed that the gerrymander was based on race. (TX declined to turn over their methodology for making the maps in discovery, she made maps purely using race as a basis for a gerrymander and ignoring party affiliation that are virtually identical. But because they aren’t 100% identical, which isn’t possible without TX disclosing their methodology, this doesn’t prove anything)
But anyways, my understanding is that the majority argument is that 1) the courts can’t overrule the states too close to the election. This implies that no matter how illegal a map is, if the state releases it close to the election date then their is no legal recourse, which is batshit crazy. And 2) it’s okay to discriminate on the basis of race if the goal of the racial discrimination is partisan rather than racist. That is, you can discriminate against black people because you hate that they vote for Democrats, because that isn’t discrimination because they are black. Which reminds me that this is the court that thinks you can discriminate against pregnant people, because that isn’t discrimination against women (Gedulgig, reaffirmed in Dobbs), and you can discriminate against people with gender dysphoria, because that isn’t discrimination against trans people (Skrmetti).
Spencer Deery’s son was getting ready for school when someone tried to provoke police into swarming his home by reporting a fake emergency.
Linda Rogers said there were threats at her home and the golf course that her family has run for generations.
Jean Leising faced a pipe bomb scare that was emailed to local law enforcement.
The three are among roughly a dozen Republicans in the Indiana Senate who have seen their lives turned upside down while President Donald Trump pushes to redraw the state’s congressional map to expand the party’s power in the 2026 midterm elections.
It’s a bewildering and frightening experience for lawmakers who consider themselves loyal party members and never imagined they would be doing their jobs under the same shadow of violence that has darkened American political life in recent years. Leising described it as “a very dangerous and intimidating process.”
The margin was surprising. There are only 10 Ds in the Indiana Senate.
That means the Rs voted against the redistricting by a margin of
21-19.
(In the 2024 gubernatorial election, the D got 41% of the vote and the R+ Independent got 59%. So the 40-10 split in the Senate is noticeably more lopsided than the apparent R/D preference.)
So the net effect is roughly a wash, but large numbers of people are effectively losing representation by having fewer competitive races so less reason for congress critters to listen to constituents. (This is assuming Texas redistricting doesn’t backfire)
There is a risk of that in Texas. Texas in total is under water from a Trump approval rating perspective and all those +5-10 Trump districts that were created will be very close.
