5d ago

Democrats draw up plans to retaliate if Republicans gerrymander Texas — but they face legal hurdles

www.nbcnews.com

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250808121907/https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/democrats-plans-redistricting-retaliate-texas-republicans-legal-rcna223128

16 comments

What a frame. Gerrymandering is illegal but doesn't face the same headline assertion.
- It's illegal when done for racial reasons (Miller v. Johnson). When done for partisan reasons, I don't believe it is.
  Edit: The planned response is to gerrymander CA and NY:
  California Gov. Gavin Newsom and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who lead states where Democrats control large legislative majorities. Two can play at this game, they say, vowing to similarly eliminate GOP-held seats in their states.
  
  Partisan reasons, ie racial reasons.
  
  isn’t that just also wrong?
- No, it isn't. Not generally at least. That's the problem.
Tl;dr: Democrats have kneecapped themselves by passing laws (years ago) that restrict gerrymandering. Republican controlled states don't do that.
They could always repeal them.
- In Michigan, it was necessary. We are able to make amendments to our state constitution via ballot proposal.
  The legislature in Michigan had been Republican controlled for forty years. In 2018, a ballot proposal removing redistricting from the legislature and handing it to an independent bipartisan commission shared the ballot with another proposal legalizing weed. The legalizing weed proposal really brought out the vote, and so we voters enshrined in our state’s constitution that districting couldn’t be done by the legislature.
  Following the new districting lines, power shifted to the Democrats (again, for the first time in 40 years). We’d had plenty of Democratic governors and a liberal-leaning state court system, but the legislature was gerrymandered to fuck so we were stuck. Now we have a legislature that represents the state’s population much better. It won’t always be Democrat, it won’t always be Republican, but it also won’t be extremely far right because that would be political suicide in a swing state where gerrymandering is illegal. This leads to compromise, which leads to slow but inevitable progress.
  Voters should get to choose their representatives. Representatives shouldn’t get to choose their voters.
- Or just ignore them, like any Republican would do.
- Just fire the people standing in your way. Trump is giving you the playbook. Use it!
- The Dems have effectively cucked USAians into fascism LOL
Funny, the Republicans don't seem to face any legal hurdles.
Bullshit. They'll just write a strong letter.
Fuck the legal hurdles just do it. I'm so tired of the dems being fucking pussies in the face of the country failing. No more moral victories. I want actual results.
Assuming all the states Gerry mander based on what party controls them so that all of their representatives are from that party, who wins?
- Land has more representative power than people.

16 comments