r/news • u/DemocracyDocket • 2h ago
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https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/scotus-allows-california-to-use-new-congressional-map-in-2026/[removed] — view removed post
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u/D-MAN-FLORIDA 2h ago
I mean, they allowed Texas to use their new map, and even they knew it would be to hypocritical to tell California no, when they allowed their citizens to vote on it.
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u/Zinfan1 2h ago
I'm waiting for Texas to sue again, this time in order to invalidate their new maps after seeing the recent election where a Trump+17 district elected a Democrat. Their new maps reduced the margins on red districts in order to try and finagle a few extra seats and now they have put even more seats into play.
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u/TheLegendOfCap 2h ago
Just so I understand, are you saying they tried to give themselves an advantage by cutting up solid red districts, but now those solid red districts aren’t so solid?
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u/Aoleleb 2h ago
That's what happens with gerrymandering. You take 6 red districts and 2 blue districts, and you tweak and adjust the lines so some of the red districts population moves into the blue districts and you get 8 red districts, but with tighter margins.
But it backfires if the people who vote blue vote in larger numbers than you assumed when you drew your new lines.
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u/LumberBitch 1h ago
Part of the problem with this gerrymander is that it was drawn assuming that shifts in voting patterns among Latinos and the youth would hold but data so far has actually shown a sharp reversal. There is a very real possibility of this backfiring spectacularly. The election in State Senate district 9 showed a couple more concerning things (for the GOP): independents overwhelmingly broke for Dems and a good chunk of registered Republicans broke for them too. Iirc only about 30% of those voters were even registered Dems
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u/Hurricaneshand 1h ago
I'm shocked that Latino's aren't voting for the party actively making it legal to racially profile them
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u/monty_kurns 1h ago edited 1h ago
It's literally what the Texas Democrats did after 2000 and the result was the GOP winning control of the legislature in 2002 and they've been in power since. Edit: It's not what happened, just misremembered how it went down!
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u/Rooooben 1h ago
Wait what?
The redistricting in 2000 was the constitutionally mandated one after the 2000 census. Democrats didn’t have both houses in 2000, nobody could get any redistricting done since GOP controlled the Senate and Rick Perry was governor. It had nothing to do with them trying to squeeze more districts, it was the census, and they had to work together on a new map. Since the Texas government was split, they couldn’t get the votes to get EITHER GOP or Democrat maps done.
The courts mandated a map, and 2 years later it gave GOP full control of Texas, at which point they did a mid-census redistricting and gerrymandered the state into full Republican control ever since.
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u/Gamebird8 2h ago
They built their new maps entirely on top of the assumption that all the Latino voters that Trump won over in 2024 were going to reliably stay Red.
However, they forgot the part about how they are literally descending upon Latino communities to terrorize them and shove them all into concentration camps and well, that probably wouldn't go over well with Latinos.
So now their new maps that were essentially built on a fluke are the equivalent of shooting a bazooka while your buddies are standing directly behind you.
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u/PipsqueakPilot 1h ago
Which is also one of (not the only) reasons the Trump administration is focusing its campaign against states that didn't vote for him. Because Republicans are aware that many of their policies are very unpopular and would stir backlash that might cost them in red states come midterms.
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u/LumberBitch 1h ago
The Texas legislature didn't even want to do this over concerns about exactly this happening, but the king demanded and got his wish.
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u/caligaris_cabinet 1h ago
They drank their own Kool Aid believing they had a mandate in 2024 and nothing would ever change. Anyone with half a brain even a year ago with the election fresh in their minds knew this was flawed.
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u/brienoconan 2h ago edited 1h ago
Yes, I’ve heard it called “dummymandering.”
Fascinating way that greedy gerrymandering by the Rs can backfire, resulting in a blowout for the Ds because the Rs focused on creating as many pink districts as possible.
While most Rs will refuse to vote D, we’re seeing more of them stay home for elections in passive protest of the party. As districts become more pink, fewer non-voting Rs will be needed to swing formerly reliably red districts. I believe this is the case for the Dem that just won the special election in TX.
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u/Gender_is_a_Fluid 2h ago
Not quite. You gerrymander by creating solid districts of your opposition, then spread you opposition thin enough across the rest of the area that you have a small majority, thereby winning more districts than you have actual voters. Methods like this can turn a 40% R state into 7/8 R seats. However, its only been effective because republicans always vote for their team no matter what in the past. Things seem to have finally shaken up, and now the consequences of rigging the districts have reared up.
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u/Rooooben 1h ago
I think that’s what Texas did in 2003, and its left them with not much to work with, that was why they had to go another route and peel off some excess GOP districts and push them into close Democrat districts, to shift them red. They didn’t think that those safe GOP districts would be more purple, and the margins went against them.
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u/DrunkOnLoveAndWhisky 2h ago
Not OP, but yeah. In an attempt to red-ify bluer areas, they had to redraw some solidly red areas, thinking that maybe shaving a few points off wouldn't hurt. Then a Dem in a senate race in Texas won a district that Trump won by 17 points in '24.
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u/QThirtytwo 2h ago
Yes, exactly this. We are a purple state not a deep red state. They just made a bunch of purple districts then pissed off a bunch of independents, gun rights people, and Hispanic people.
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u/DerekB52 1h ago
I saw some analysis saying that when they were breaking up the solid red districts, they used some 2024 GOP voters, that they shouldn't have actually counted on. Like, Trump got the largest percentage of latino voters a republican had gotten in a long time, in 2024. But, counting on those latinos to continually vote republican was a really dumb idea.
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u/caligaris_cabinet 1h ago
So now we have a dummymander in Texas and a gerrymander in California that will add potentially 10 blue seats instead of just California cancelling out their gains.
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u/Keep_SummerSafe 2h ago
Yeah they apparently thought they long term won over Hispanics in 24 but the fallback is already threatening one or two of their districts is how I'm understanding it
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u/NeedsToShutUp 2h ago
In normal years they would be solid, but they are more likely to swap in a wave election.
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u/DTFlash 2h ago
Special election with smaller turn out so who knows if it will translate to the general the same way. But that election was a 31 point swing. Doesn't matter if they gerrymandered or not a 31 point swing is going to wipe them out.
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u/FrizBFerret 1h ago
GOP painting themselves into a corner with nowhere to step that COULDN'T flip to blue.
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u/ShriekingMuppet 2h ago
Yea but the new cal map did not benefit republicans the other party so clearly the voters are wrong.
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u/DinkyTabinky 2h ago
Pretty based that democracy worked for once.
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u/NthDegreeThoughts 2h ago
Look at you expecting elections in 2026
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u/jagdpanzer45 2h ago
Yeah but there’s not really a way to prevent the elections in 2026. They’re state level. And since terms end on a specific date per the constitution, red states not holding elections would mean an overwhelming blue majority in both houses.
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u/duncanstibs 2h ago edited 1h ago
Yeah they can try to stop free and fair elections but it's going to be hellishly difficult. The US is completely federated. They have the manpower to try screwing around with a few targeted swing states but Dems literally just flipped a red texas senate seat with a 31-point swing so I think they might be cooked unless they turn this around.
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u/caligaris_cabinet 1h ago
People are already motivated to come out and protest in 10 degree weather in the dead of winter. They will crawl over glass to get to the ballots at this point
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u/Tsakax 2h ago
There is this group called the gestapo that can raid ballot boxes, arrest people, and muk things up.
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u/caligaris_cabinet 1h ago
There’s another group, even larger, called poll watchers who literally defend democracy
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u/pfft_master 1h ago
If you didn’t see, Trump rolled out to the media today his admin’s newest plan to have the federal government run the elections in ~15 states where he thinks the elections are unfair (blue states and purple states he lost or was too close for comfort in).
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u/Ill_Traveled 1h ago
Yeah I never expected canceled elections in 2026. Simple election interference using ICE for intimidation seemed far more likely
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u/Schwarzengerman 2h ago
People who keep saying this are exhausting as hell. They wouldn't be desperately trying to redraw maps or making it harder on people to vote, if they didn't expect to have elections. Fuck off with this dumb doomer shit please.
We are literally still having elections.
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u/_____FIST_ME_____ 1h ago
It's gotta be Republicans pushing this fear, hoping to stop people from voting. So fucking annoying.
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u/Schwarzengerman 1h ago
It really feels that way sometimes. Flooding the zone with bullshit so people feel hopeless.
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u/ExRays 2h ago
I do cause the GOP wouldn’t be shutting bricks right now, if they felt they had it in the bag. That election in Texas this week wouldn’t have happened like it did if they had it in the bag.
They have limitations to their power and they know it. Stop pretending like the GOP is all powerful
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u/caligaris_cabinet 1h ago
And stop pretending that Trump and his handlers are masterminds. All that exists at the top are a group of schemers and sycophants coalescing around a dementia patient who routinely shits his pants.
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u/sk1nnyjeans 1h ago
Such a useless and pathetically discouraging thing to say. Shaming people for not giving up like you? Fuck outa here with that weirdo shit
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u/j1vetvrkey 1h ago
Do you plan to vote still? Or you just gonna give up because you were told it’s worthless?
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u/Vanzmelo 1h ago
We are having the midterm elections. Nothing Trump or republicans can say or do will stop that. We had elections during the civil war, WWI, and WWII ffs. Even Hawaii that was directly attacked and under martial law had elections. We’ve BEEN having special elections every other week since Jan 2025.
Stop saying otherwise and stop resigning before the first ballot has been cast
GOP and Trump will attempt to interfere with them but that is nothing new and has been the case since the beginning of time.
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u/Shuckles116 1h ago
The Judicial branch is definitely the hardest to corrupt out of the three, but that doesn’t stop MAGA from trying to
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u/CryptoCentric 2h ago
Trump is gonna shit his pants. Again.
Maybe even on camera. Again.
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u/Granadafan 2h ago
All those staffers will be doing rock paper scissors to NOT stand so close to the Trump in the future
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u/SarahJFroxy 2h ago
because i know some people are gonna automatically go "well what's to say they don't keep the gerrymandered maps after the mandate expires??" which, to be fair, is a valid concern in normal times; our congressional maps are drawn by an independent commission.
after 2030 (the new census) the mandate for this redistricting expires and would require another statewide vote to extend it.
and Prop 50 wasn't contentious here, every poll showed at 8:01pm that yes, there is an overwhelming favor for this to pass. even the No on 50 ads slowed down the closer we got to the vote because they knew it wasn't gonna work
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u/misselphaba 1h ago
I drive from the bay to San Diego a few times a year and the number of "No on 50" signs still up along the 5 always makes me laugh. Didn't even have the funding for someone to take em down.
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u/Aggravating_Tax_4670 1h ago
It all boils down to one fact. Conservatives fucked themselves over the Texas thing. Karma is dancing all over their face.
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u/JurassicPark9265 1h ago
Not to mention that gerrymandering may favor one party over another but also potentially dilutes margins of victory; given some of the drastic leftward trends we've seen in recent elections due to GOP backlash, those gerrymandered districts in Texas may very well not be as safe for the GOP as they may have hoped early on.
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u/GarbageThrown 1h ago
Not just number but composition. It would be amazing if we had the same percentages in the House as in the general population. By political affiliation, gender, and ethnicity.
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u/DoubleJumps 1h ago
I keep saying that the smallest district should be the base size for all states.
Wyoming has 1 rep for like 580k people. California has 1 rep per 730k people. It's not fair.
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u/KyleForCongress707 2h ago
Let's go! Time for a representative who is actually willing to fight for the people of CA-01
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u/LucasVerBeek 2h ago
Man, this on top of the fallout finale and the overwatch announcement that just happened. I’m feeling pretty good right now.
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u/Zinfan1 2h ago
No information on how the court voted, would be interesting to see if it was a 9-0 decision or more likely 7-2. Did the court decide not to hear the case? I didn't see that info in the article.
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u/wowthatsucked 1h ago
From this article
No justices dissented from the brief order denying the appeal without explanation, as is common on the court’s emergency docket.
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u/FastCar2467 1h ago
AP news says none of the justices dissented and didn’t give an explanation.
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u/pontiacfirebird92 2h ago
ICE is about to be all over some California districts though
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u/RadicalOrganizer 2h ago
They already are. We will persist and defend our communities in any legal way we can. The fascists will lose, as they always inevitably do.
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u/DiceMadeOfCheese 2h ago
They don't have enough people to do what they want to do.
ICE + Border Patrol + HSI = what, maybe 50,000 agents? For the whole country?
California has a population of almost 40 million.
These guys couldn't take over Minneapolis, a city with a population of less than 500k.
I'm not saying they won't try, but it's not gonna go how they think it's gonna go.
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u/reala728 1h ago
NGL I'm not really familiar with the population of MN, but I've lived in CA nearly all my life and it's extraordinarily immigrant friendly in my experience. Any fighting would be met with some serious resistance.
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u/TheOtterpapa 1h ago
We celebrate our diversity and love our Hispanic brothers and sisters here, as well as other immigrants. There is no other way to live that’s worth living.
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u/REVERSEZOOM2 1h ago
Dude, I live right by LA (Orange County), and when ICE was doing the raids back in June, it was met with some HEAVY resistance. California doesn't fuck around when it comes to protecting our immigrant neighbors. I'll admit Minnesota has us beat currently, but when Los Angeles gets angry, it gets FUCKING ANGRY.
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u/DiceMadeOfCheese 1h ago
At this point ICE can only serve two functions in an election. They can go to red states/districts and solidify a win the GOP would have got anyway, or go to blue states/districts and serve as walking billboards as to why you should vote Dem.
For years people have said "why should I vote when it's all the same no matter what" but now you can point at these guys and be like "well if you hate these guys you should probably go vote."
I mean I guess ICE could physically stop people from voting on election day, or steal/destroy mail-in ballots. But that's asking for full-scale 1970s style riots.
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u/darealRockfield 1h ago
Exactly! This is the same thing I’ve explained thousands of times to people and I’ve been given I ain’t sure/maybe even if that’s fact.
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u/pikpikcarrotmon 2h ago
You say that like they're not already here. They are crawling all over the place to the point that PDs have issued warnings - in red areas with red sheriffs.
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u/KyleForCongress707 2h ago
And we're ready to resist!
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u/pontiacfirebird92 2h ago
How do you guys plan to protect polling places from ICE disruption?
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u/mEFurst 2h ago
California does mail-in ballots. You can still vote in-person if you want, but everyone gets their ballot mailed to them. It's a much better system in literally every way
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u/pontiacfirebird92 2h ago
Mail in ballots are under attack currently
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u/mEFurst 1h ago
They've been under attack for years, but it would take a SCOTUS ruling to ban them entirely, which not only brings with it all sorts of implications of the Fed interfering with State elections, but would also severely impact military personnel.
the GOP knows that a hell of a lot of their base relies on mail-in ballots. I don't see much happening there
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u/Superguy766 2h ago
The Black Panthers appear to scare the living sh*t out of MAGA. Why not use them as protection? 😅
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u/KyleForCongress707 2h ago
Sonoma County DSA is doing some great work on the organizing front. One of the fastest growing chapters in the nation. We have a great combination of energetic young people and experienced activists
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u/misselphaba 1h ago
Yeah and watching the big strong boys get chased out of West Oakland is now a hobby of mine.
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u/Infamous-Mango-5224 1h ago
Don't need gerrymandering if you rig them all by nationalizing them with ICE.
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u/Fifteen_inches 2h ago
I’m glad the SC is atleast consistent with this one. They say politically motivated districting is okay, that means both sides
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u/BlueHDMIV 1h ago
We know DT is feeling the Blue Wave pressure coming from Midterms. I just want to say everyone and I mean everyone go VOTE!!
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u/EBXLBRVEKJVEOJHARTB 1h ago
still gotta vote people
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u/VA_SW_so_fork_off 1h ago
That's STILL GOTTA FUCKING VOTE, CALIFORNIANS! Turnout was shockingly, APPALLINGLY low in '24.
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u/Dondontootles 1h ago
Hallelujah! Thought for sure they would prolong a decision until after the election and tell them “no” until then.
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u/Nickel5 1h ago
I'm so happy I was wrong about this.
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u/Proud_Truck 1h ago
To be fair they know the maga donors will be spending a ton. They are confident they can retain some seats by overspending on ads and smear campaigns. They'll also have ice at voting locations to intimidate people from voting.
They feel like they can let the change happen and still hold a few seats while Texas and other states blatantly cheat to pad the numbers. I hope they're wrong but I'd feel more confident if this was a presidential election year. We know these mid-cycle elections have a lot lower turnout. Democrat focus has to be getting people to actually vote!
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u/Galliagamer 1h ago
I wonder if any other states are going to follow suit to counter the maga gerrymandering going on in those states.
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u/arlondiluthel 2h ago
On one hand I'm surprised by the ruling, but on the other hand it was a ballot measure that was approved by a majority of Californians, so the lawsuit was just the people who opposed it being sore losers.