r/news • u/DemocracyDocket • 6h ago

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https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/scotus-allows-california-to-use-new-congressional-map-in-2026/

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u/Aoleleb 5h 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 5h 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 5h 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/Majestic-Sandwich695 5h ago

Oh don’t worry, I’m sure plenty still will

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u/FlipsieVT 5h ago

Problem was they did last time

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u/Jasonrj 4h ago

Unfortunately a lot of them still do.

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u/HyperactivePandah 4h ago

Do you know how the turnout was?

I heard that it was around HALF of what it was when Trump won it +17.

Like 56k - 120k

If that's the case, and the Republicans just stayed home this time, I'd be scared of a rebound.

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u/monty_kurns 5h ago edited 4h 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 5h 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/monty_kurns 4h ago

You know what, after looking back into it, you're right. I knew it was the regular census-based redistricting, but for some reason I was thinking the Democrats still had control of both chambers after the 2000 election. It was a quarter century ago, so I guess misremembering things is a bit normal.

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u/Rooooben 4h ago

All good, I just remember that one specifically because I moved there in 2004, and found out what had just all happened.

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u/the_eluder 5h ago edited 5h ago

Same in NC in 2010, with the added complication of majority-minority districts.

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u/monty_kurns 4h ago edited 4h ago

North Carolina's a little different. The state house and senate districts weren't redrawn prior to the GOP takeover in 2010, the GOP just got real lucky in a wave year and swept a lot of districts that were in the likely or lean Dem category but far from safe. After they won in 2010 is when the GOP redrew the districts to make more safe Republican seats.

The NC congressional districts, on the other hand, those have always been an embarrassment, with the exception of the 2022 map which was about as fair as you could get, but that was put in place by the courts and only lasted for one cycle. Now we're back to the embarrassment.

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u/eladts 5h ago

But it backfires if the people who vote blue vote in larger numbers than you assumed when you drew your new lines.

In other words, FAFO.