The Supreme Court is allowing California to use its new congressional map for this year’s midterm election, clearing the way for the state’s gerrymandered districts as Democrats and Republicans continue their fight for control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
The state’s voters approved the redistricting plan last year as a Democratic counterresponse to Texas’ new GOP-friendly map, which President Trump pushed for to help Republicans hold on to their narrow majority in the House.
And in an unsigned order released Wednesday, the high court’s majority denied an emergency request by the California’s Republican Party to block the redistricting plan. The state’s GOP argued that the map violated the U.S. Constitution because its creation was mainly driven by race, not partisan politics. A lower federal court rejected that claim.
And even if he isn’t able to do that, just the simple fact that Republicans have dominated rural areas and have ton of states with almost zero population in their thrall means they have a lot more room to run up the scoreboard with map shenanigans. If gerrymandering is legal for everyone, that’s a net loss for the Dems.
There’s more potential in gerrymandering for Dems currently, as they’ve done less of it overall (outside of Maryland and a few others).
At the same time actually making gerrymandering illegal could start to impact current maps.
The former likely won’t matter much until 2032. The latter matters now. We all know they’re thinking in the short term.