How the Supreme Court enabled the Texas-California redistricting fight

[GJGCA]

San Francisco Chronicle: https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/congressional-district-texas-california-20794465.php

Mostly basic background, I thought this bit relevant:

Unlike Texas, the change [in California] would likely require approval in a special election by California voters, who passed a ballot measure in 2010 transferring authority over political redistricting of House districts from the Legislature to an independent commission, with equal representation from both parties. A special election would be expensive — the most recent one in California, in 2021, cost the state $200 million — and the outcome would be hard to predict.

The state’s voters have “overwhelmingly approved taking politics out of the process,” said Rick Hasen, a professor of election law at UCLA. Asking them to approve a partisan gerrymander of congressional districts, he said, “seems pretty daunting politically.”

[SickOfTheOnePct]

1. Really good article...

...thanks for linking to it.

[gab13by13]

2. Maybe one day the people who bring powder puffs

to a gun fight will win, keep hoping.

[rampartd]

3. i'd want an ungerrymandable system but in the meantime

these guys must be opposed on every issue.

[gab13by13]

4. Of the 11 most gerrymandered states

10 favor Republicans.

I'm not clicking on a defeatist link.

It's as if the Yankees got a rule approved that teams that come into Yankee stadium only get 2 strikes and they're out, Yankees still get 3 strikes.

So the Boston Red Sox start wondering if it should adopt the same rule when teams come into Fenway. But we can't let Boston do that because it's not fair and the fans will turn against us. We can still win playing under different rules.

Fight fire with equal fire. What's this nonsense that if California gerrymandered like Texas, the voters would be upset. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, no wonder Democrats have a hard time winning if that's true.

[rampartd]

5. we have more registered dems in louisiana than repubs

but by connecting new orleans and east baton rouge with a thin sliver of cancer alley, they get 4-1 in congress.

[FBaggins]

7. That's a deceptive statistic

Trump won the state by comfortably over 20% and it has been decades since a Democrat not named Bel has won statewide. It’s deceptive to imply that we should get a majority of house seats there.

And it’s currently 4-2 with those two being effectively a pro-Democrat gerrymander because there would be almost no other way draw two blue seats in the state. It would be easy to make the state 6-0 red were it not for the voting right act

[GJGCA]

6. CNN analyst: No, both sides don't gerrymander the same

Another background piece, here's a small bit:

...Republicans simply get more opportunities to gerrymander. They have full control of more states because they hold the “trifecta” of the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the state legislature. In the most recent round of post-Census redistricting, Republicans controlled the drawing of 177 districts (estimates on this vary slightly), compared to just 49 for Democrats, according to a 2022 report from the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s law school.

(Part of the reason Republicans have more control is their superior standing in state governments and the fact that blue states have been more likely to outsource this process to redistricting commissions.)

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/31/politics/gerrymandering-texas-republicans-analysis