Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General Gerrymandering

The SCOTUS on Monday put on hold a lower court ruling that Alabama must draw new congressional districts before the 2022 elections to increase Black voting power. That brings us to 37 states which have completed their redistricting. The SCOTUS will at some later date decide whether the map produced by the state violates the landmark voting rights law. The democrats maintain their gerrymandering advantage of 14 seats, 11 new Democratic districts, minus 3 Republican districts. We now have 308 newly drawn districts; 127 districts remain to be redrawn. Florida is the only big state remaining. Several medium sized states have yet to redraw their district maps, North Carolina, Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Missouri and Washington. The remaining are the smaller states which have less than 10 electoral votes.

Out of the 308 newly drawn districts, there are 27 competitive, switchable districts. Currently held by 18 Democrats and 9 Republicans. Safe seats as of 6 Feb 2022, 149 Democratic, 132 Republican.

The below listed states are in litigation over their new maps. These states in litigation will probably change the above listed safe and competitive seats depending on the outcome of the lawsuits. Listed also is who drew the maps being challenged by lawsuits.

Georgia – Republican legislature
Idaho – Republican legislature
Maryland – Democratic legislature
Nevada – Democratic legislature
New Mexico – Democratic legislature
Texas – Republican legislature

Of course the Conservative-leaning SCOTUS put on hold a lower court ruling that Alabama must draw new congressional districts before the 2022 elections to increase Black voting power.



The Conservatives on the court think that racism is a thing of the past simply because Barack Obama was elected POTUS. Talk about one-dimensional simpleton thinking.

You know if I were a Republican I’d want to pack as many blacks into their own district as possible. I wouldn’t fight it; I’d enhance it as much as possible. The numbers show that would be a huge advantage to the GOP to do so. I don’t understand why the GOP is fighting it. They’re stupid, both politically and numbers wise.

If I wanted to have a majority of my state’s congressional districts held by my political party, that’s the way to do it. Place as many black voting Democrats as possible into their own district and add as many white voting democrats to that district also. Make it a 70 or 80% democratic voting district. That leaves the rest of the districts solid for my party. Perhaps only 55% or so voting for my party’s congressional candidates.

Georgia has done exactly that. During the decade of the 2010’s, we had 9 mostly white congressional districts, 5 majority black districts which gave the Republicans a 9-5 advantage. The results were set in stone until 2018 when McBath, a black Democrat was able to win CD-6 for the Democrats lowering the GOP advantage to 8-6. Under the new Georgia map, it’s back to 5 huge majority black districts again like in 2010 and 9 mostly white districts. The Democrats will win those 5 black districts 75-25 or something like that while the Republicans win by much lower margins over the remaining 9 districts, 55-45 or perhaps 60-40. The total congressional vote for Georgia will be close to 50-50 statewide. It was 49-48 in Nov 2020 in favor of the GOP congressional wise. I expect it to be about the same for 2022. But the results will be 9 Republican congressmen, 5 Democratic due to having black majority districts. Georgia has gone along with majority black districts big time.

In my mind it’s stupid as all Hades for the Republicans to fight this. It, if done correctly, majority black districts can give the Republicans a huge advantage in the overall make up of a state’s congressional delegation. Perhaps the Republicans aren’t any good at math or failed it big time back in school.

I think political party wise, having all these majority black or minority districts is diluting the Democratic voting population strength statewide. I suppose how you look at it, it can also be diluting the black voting strength or increasing it. Either way, what majority black districts do, at least here in Georgia is determine the outcome of our 14 congressional delegation way in advance of the first vote being cast. Racially, it does give blacks which make up around 35% of Georgia’s population their 5 districts which is exactly 35% of Georgia’s congressional delegation. Whites which make up roughly 55% of Georgia’s population the remaining 9 or 65%. Hispanics, Asians and others make up the remaining 10%

If anything is true in life, it is that if a Conservative is for somethig - it's a bad plan or idea.

Remember, Trump is in charge and what happens, I am sure, is run by him before it happens. Please also keep in mind that Trump works, very hard, to fail. His main advisors are folks like the pillow guy who, apparently, is an expert on just about everything (not unlike his lord and master). Its kinda interesting and, I suspect, you're not the only person trying to make sense out of a Trump decision. The problem is that there is no sense to much of what those trying to stay in Trump Grace can do. Sometimes I wonder if he wants stuff done just because he can do it. I would also mention that most crime occurs because the criminals can do the crime. I am beginning to believe this is, for some, how they go down the road. People do stuff, not for any real reason but simply because they can! Reason seems to be a somewhat sparse thing and, these days not particularly in favor.

Oh, I remember when the Repulbicans stopped publishing a platform. At the time it was noticed and the logic was that Trump's ideas were changing so much that it was impossible to have a platform. I believed that then and continue to.

Washington became the latest state today to complete their redistricting bringing the total to 38 states done, 12 more remaining. The democrats maintain their gerrymandering advantage of 14 seats, 11 new Democratic districts, minus 3 Republican districts. We now have 318 newly drawn districts; 117 districts remain to be redrawn. Florida is the only big state remaining. Several medium sized states have yet to redraw their district maps, North Carolina, Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Missouri. The remaining are the smaller states which have less than 10 electoral votes.

Out of the 318 newly drawn districts, there are 30 competitive, switchable districts. Currently held by 19 Democrats and 11 Republicans. Safe seats as of 8 Feb 2022, 154 Democratic, 134 Republican.

The below listed states are in litigation over their new maps. These states in litigation will probably change the above listed safe and competitive seats depending on the outcome of the lawsuits. Listed also is who drew the maps being challenged by lawsuits.

Georgia – Republican legislature
Idaho – Republican legislature
Maryland – Democratic legislature
Nevada – Democratic legislature
New Mexico – Democratic legislature
Texas – Republican legislature

Florida's Gerrymandering efforts have stalled since the governor has sought to eliminate Florida's blackest and most gerrymandered district which twists like a snake from Black community to Black community from Orlando to Jacksonville.

He has sought to singlehandedly re-draw the entire state himself but has run into a few snags. His control of the state is so complete now that his efforts will likely move forward in the spring.

Glad to have you back Greger. That's interesting, what I have is Florida has a deadline of 13 June with 17 different maps proposed. Outside of that, nothing. I think those of us who follow redistriticing are shocked that the Democrats have the lead, at least as of today with 12 states still to go. We all expected the GOP to gain in the redistricting process, not the Democrats. Different strategies were employed. The Republican sought to beef up their incumbents and make more Republican held seats safe. The Democrats threw the dice in trying to add more Democratic leaning districts instead of beefing up their incumbents.

So far, the Democrats have had a winning strategy. But there's are still 12 states to go. I expect their 14 seat advantage to shrink some, how much remains to be seen. The 12 states, Republican states of Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Louisiana, Kansas, Missouri to 2 Democratic states of Connecticut and Rhode Island. Then there are 4 swing states left, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin.

Greger,

Here's my take on the entire redistricting process as of today. The impact of the Democrats gerrymandering, taking advantage of the redistricting process is huge. The safe seats without the gerrymandering143 Democratic, 137 Republican instead of 154 Democrat, 134 Republican. Another effect of the gerrymandering is instead of having 41 competitive seats, we’re down to 30. It also means with the loss of 3 safe republican seats, the Republicans need to gain 8 instead of 5 seats to recapture the House out of the 30 competitive seats. Gaining those 8 seats is much harder when there are only 30 competitive districts instead of 41. Considering that 19 of the 30 seats are held by democrats to 11 held by Republicans. Which gaining those 8 states is next to impossible going only by the 38 states to have complete their redistricting process. But there are still 12 states left to finish their redistricting process which includes Republican states of Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Louisiana, Kansas, Missouri to 2 Democratic states of Connecticut and Rhode Island. Then there are 4 swing states left, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin. Those 12 states will probably give the GOP an advantage they haven’t now, making picking up those 8 seats more probable than not. .

Why do you think state GOP legislatures have put in place new voting restrictions after the 2020 election?

It's not like the GOP are attracting voters beause of their policies, platforms, or ideas - because they are not.