The System Is Rigged

The Democratic advantage on redistricting has disappeared in the blink of an eye thanks to two horrific judicial rulings.

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Photo by Sivani Bandaru on Unsplash

No, Virginia, There Is No Santa Claus

I’ll be honest, I had a feeling this might be coming …

The Supreme Court of Virginia has invalidated the referendum that could have given Democrats four extra seats in the U.S. House, a major win for Republicans who started a national redistricting war to maintain control of the chamber.

The Virginia court ruled that the General Assembly violated the state constitution in establishing the ballot measure approved April 21 by a slim majority of voters. A 4-3 majority of the court ruled the legislature had improperly submitted the referendum to voters, rendering the results “null and void.” The court restored the pre-referendum map that was adopted in 2021.

Where does one even start with this? The Virginia Supreme Court could have issued this decision before the state held a referendum last month. Instead, they did it after the fact and, in the process, threw out the votes of millions of Virginians.

It is a horrendous decision, largely predicated on a technicality.

The court objected to the timing of the measure. The Virginia Constitution requires any proposed amendment to be passed twice by the legislature, once before and again after an election of the House of Delegates, before being submitted to voters.

Last fall, Democrats approved the redistricting referendum less than a week before Election Day and after early voting had been going on for more than a month. Democrats argued that early voting means early: before the actual election. In their ruling, a majority of the court dismissed that argument, noting that the process of an election can last for many days.

This was a nearly year-long process in Virginia that involved the state legislature (elected by the voters) passing a constitutional amendment, and after a robust campaign, Virginia’s voters having their say in a state referendum. Approximately half the state’s voters turned out. And the state Supreme Court just threw the whole thing in the trash.

Meanwhile, in Tennessee, it took the Republican-controlled state legislature a day to redraw its congressional maps and disenfranchise Black voters in Memphis. In Louisiana, the governor suspended an election that had already begun to redraw maps and allow the GOP to flip a majority-Black House seat from blue to red. And in Florida, Republicans created a new map that could potentially flip as many as four House seats for Republicans, even though the state constitution explicitly forbids partisan gerrymandering. You want to take a wild guess at how the GOP-dominated Supreme Court will rule when they decide a lawsuit challenging the redistricting? More likely than not, they will rule in the GOP’s favor because that’s just the way these things go.

It bears noting, by the way, that the provision of the Florida Constitution that forbids partisan gerrymandering was enacted by voter referendum in 2010 and received nearly 63% of the vote.

What Does This Mean For 2026?

Photo by Vi Vi on Unsplash

A few months ago, it looked like Democrats might actually gain seats from the frenzy of mid-decade redistricting. But the Virginia Supreme Court decision, combined with the Supreme Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act (which is what is allowing Tennessee, Louisiana, and other Southern states to redraw maps this week), means Republicans could now gain as many as 9 seats in redistricting (this assumes that the Florida Supreme Court will not strike down the state’s new map). It would be an extraordinary turn of events. If it happens, it’ll be because the Supreme Court puts its finger on the scale to help Republicans and because state Supreme Courts in Florida and Virginia ignored the will of the voters.

Does that mean Republicans will hold the House in November? Probably not.

Trump is still deeply unpopular, Democrats are still heavily favored on the generic congressional ballot, and they continue to dominate in special elections. The Virginia gerrymander, drawn by Democrats, would have potentially flipped four seats from red to blue. Without the new maps, there’s a fairly good chance that Democrats flip two seats. Two is less than four, but it would still be a good outcome for Democrats. The political environment remains what it is, and even if redistricting gives the GOP 9 potential seats, Democrats would need to flip just 12 seats to take control of the House.

But the path forward is more difficult. Now Democrats will need to win the midterm vote by probably about 5 or 6 points to ensure they take the House. Also, if Democrats do win the House, they will almost certainly have a smaller majority than they would have before what’s happened in the past week.

None of this is good for democracy — and it’s going to get worse. Now that the Supreme Court has decided that racism is no longer a thing in America, Southern states will continue to redraw maps that end Black representation in the Deep South.

But in places where Democrats have a governing trifecta (California, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Washington) and places where they could win one this Fall (Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania), there will be enormous pressure from Democratic activists on state legislators to draw new pro-Democratic maps for 2028. (Virginia will almost certainly take another bite at the apple).

Excluding California, there are 27 Republican held seats in states with Democratic trifectas. In Michigan, there are 5 House Republican seats; in Minnesota, there are 4; and in Pennsylvania, there are 10.

Even the most aggressive Democratic gerrymander can’t flip all these seats from red to blue — but they can flip quite a few of them, probably more than Republicans can redraw because of the Supreme Court decision on the Voting Rights Act. These calculations aren’t even taking into account California, where Democrats could theoretically pass a new, more aggressive map that would shut Republicans out completely from the state’s House delegation. California, Colorado, Virginia, Illinois, and Maryland alone could potentially flip 12-13 seats from red to blue.

Again, this is a disastrous moment for American democracy and for the state of our country. Whatever unifying threads held us together as a nation will be further frayed as elections become highly partisan endeavors intended to bolster one party over the other in what will amount to a zero-sum game of amassing political power. It would be the ultimate triumph of polarization and partisanship over parochialism.

For this, we can thank a) the Supreme Court, which in 2019 issued a decision that opened the floodgates of partisan gerrymandering, and b) Donald Trump, who, realizing that Republicans were likely to lose the House in November, began pushing states to redraw their congressional maps. It’s just one more way in which Donald Trump has been an unmitigated disaster for America — and his legacy of malevolence and division will live on long after he’s departed this mortal coil.

But the bigger takeaway from this situation is what I discussed in my post from earlier this week. If Democrats win back political power in 2028, they will need to wield that power aggressively and without remorse. They will need to do everything in their power to level the political playing field in their favor — from adding new Democratic states and ending partisan gerrymandering to fixing the Voting Rights Act and packing the Supreme Court.

Yes, it’s bad for democracy in America. It’s also the only way to save American democracy.

What’s Going On

• The Iran War has already cost America $72 billion — and that is not taking into account the impact on the US economy of higher gas prices.

• Smart piece by Jonathan Chait on how progressive activists are not always on the right side of history.

• Trump is slowly but surely destroying the American wind industry.

• I don’t agree with David Bernstein about much, but this piece, rebutting the Gaza genocide blood libel, is spot on.

Musical Interlude

The show that is widely considered the greatest Grateful Dead concert ever took place 49 years ago today. Happy Cornell, 5/8/77, to all those who celebrate!