Texas Gets a Pass for a Gerrymandering Free-For-All. Will California Be Given the Same?
Hello, it’s the weekend. It’s The Weekender ☕️
Is what’s good for Texas good for California?
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Texas was not required to redraw its maximum gerrymander, ruling that the map was not illegally based on race and that it was too close to the election (11 months away) to require a redraw.
The decision, resulting from an unsigned majority and a concurrence authored by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, comes as no surprise to those who have seen the Roberts Court gradually chip away at anti-gerrymandering protections.
After the death knell of 2019 Rucho v. Common causeWhen the majority ruled that allegations of partisan gerrymandering could not be brought in federal court, it became even more difficult to demonstrate the existence of theoretically still illegal racial gerrymandering, because race and partisan allegiance are often linked (for what it’s worth, the district court in the Texas case, in a nearly 200-page decision, found ample evidence that the new maps were based on race). And on top of that, the right-wing judges played with the Purcell principle for years, selectively ruling that changes to voting procedures impinge unacceptably on upcoming elections in order to enforce Republican-friendly maps.
Now the question remains: Will the Supreme Court’s open-arms policy regarding maps that allow candidates to choose their voters extend to the party they oppose? California, an example of blue state responsiveness to Trump-ordered Republican gerrymanders, is mentioned twice in the brief ruling.
One day, from the unsigned majority: “Texas adopted the first new map, then California responded with its own map with the stated aim of counteracting what Texas had done.” »
And once, with Alito’s agreement: “First, the dissent does not dispute – because it is indisputable – that the impetus for adopting the concordant map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage, pure and simple. »
These two crumbs seem to lead to the same place: Anonymous conservatives (all three liberals signed dissents) and Alito/Gorsuch/Thomas are using constructs that equate the actions of Texas and California. Texas acted out of partisan (legal) interest, so California did the same.
That’s little comfort as states free from pesky redistricting reforms work to erase voter choice from the process of selecting U.S. representatives. And you can bet that the California Republican Party (joined by the Trump Justice Department) will try to find a race-based idiosyncrasy to distinguish that state from the Texas process.
The Court has shown itself to be decidedly undemocratic. The only question that remains is whether this will always be the case.
-Kate Riga
Trump’s Peace Institute taken by arms
President Trump put his name to the distinctive building that once housed the United States Institute of Peace, which DOGE commandeered and dug up early in his term.
Trump hanging his shingle on the headquarters of an effort to spread diplomacy and charity on a global scale would be ironic enough without the story of how his people took hold of it.
Last March, DOGE stormed the building with an array of armed officers. FBI agents arrived unexpectedly at the home of the Institute’s head of security, as DOGE attempted to force their way into the building. DOGE members threatened the federal contracts of all of the Institute’s former security contractors to get them to fork over the key.
“This conduct of using law enforcement, threatening criminal investigations, using armed law enforcement from three different agencies – the Metropolitan Police Department, the Department of State Security Police, the FBI – to execute Executive Order 14217 – all of this targeting, probably terrorizing, employees and staff of the Institute when there are so many other lawful means of achieving these goals,” a federal judge said during a hearing on the seizure of the Institute. “For what?”
The case is still pending on appeal, although the government has since gained access to the Institute.
The building, steps from the Lincoln Memorial and topped with vast white dove-shaped wings, stands as a monument to Trump’s destruction both at home and abroad – his own Department of Peace.
-Kate Riga
The ‘affordability president’ no longer believes in affordability
Last weekend, President Donald Trump called himself “THE PRESIDENT OF AFFORDABILITY” and suggested that message should be at the center of Republicans’ midterm election strategy. By Tuesday, Trump had changed his mind.
“Affordability is a hoax started by the Democrats,” Trump said at a Cabinet meeting Tuesday.
This about-face message comes amid growing dissatisfaction with the economy and rising prices. Democrats, including New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, addressed the issue and won the November election. Trump quickly seized on the issue.
Trump indicated that this was an area where he and Mamdani had common ground when they met in the Oval Office last month. However, on Monday, when TPM asked Mamdani about Trump’s efforts to take on the mantle of “affordability,” the mayor-elect offered a decidedly diplomatic and noncommittal response.
For his part, Trump clearly appears to be done with his brief love affair with the concept.
“They just say the word,” Trump said of Democrats. “It doesn’t mean anything to anyone. They just say it: ‘affordability’. I inherited the worst inflation in history. There was no affordability. Nobody could afford anything.
And what about now that he’s president? Well, even though he rejected the idea that people are worried about prices, Trump admitted, “There’s still a lot to do.”
-Hunter Walker
Mike Lindell running for governor
The MyPillow founder and energetic public face of the “Stop the Steal” movement filed papers this week to run for governor of Minnesota.
Although he has not yet officially announced his candidacy for governor, in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio on Wednesday, Mike Lindell said he was “98 percent sure” he would run for governor.
For years after the 2020 election, the close Trump ally and conspiracy theorist spread elaborate and absurd lies about the integrity of the 2020 election, claiming, without a shred of evidence, that a foreign entity had systematically switched votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden, and that Trump was in fact the true winner of that election.
Most recently, in September, a federal judge ruled that Lindell defamed voting technology company Smartmatic by spreading lies about the company and its alleged role in stealing the 2020 election.
—Khaya Himmelman
