[HI, all. Apologies for the late delivery. I did everything except hit “send” for the is newsletter.]
The moment of truth is nearly upon us. The battle for 2026 is joined. In 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that partisan gerrymandering is a legal form of modern-day “blood sport,” and the predictable political bloodbath has followed.
We should not shrink from this fight. Rather, we should welcome it. Republicans have laid bare their plans to subvert free and fair elections in 2026 and 2028. We possess the means to fight back. We should use them. Indeed, shame on us if we do not avail ourselves of all legal avenues of resisting Trump’s efforts to undermine democracy.
Partisan gerrymandering is legal because the US Supreme Court declared in 2019 that it is too difficult for federal judges to ensure that congressional districts are fairly drawn. (A demonstrably false claim.) Having washed its hands of voter suppression like a modern-day Pontius Pilate, the Supreme Court relinquished control of congressional districting to a patchwork of inconsistent, flawed, and (sometimes) corrupt state legislatures. Chaos ensued.
In response to Texas’s effort to deliver five additional GOP House seats in the 2026 midterms via gerrymandering, at least 11 other states are actively considering similar measures—four Republican-controlled states (Florida, Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri) and seven states controlled by Democrats (California, Maryland, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington). See Ballotpedia News, Thirteen states could consider redrawing congressional boundaries before the 2026 midterms.
Once the Gerrymander Wars have started, there is no logical stopping point. The political incentives all point in favor of every state that can engage in redistricting to maximize its partisan political advantage.
Democrats begged Republicans to enter into a truce in the Gerrymander Wars and replace partisan-controlled legislatures with independent commissions to ensure fairness in congressional districting. But Republicans refused to support the Democratic proposals in the 2021 Freedom to Vote Act, which included a ban on partisan gerrymandering. See The Brennan Center for Justice, Fact Sheet: The Freedom to Vote Act.
The better path to settling the Gerrymander Wars is the high road proposed by Democrats in 2021. But that is not the world in which we live.
On Monday, Texas Democrats fled the state to prevent the Republican-controlled legislature from delivering Trump five new “safe” GOP seats heading into the 2026 midterms. See YahooNews, Texas Democrats defy Gov. Abbott’s redistricting ultimatum, and threats of arrest, to block consideration of new congressional maps
In turn, Texas Governor Greg Abbott threatened to fire, replace, arrest, and indict the Texas Democrats who have fled the state to break quorum. See ABC News, Texas Republicans say ‘hunt down’ Democrats who are leaving state over redistricting.
Governor Abbott’s threats are indistinguishable from those of a third-world dictator who promises to imprison political opponents for the intolerable act of opposing the dictator.
Abbott’s threats are unconstitutional, unlawful, and unenforceable. See Politico, Gov. Greg Abbott’s options to force a redistricting vote are more limited than they appear.
Per Politico, Texas AG Ken Paxton appeared to throw cold water on Abbott’s threats:
The governor’s threat is rooted in a nonbinding legal opinion issued in 2021 by Attorney General Ken Paxton, amid the last attempt by Democrats to break quorum. Paxton, notably, took no position on whether breaking quorum is constitutional.
The republican AG also declined to say whether fleeing Democrats could or should be removed from office. Rather, he called it a “fact question for a court” that he said was beyond the scope of his office to decide. He noted instead that he could file what are known as “quo warranto actions” in court, asking a judge to determine whether the missing lawmakers had officially vacated their seats.
How would a judge make that call? Paxton said he wasn’t certain.
“We find no constitutional provision or statute establishing an exhaustive list for why a vacancy occurs or the grounds under which an officer may be judicially removed from office,” he wrote.
In short, there is an offramp to this potential debacle: Texas may fail in its efforts, resulting in a détente among the other states. But until it becomes clear that Republicans will fail to engage in mid-decade gerrymandering, Democrats must not stand down.
Indeed, for once, Democrats are fighting fire with fire—and doing so within the parameters established by the Supreme Court. See The American Prospect, Opposition Party Decides to Oppose.
Per the American Prospect,
It’s been clear for a while that the dividing line in the Democratic Party in the midst of an authoritarian power grab is entirely about whether or not you’re willing to fight on behalf of the country. It’s amazing that there was ever anyone on the “unwilling” side of that line, given the role of an opposition party and the threat Trump posed. But backs against the wall, Democrats are finally figuring out their purpose. [¶¶]
[The] Texas Democrats’ 2003 efforts to flee the state did not ultimately work. And on Capitol Hill, the blowup over nominees and spending could lead to more rescission bills and even a government shutdown. But Democrats are doing the right thing by using their power. Trying does not automatically translate into winning. But giving up is a sure loss.
The base of the party has made its decision: In the current environment, where weakness begets more belligerence, there’s no other choice but to fight. It took six months of searching around for other options before most Democrats reached the same conclusion.
The American Prospect article discusses other instances of elected Democrats finding their backbones (including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer). I recommend it to your attention if you are looking for signs of life in the Democratic Party.
Before I leave this subject, it is worth pausing on the fact that although partisan gerrymandering is legal (in the sense that it cannot be challenged in federal court), it is a form of voter suppression—even when it is utilized to defend our constitutional democracy. I received a note from Alice Schaeffer Smith, Executive Director of National Voter Corps. She wrote the following:
I assume you would not want gerrymandering, but just in case:
I am asking you NOT to support gerrymandering: this is a please not to do what bad people do: Gerrymander in California (or fight dirty).
The end never justifies the means.
How can Democrats and Independents achieve success at the ballot box?
They must educate people about what is on the ballot. Most states have NO sample ballots. People don’t understand that they have a stake in the outcome and don’t vote.
Deliver facts and register voters.
Help in low voter propensity areas [with jobs and healthcare], and Democrats will run away with the vote.
I agree that resorting to reciprocal gerrymandering is not the best (or even a good) solution. Implementing national redistricting reforms and enlarging the Supreme Court are two steps that could help stop the scourge of partisan gerrymandering.
But if Republicans have resorted to gerrymandering to destroy democracy, it is no vice to use gerrymandering to save democracy. Sadly, the Supreme Court has said that there is no federal bar to partisan gerrymandering. That is the world in which we live, and that is the world in which the battle for 2026 has been joined.
Coda: On June 27, 2025, the Supreme Court ordered re-argument in a case that suggests the Court will eliminate the bar to racial gerrymandering—the last vestige of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. See Vox, The Supreme Court just revealed its plan to make gerrymandering even worse, in Louisiana v. Callais.
In an order issued last Friday, the Supreme Court directed the parties to brief the following question about the creation of a second “majority-minority” district in Louisiana—i.e., a district that would include a majority of Black citizens: “Whether the State’s intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution.”
In other words, even though the express purpose of the Civil War Amendments was to prevent the secessionist states from denying Black Americans equal access to the ballot, the Supreme Court is about to give states a “free pass” to dilute the voting power of Black voters by slicing and dicing them into minority voting blocs in districts controlled by white voters.
In legalizing gerrymandering, the Supreme Court is acting as an extension of the MAGA forces that conspired to pack the Court with faithless servants who subordinate the Constitution to the GOP’s social and religious agenda.
If Democrats do not fight back by temporarily resorting to partisan gerrymandering, the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution will be relegated to the status of legal curios—once majestic expressions of commitment to equality reduced to ink blots on parchment. We cannot allow that to happen.
Trump’s effort to distract from the Epstein child sex trafficking scandal
Per Rolling Stone, members of Trump’s inner circle are at each other’s throats over Trump’s “ham-fisted” efforts to distract from the Epstein child sex trafficking scandal. See Rolling Stone, Trump’s Effort to Distract From Epstein Mess Is a ‘Ticking Time Bomb’.
Per Rolling Stone,
The White House’s big plan to change the subject — by endorsing the idea of jailing Trump’s predecessor on manufactured claims — is doing next to nothing right now to dig the president out of this Epstein-shaped hole that he and his loyalists dug for themselves.
The more Trump discusses the scandal, the worse it becomes. Claiming that he “broke up” with the child sex trafficker over Epstein’s “stealing” of a 16-year-old intern from Mar-a-Lago’s spa was seedy, creepy, and deeply suspicious.
Trump attempted to cover up the gaffe by calling President Obama a traitor and announcing that the DOJ would assemble a grand jury to investigate senior members of Obama’s administration over the 2016 investigation into Russia’s interference in the presidential election. See CNN, Attorney General Bondi orders prosecutors to start grand jury probe into Obama officials over Russia investigation
But Trump’s efforts to distract attention by investigating cabinet members in President Obama’s administration are likewise failing. As noted in Talking Points Memo in an article entitled, Oops!, a “secret annex” to special counsel Robert Durham’s investigation was supposed to demonstrate that Hillary Clinton was the mastermind behind the 2016 investigation of Russia’s efforts to help Trump.
But the “secret annex” proved the opposite, i.e., that Hillary Clinton was the victim and the target of Russian interference designed to help Trump.
Per Talking Points Memo,
Last week, FBI Director Kash Patel tried to claim an “annex” to the investigation of former Special Counsel John Durham contained evidence “that the Clinton campaign plotted to frame President Trump and fabricate the Russia collusion hoax.”
But the New York Times reports the annex “shows the opposite,” because the supposed evidence of a Clinton campaign plot was “almost certainly a product of Russian disinformation,” a conclusion Durham sought to bury in the “annex.”
The Epstein scandal isn’t going away, especially as Epstein’s victims speak out against the pardon of Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking of a minor. But the indictment describes Maxwell’s participation in the rape of 14-year-old girls. See Sealed Indictment, US v. Ghislaine Maxwell.
According to the indictment,
Maxwell assisted, facilitated, and contributed to Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of minor girls . . . and ultimately abuse[d] victims known to Maxwell and Epstein to be under the age of 18. The victims were as young as 14 years old when they were groomed and abused by Maxwell and Epstein . . . .
Trump is clearly positioning Maxwell for a pardon, another action that will do “nothing to dig the president out of this Epstein-shaped hole that he has dug for himself.” Indeed, pardoning Maxwell will only fuel the flames of suspicion that are rapidly spreading through the underbrush of Trump’s base of conspiracy cult members.
Concluding Thoughts.
The battle over redistricting will be a major contributor to the outcome of the 2026 midterms. But we should not fall victim to the underlying premise—i.e., that our fate is controlled by imaginary lines defining congressional districts. We have control over the outcome. For example, turnout in Texas is among the lowest in the nation. See Ballotpedia, Voter turnout in Texas:
From 2002 to 2024, the average voter turnout rate of eligible voters in Texas was 45.0%. The national average voter turnout rate of eligible voters for this same period was 52.4%.
Today, Texas Republicans are drawing new congressional maps on the assumption that turnout in those Texas districts will trail the national average by 7%.
The partisan gerrymandering in Texas can be overcome by increasing turnout in Texas to the national average—fueled by Democrats who are outraged and angry over what Trump has done to their lives by increasing consumer taxes, using terror tactics to achieve artificial deportation goals, and restricting access to healthcare while increasing its cost.
In short, the battle over redistricting is enormously important. But the battle over turnout is more important, by far. We should encourage Democratic officials to fight back against partisan gerrymandering in every way possible. But in the end, state legislatures and courts will decide whether the partisan gerrymandering will go into effect before the 2026 midterms.
In contrast, we will decide how much of our blood, sweat, and tears we will invest in get-out-the-vote efforts. Let’s focus on the things that we can control as we cheer on the efforts of Democratic officials in the redistricting battles.
Talk to you tomorrow!
Daily Dose of Perspective
The Helix Nebula is located about 650 light years from Earth and is 6 light years across. For obvious reasons, it is also known as The Eye of God.
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