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Redraw Congressional Maps · Newsradio WGAN

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  On Monday, in a 63 decision, the United States Supreme Court
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  vacated a ruling in the United States District Court of
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  Northern Alabama which required the state to draw congressional
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  maps establishing 2 majority minority congressional
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  districts. Quote.
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  The motions to expedite are GRANTED.
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  The petition for a writ of certiori before the judgment in
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  #25243 is granted. The judgment of the United
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  States District Court for Northern District of Alabama is
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  then vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States
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  Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit with instructions to
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  remand to the District Court for further consideration in light
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  of the Louisiana versus Calais decision and so on and so forth.
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  Judges, judges, or excuse me, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a
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  dissent and was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and
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  Contenji Brown Jackson, which of course, is not that surprising.
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  This is, you know, another sort of, you know, shoe to drop, if
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  you will, from the decision that happened just a week ago.
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  I guess at this point, we can, we can what, what day is it?
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  Where are we? We're in the middle of May.
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  Did you know that? May 12th, May 12th, So it's been
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  about a week ish. But since the decision I just
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  mentioned there a moment ago, Louisiana versus Calais, it's,
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  you know, in the wake of that now a bunch of the southern
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  states are looking to deal with their maps.
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  And the Supreme Court just gave the go ahead to Alabama to do
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  that. Louisiana already gotten the
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  green, green light to go do that.
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  It will not be just them. And there's a piece in the New
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  York Times about where we stand with overall redistricting in
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  the country. And I don't have to read you
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  much of the article other than the headline, which is that the
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  Republicans are still drawing House maps while the Democrats
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  are stuck. Why is that?
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  Ultimately, it's because the political possibility of
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  redrawing maps has basically been done in the Democratic
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  states for the most part. For the most part, where it can
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  be done, it kind of has been done.
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  And the Republican states, especially in the wake of that
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  Supreme Court decision, have at least a little bit of an
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  additional opportunity to do whatever they're doing and to
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  redraw their maps. So the redistricting battle
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  continues. But it is very much, as I've
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  been saying for now two weeks, at the disadvantage of the
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  Democratic Party because they just don't have as many tools in
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  the toolbox, and they never did. I just, you know, I don't mean
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  to repeat myself or anything, but I always thought it was a
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  bizarre fight to pick. I mean, if you want you want to
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  talk about say like the moral standing of it.
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  I mean, you can certainly, I suppose make a defense of it
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  because Texas started and you think it was unfair that they
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  were doing that. And I would actually agree they
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  should not. I don't, I don't like, I think
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  there should be a constitutional amendment that says no, no, mid,
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  no, mid decade redistricting period.
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  Unless there is some sort of an extraordinary circumstance,
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  which I can't even think of what I would grant for one.
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  But whatever, if I suppose you can put that little little plug
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  in there just in case. But ultimately I would like it
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  if nobody did this ever. Because here's the thing.
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  What's the point of doing any of this ever?
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  Like why are we do it every 10 years?
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  Why not every five? Why not every 20?
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  Why not every 13? What's the point of doing it
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  every 10? The point of doing it every 10
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  is that we do a census every 10. So as we figure out who lives
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  where, we change things up. We give the state legislatures
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  an opportunity to draw the the new maps accordingly because
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  people shift where they live over the years.
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  The second district in Maine, for instance, has had to stretch
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  and contort itself a little bit differently because population
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  growth is happening in southern Maine, It's not happening in
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  northern Maine. And therefore that line changes.
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  So you got to do that, right? So you got to do it at some
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  interval since the census already does that every 10
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  years. Great time, great interval.
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  Well done. Bravo.
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  So that certainly makes sense. But it should not be subjected
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  to what we're seeing now, which is just partisan nonsense, just
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  tribal ridiculousness. And you can say if you're the
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  Democratic Party that Texas started it.
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  That's the, I hear that a lot. I got a lot of textures saying
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  that yesterday. It's well, I mean, this is all
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  because of Texas. Texas.
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  Texas is small and I, I would have to remind you a couple
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  things. The first thing that I would
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  remind you of is that no, Texas did not start it.
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  They may have started this round of it.
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  That's true. And then you could say Trump
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  started because he's basically talked to the the people in
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  Texas and said, please do this. And then they did do it and they
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  wanted to do it anyway. So it's not like it was much of
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  A it wasn't hard to convince them at all, right.
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  My point here is only that this is long standing, 200 plus year
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  American tradition. It's just getting stupider.
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  It's just getting more unfortunate.
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  You know, the the every election is an opportunity to try to rig
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  the rules and change the game in your favor.
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  Is is not we're we're in Hatfield's and Mccoy's territory
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  here, right? Like you can't even find the
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  original sin. You could say it was Texas, but
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  then I can go back to the redistricting that was done in
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  New York in the cycle before it. I mean, they did.
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  This is what Texas did is exactly what New York did.
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  It's like, I want to win more, so I'm going to redraw the map
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  accordingly. You know, in New York, just as
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  an example, there was a really weird phenomenon for a very long
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  time. The Republicans, even despite
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  the fact that it was a blue state and that it was, you know,
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  kind of lost to them in a lot of ways.
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  They actually into the mid, I think almost the 20 tens or 12
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  or 14 somewhere around there. They actually still control the
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  state Senate. It was this weird, unbroken line
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  of control. The Republicans just had the
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  state Senate in New York, and that was the thing that
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  prevented for a very, very long time, really unfortunate and
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  stupid gerrymandering in New York congressional districts.
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  They still weren't great, but there was some sort of a
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  backstop there that said, no, you can't do that.
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  But then when it went away, they were like, all right, we get to
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  do whatever we want to now, so let's redraw them and give
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  ourselves as much partisan advantage as possible.
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  And I remember the last time they redrew it.
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  I mean, I don't know if it was like 2-3, four seats that they
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  eliminated there. So you want to talk about Texas,
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  Let's talk about New York. Let's talk about New York.
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  Let's talk about the Republican state that did it before that.
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  Let's talk about the Democratic state that did it before that.
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  Where do you start? Where do you start?
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  So given the fact that I don't think that if you want to play
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  the moral authority card and say, well, they ain't standing
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  at first, I don't think you can. And I don't think, you know,
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  it's certainly with how you behaved.
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  If you think what they've done is bad, when you do it more in
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  reverse, you completely remove any moral standing you had.
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  So, you know, don't give me that line, OK?
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  But even if you wanted to play that card, you still have to
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  just do math and you still have to look at the map and you have
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  to say to yourself, well, is this a smart tactical move on
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  our part, politically speaking? Should we do this?
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  I realize you have this impulse to do it, to get back at them
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  and to fight back and whatever. But is it smart?
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  And it was never smart. It was never smart.
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  It was never smart for the Democrats to do it.
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  It was smart for the Republicans to do it.
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  Yes, because they have more to gain.
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  They have more tools in the toolbox.
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  As I said a moment ago, they have more to work with.
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  So it was, it was basically a good fight to pick for one side
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  and a bad fight to pick for the other.
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  And yet the side that it was bad for was the one that really
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  picked it. I mean, this is really if you
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  want to take, you know, sort of like take a a look at this whole
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  story and say whose fault is it? I actually would say it's Gavin
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  Newsom's fault. Again, you can definitely say
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  Texas for starting the process, yes.
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  So you can definitely point the finger at them a little bit.
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  But the decision to like like overtly inject redistricting as
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  a matter of standing with or opposing the president and
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  making that a central part of the resistance and and
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  encouraging everyone else in the rest of the country to do so as
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  well, because it's the way we quote UN quote fight back in the
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  resistance. It was he was the one that
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  really started that. It was it was California's push.
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  Virginia didn't do that until California already had and a
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  couple other states started to follow suit.
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  I think it was it was a very unfortunate decision to try to
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  politicize redistricting to that effect.
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  What would have been much wiser for them?
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  And you know, if you there's some parallel universe out there
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  that this happened in, it's a much better universe for the
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  Democrats, right? They saw what Texas did.
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  They said that sucks. They called it out.
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  I mean, you want moral authority, right?
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  Point at it, say shame on you bad dog, right?
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  Don't do that. That's what you would say to
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  them. And then make political hay out
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  of it. You know, use it as a campaign
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  tool. You know, you use it as yet
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  another example of the dastardly Republicans doing something evil
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  or whatever you want to do. But you would be losing like 3
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  or 4 seats. But you don't love, You don't
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  love that you don't love it. You don't love it, but you're
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  probably going to lose more than 3 or 4.
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  Now, when Alabama's done, when Louisiana's done, when everybody
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  else is that Florida's done, when they're all done, I've seen
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  some estimates say that, you know, this is maybe upwards of
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  12 to 20 by it by the time it's all finished in terms of a net
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  advantage for the Republicans. Now, maybe that's we'll see
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  that's to all finish and we'll see how it all shapes up.
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  But it's very obviously going to be worse than just the four the
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  Texas would have represented. So it was a foolish fight to
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  pick that will leave them at a basic disadvantage, which may
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  actually jeopardize their ability to win back the House.
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  Possibly. Hakeem Jeffries is out there now
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  saying, I guarantee it. He's doing the Joe Namath.
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  He's like, we'll win. I guarantee he's doing that
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  thing. And maybe they will because they
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  still can. I mean, you know, Republicans in
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  2010 took something like 54 seats that did belong to the
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  Democrats. You know, when Pelosi became
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  speaker both times, those were rather large waves of, I think
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  30 or 40. I have to go back and see what
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  the numbers were. But, you know, when there's a
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  big enough wave that happens, you know, it'll overwhelm all
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  this. You know, the Republicans might
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  be doing better than they otherwise would have, but, you
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  know, they still would lose. But if it's not one of those,
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  wait. See, the second midterm is very
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  frequently not good for the for the party in power, but it's
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  usually not as bad as the first midterm.
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  It's not a locked solid rule, but it's pretty common where you
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  see a big loss in the first midterm and then in the second
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  midterm you see a, yeah, it's a loss, but it wasn't that bad,
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  you know, 10 seats, 15 seats, five seats, you know, that kind
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  of thing. So if that's the kind of
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  election it is, then this redistricting battle actually
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  will almost certainly impair all the ability for the Democrats to
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  win, win back Congress, which would just send them into orbit
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  if that if that ended up happening.
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  So that's that's my take on where we're at right now with
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  it.