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Virginia is voting on redrawing their congressional districts today. Here is the Wikipedia entry.
The main highlight is that it would change Virginia from 6-5 democrat-republican split to a 10-1 split. It is being sold by Democrats as an effort to counter Republican gerrymandering in other states. It is being panned by Republicans as unfair representation, and an election map that looks like Fairfax county (rich county in northern Virginia) gets to elect about half of the state's representatives.
I'm a Virginia resident. So I've been getting lots of mailers about the issue and simple vote "yes" or "no" signs are everywhere.
I'm very frustrated with the whole thing. First for Trump kicking off this fight. Second with the Democrats in Virginia that have made a ridiculously bullshit map. I still have yet to hear anyone from the "yes" side explain how this is good for Virginia other than "fight Trump". I even read one article that had a title implying it would be about voters not feeling represented, and it turns out the content of the article was about democratic leaders addressing the democrat voters in the now single solitary red district. No content about how Republican voters might feel in the 10 other districts.
If this level of bullshit is on the table I feel like other proposals that get shot down for being "crazy" in normal times might end up back on the table. Like a bunch of Virginia counties seceding and joining West Virginia. Or the right to giant congress
The most gerrymandered states are all Democratic. VRA throughout the South has given Democrats dozens of extra congressional seats. This was the original basis of the fight, Texas had explicitly gerrymandered minority-majority seats that caused DOJ to send Texas a letter. But this in turn was a response to a 2024 5th Circuit decicision about the VRA. Which, ultimately, yes, this is about the midterms, which ultimately is about the question of who gets to govern the country. Which is the only fight anyone is picking at all.
I feel as though being annoyed at Trump for starting a fight over political power is like being annoyed at Steph Curry for starting a 3-point shooting war.
The more notable story is that after Democrats have already gerrymandered half a dozen states and Republican states have a lot of slack they could pick up to fight back, the 2025-2026 redistricting wars will either end neutral or with a Democratic win. Well I feel confident that if we had 1,000 Trumps instead of 1,000 generic GOP party apparatchiks that would not be the case.
The worst gerrymandered states are all Dems? Really? the most offensive examples that i'm aware of are all in the south and all in favor republicans. I know in NY the dems tried to do a big redistricting a few years back but the state supreme court nixed it and they got much less meat off the bone than they hoped for.
either way, i'm no expert on the quality of district lines across the country but this list seems relatively nonpartisan (as far as commentary on this issue goes) and seems to paint a picture that neither party comes out looking clean if we wanna call gerrymandering a sin.
It's also unfair to just be counting it for federal elections. State legislatures are often gerrymandered as well (or at least split in a way that is effectively gerrymandered) such as my state of NC where despite being a purple swing state, is effectively a red state in terms of state government despite having a Dem governor right now. The NC governorship is one of the weakest in the country due to state legislatures gerrymandering and things like Republican governors literally signing bills to limit their own power before leaving the position for a Dem successor. This is a routine thing the state legislature does, transferring power away from positions that Dems win to positions that Republicans win. Even when a Democrat wins in NC, they still lose.
The NC senate is 30:20 and house 71:49 for Republican/Democrat makeup. The GOP has held a veto proof majority until recently and are still so close they barely have to try to pass things they want. Again, this is considered a purple swing state that regularly votes in Democrats. It doesn't matter, the gerrymandering is simply too strong.
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The ones in the south are all because the Supreme Court has mandated the creation of "majority minority" districts (minority = black in this case) and blacks tend to cluster in urban areas. Though recent court decisions might be changing that (and are actually what prompted Texas's redistricting in the first place).
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