America Sinks Into the Quicksand of Mid-Decade Redistricting
Last week, the Supreme Court declined to review the California Republican Party’s request to prevent new congressional maps for the midterms, which passed after a public referendum last November: 64 percent of voters approved the measure. California’s congressional redistricting, which could net Democrats five pickups in the House, was a response to Texas, which at President Trump’s demand added up to five new Republican districts last summer.
“Unlike Texas, California actually made this decision through the expressed will of the public in a ballot measure,” says Kareem Crayton, vice president of the Brennan Center’s Washington, D.C., office. “You could argue this isn’t just the electeds running amok.”
The Supreme Court didn’t explain the early-December order. But Texas prevailed over the League of United Latin American Citizens, and Justice Samuel Alito spelled out what California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott had already admitted: The “impetus,” Alito said, “was partisan advantage plain and simple.” That aligns with the Court’s decision in Rucho v. Common Cause (2019). The justices decided that partisan gerrymanders were political questions that are “not justiciable,” so the federal courts should not play any role in hearing those cases.
That decision laid the groundwork for what is now a partisan free-for-all, where either politicians are picking their voters or the courts are doing it for them. As primary election calendar deadlines near and prospective candidates need to make decisions, it’s clear that Rucho facilitated the turmoil that Trump exploited, and unless the Supreme Court modifies or changes its ruling—or even less likely, Congress steps in—gerrymandering for partisan advantage is the new normal, even if it won’t always save a party from its standing with voters.
“If you’re Republican in particular, looking at the wind, it’s not blowing at your back,” says Crayton. “A lot of people in Texas would claim otherwise, but it’s hard to square the bullishness of the gerrymander in that state with the outcome of the [Texas state Senate] special election up in Tarrant County.”
ONE OF THE MORE COMPLEX REDISTRICTING power plays is under way in Utah, a Republican trifecta state. In November, a state district court judge ruled against a map Republicans drew after the 2020 census, which created four Republican seats by carving up Salt Lake County. The judge implemented a new map, proposed by the League of Women Voters of Utah and the Mormon Women for Ethical Government, that created one Democratic district and three Republican ones.
The bitter fight in Utah stems from years of controversies rooted in the Republican legislature’s reaction to a 2018 ballot initiative, Proposition 4, that narrowly established an independent redistricting commission to draw fair maps, with a view toward avoiding partisan gerrymanders.
Unless the Supreme Court changes its ruling, gerrymandering for partisan advantage is the new normal.
Many voters wanted a district that represented the interests of more liberal Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County, says Linda F. Smith, a professor emerita with the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law. “You take the population center, where most of the Democrats are, and you cut it up into four pieces so there’s no possibility that a Democrat could be elected, that sort of pissedpeople off,” she explains. Plus, “A lot of people in rural Utah also don’t want to be part of a district that is basically dominated by urban people.”
The fights around redistricting stem from years of legal battles that also involved rulings on abortion and school vouchers. Utah’s court system, heralded by the state bar association as “one of the best models in the country,” features judges who are selected on merit by judicial nomination commissions. Voters weigh in on whether judges remain on the bench through retention elections.
Yet conservative state lawmakers and the governor wanted their political calculations embedded in statutes. After the November redistricting ruling, GOP leaders responded with a barrage of actions designed to limit judicial powers, including a ballot initiative to repeal the independent redistricting commission. But last week, they went for the jugular in an effort to dilute the judiciary’s ability to serve as a check on unilateral power. Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill adding two more judges to the Utah Supreme Court and five to the lower courts, citing heavy caseloads. (The state’s chief justice and the state bar association officials countered that the courts really needed more judicial assistants.)
State lawmakers pushed back against the charge of “court packing,” and pointed to other states with similar numbers of justices. But adding more judges was just the start. Other proposals would require judges seeking retention to receive 67 percent of the vote to remain in their robes and establish a special constitutional court to hear constitutional cases. Defense lawyers would no longer serve on the state sentencing commission; they’d be replaced by law enforcement officials. The governor would also have the power to set aside the nomination commission’s list to appoint “any qualified candidate” to the bench.
Clearly, Utah Republicans want to silence a threat to their power, even if it looks a lot like what some Democrats have wanted to do to the Supreme Court for years. As a side benefit, they’ll be able to control the maps to maintain that power.
Asked how Utah fits into the national picture, Smith, who is a member of the League of Women Voters of Utah, says, “We’re really not jumping into the arguments between Texas and California—we’re just saying we want fair maps.”
AS UTAH REPUBLICANS WORK OVERTIME to prevent Democrats from gaining one congressional seat, Maryland state lawmakers living in their Democratic trifecta world are working just as hard to eliminate one Republican seat, held by Rep. Andy Harris, the House Freedom Caucus chair. Last November, Gov. Wes Moore announced the revival of the state’s bipartisan Governor’s Redistricting Advisory Commission, which held a series of public meetings. Not surprisingly, the commission proposed a bill that would likely eliminate Harris’s seat and deliver all of Maryland’s U.S. House seats to the Democrats. The state House of Delegates passed the bill last week.
But in the Maryland Senate, Democratic lawmakers are resisting the redraw. In a letter obtained by Maryland Matters, Senate President Bill Ferguson, a progressive Democrat, described the plan as “risky” and noted, after consulting with his peers elsewhere in the country, that it wasn’t broadly appreciated that Republican-controlled states have more options to gerrymander than Democratic ones (Democratic states face limitations, he noted, since most aren’t trifecta states or the seats are unflippable.)
Some GOP states have resisted the pressure from the White House to redistrict, Ferguson believes, because Democratic states like Maryland have also decided not to participate. But, he wrote, if Maryland goes forward, those other Republican states might think again.
Moreover, a new map would almost certainly open Maryland up to a new court challenge—and that’s a bad memory for Maryland Democrats. In 2022, a state court struck down a newly drawn congressional map that had been challenged as an unconstitutional “extreme partisan” gerrymander that effectively violated the state’s Declaration of Rights. The legislature had to come up with another map.
The redistricting bill is currently languishing in the Senate’s rules committee, which in Maryland has little power. One Democrat, Sen. Arthur Ellis (D-Charles County), demanded that Ferguson bring the bill to the floor. But unless there is a sudden shift among Ferguson’s caucus, the bill won’t move to the chamber for a vote.
Marylanders aren’t exactly clamoring for redistricting changes. An Institute of Politics/University of Maryland, Baltimore County December 2025 poll asked Maryland adults, including registered voters, to rank the ten most important issues facing the state; redrawing congressional district lines placed dead last. Nationwide, Democrats want their leaders to fight back, which helps Moore’s case; but Marylanders are worried more about affordability, which backs up Ferguson’s decision.
Across the Potomac River, Virginia stands as a cautionary tale for Maryland on both sides of the question. Virginia Democratic lawmakers devised a new map that created one likely GOP seat out of 11; currently, the delegation is 6-to-5 in favor of Democrats. The maps would go to voters in April for a final say. When Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) unconvincingly whined about the unfairness of these maps, Virginia Senate President pro tempore Louise Lucas responded with what a lot of Democrats are thinking: “You all started it and we fucking finished it.”
Yet the map may run into trouble. A state lower court has already blocked the legislature from devising a new map for the midterms, citing the rushed process to bring it to the ballot. Democratic lawmakers have appealed that ruling to the Virginia Supreme Court. If the legal process takes too long, it could run up against state filing deadlines.
If some Democrats are cautious, some Republican states are, too. Indiana, Kansas, and New Hampshire have dispensed with mid-decade revamps altogether. Other Republican trifecta states like Florida are moving toward redrawing maps, and Louisiana and Nebraska could join them. And a court case could wipe out New York’s 11th Congressional District, a seat currently held by a Republican, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis.
The Associated Press’s mid-decade redistricting roundup is here. The Cook Political Report has estimated that “the likeliest scenario is a wash.”
There are hyperscale levels of uncertainty in this volatile election season, as evidenced by massive swings away from Republicans in previously safe seats. Crayton, of the Brennan Center, notes that statewide candidates supporting mid-decade redistricting should consider how that support would play out in the next election. “At some point, you’re makingefforts to offset what is a changing public mood,” he says. “As long as elections happen, there are only so many things you’re going to do to stop that, and, in fact, you might get punished for trying to.”
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