Republican Trumpists in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, seeking to skew upcoming elections through gerrymandering Congressional districts in their favor, were dealt a major blow by the Supreme Court yesterday. For the mid-term elections later this year, the rejection may be pivotal in deciding control of the House by a narrow margin. From the AP:
"In a victory for Democrats, the Supreme Court has turned away efforts from Republicans in North Carolina and Pennsylvania to block state court-ordered congressional districting plans.
In separate orders late Monday, the justices are allowing maps selected by each state’s Supreme Court to be in effect for the 2022 elections. Those maps are more favorable to Democrats than the ones drawn by the states’ legislatures.
In North Carolina, the map most likely will give Democrats an additional House seat in 2023.
The Pennsylvania map also probably will lead to the election of more Democrats, the Republicans say, as the two parties battle for control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the midterm elections in November." (our emphasis)
After each decennial census, state legislatures are supposed to look at census data in their states to determine if Congressional district boundaries need to be redrawn for representation purposes. For Republican-controlled legislatures, this has meant an opportunity to redraw the boundaries to cluster Dems in fewer districts and hence fewer seats in Congress.
These orders from the Supreme Court won't discourage Republicans from continuing to gerrymander districts in their states, but at least they've been stopped in two key states.
