Trump dishonestly screamed about rigged elections, and then tries to rig his own midterms. Ridiculous hypocrisy and dishonesty.
“The pressure on Indiana lawmakers comes as Texas is moving forward with a redraw of its congressional map at the request of Trump — and California is crafting its own retaliation.
On Monday, dozens of Texas Democrats returned to Austin after protesting redistricting by remaining out-of-state for two weeks, denying Republicans the ability to conduct legislative business. As Texas Republicans are back on path to passing their new, more aggressive gerrymander, national Republicans have turned their attention to other states like Florida, Missouri and Indiana.”
“Texas already has several mechanisms to use in coaxing the Democrats back. Each day they’re gone, the fleeing Democrats incur a $500-per-day fine. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott also released an order for their arrest by the Texas Department of Public Safety, describing the Democrats’ conduct as “abandonment or forfeiture.” Republicans in the Texas House, meanwhile, have issued arrest warrants for the absent Democrats, and Attorney General Ken Paxton—who is challenging Cornyn in his re-election bid—has called for their removal from office.
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Regardless of how involved the FBI will become, the bureau’s involvement at all degrades the principle of federalism by infringing upon Texas’s authority to discipline its lawmakers. It is also the most recent example of the Trump Justice Department being weaponized for political gain and tasked with duties outside its standard wheelhouse.
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Though Patel dismissed concerns during his confirmation hearing that he would weaponize the FBI, he seems to have set his sights on the Texas Democrats, despite Trump’s Day One executive order to end the “weaponization of law enforcement and the weaponization of the Intelligence Community.”
While the Democrats’ plan is an attempt to circumvent a vote, they’ve broken no federal laws or statutes. There is simply no need for the FBI’s involvement.”
“Missouri Republicans are considering redrawing their state’s congressional lines to add another red House seat, the latest volley in a national battle over control of the lower chamber in 2026.”
“The census is a constitutionally mandated count of every person in the United States every 10 years, which was last conducted in 2020. A full census has never been conducted mid-decade in this manner, nor has one ever excluded noncitizens from the count.
Censuses are immensely important in American governance; each count determines how many House seats every state gets through a process called apportionment, and the results of the census help direct billions of dollars in federal, state and local funding.
Trump has been trying to include a citizenship question on the census since his first term, though the Supreme Court struck the effort down on procedural grounds in 2019. Apportionment numbers have also historically included people residing in the United States regardless of their immigration status.
A 2020 Pew Research Center report indicated removing noncitizens could cost multiple states House seats, including California and Texas.
Any attempt to do a mid-decade census would likely result in a flurry of legal and logistical challenges. Preparing for the decennial count takes multiple years, and planning for the 2030 census is already well underway.
It is unclear how the Trump administration plans to exclude undocumented people from the count, or if the president intended to just remove them from apportionment totals, which would also face legal hurdles.”
“Trump’s team is putting “maximum pressure on everywhere where redistricting is an option and it could provide a good return on investment,” according to a person familiar with the team’s thinking and granted anonymity to describe it.
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a handful of Democratic-leaning states — including California — handed mapmaking power to independent commissions instead of leaving it in the hands of the state legislatures. States where Democrats retain the power to gerrymander, like Illinois and Maryland, have very little room to draw more advantageous maps than their current ones.”
“Republican Gov. Mike Braun remained noncommittal about a mid-decade redistricting push following his meeting with Vice President JD Vance in Indiana on Thursday.
“We covered a wide array of topics. We listened,” Braun told reporters in response to a question about whether an agreement was reached.
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Vance’s visit to the state comes amid a push from President Donald Trump’s team to redraw maps “everywhere where redistricting is an option.” A plan in Texas is already well underway, where Republican lawmakers drew a new map that could net Republicans as many as five Republican-leaning seats, and Democrats in the Lone Star state fled in a last-ditch effort to stop the map from passing.”
Having independent professionals in parts of the government who provide key statistics is important for having a better idea of what’s going on in the country. We need these professionals to be independent so we can have a level of trust in the numbers. Trump fires such professionals just because he doesn’t like their outcomes, not because he has a fundamental disagreement with their methods. This is how we go dark in understanding our economy; with our main source of data being controlled by the leader.
“El Salvador’s congress has approved constitutional reforms to abolish presidential term limits, allowing President Nayib Bukele to run an unlimited number of times.”
Gerrymandering is anti-democracy! Every state should use a neutral commission or algorithm and make it illegal to draw districts based on helping a party, person, or ideology win an election. Voters should choose their representatives; representatives should not choose their voters!