Redistricting gerrymandering hypocrisy!

Governor Maura Healey from Massachusetts suggested she is now forced to fight back in the redistricting battle.

Slight problem. Massachusetts has nine congressional seats and all nine are currently held by Democrats, making them the most highly gerrymandered state in the union. Republicans got 36% of the vote and 0% of the congressional districts. Not sure how Healy feels they are going to fight back, but apparently she doesn't understand how gerrymandering works, what it looks like, or how her own state is allocating their congressional districts.

Meanwhile, California is attempting to put something together in the next week (their deadline is August 18th) to:

• Do away with a referendum vote from the people of California that created an independent commission to set the state districting.

• Draw a new redistricting map that would further gerrymander the 43-9 Democrat to GOP state into something ever further gerrymandered.

• Create another referendum vote on a new map to be put on a ballot for the off-year November election.

• Accomplish all of this without any lawsuits or court challenges that might disrupt this small timeline.

New York is also attempting to do something, although Governor Hochul admits that this might require legal action on their part, as the current law requires any redistricting to be passed in two consecutive sessions before presenting a referendum to the voters. That would mean nothing could be done before 2028.

Illinois is also demanding that they will be doing something, although they have what has been called the worst case of gerrymandering that anyone has ever seen, and was graded an "F" for electoral fairness after the redrawing of the maps in 2020. It is doubtful they could do much more to shut out the Republicans in that state.

According to my math, the all blue states are gerrymandered in favor of Democrats at about an 81% clip, while the all red states are gerrymandered in favor of Republicans by 73% (not counting states that only have one or two districts). If everyone ended up using some form of objective third Party redistricting map that made everything fair between all of these 37 one party rule states, it would appear that Democrats would likely lose somewhere between 6-8 seats. While that doesn't seem to be that large of a number in the grand scheme of things, just think how much better the GOP House would run if they had just six more Republicans and six less Democrats.

Right now I look for Abbot in Texas to wait out California to see what they do. He has stated that they will not hesitate to change the newly drawn map if need be to counter other states or to punish the Democrats for not coming back. If California puts a new map on the ballot for November, Texas will likely gerrymander even more seats from the Democrats to offset it. Perhaps leaving the state was the wrong move for the Texas Democrats if in the end it costs them even more seats.

Likewise, a move by Newsom would bring Florida and others (Florida, Georgia, etc...) into the fray. On the flip side, it's possible that if California, New York, and others from the left decides not to act that it might be enough for some of these other GOP states to also leave well enough alone. Ohio much redistrict (by law), but others may decide to stand pat.

While Newsom's play may or may not be popular with the Democratic voters, I am guessing that behind the scenes there are a few Democratic congressional members in Texas, Ohio, Florida, and other GOP states that are cursing Newsom for pushing this even further. Why should they lose their seats so Newsom can gain a few more California seats and somehow push his own personal presidential ambitions? There is more than a good chance that someone like Jasmine Crockett will be redistricted out of a job and might not be happy about it. I doubt she will be silent if this happens.