Week 38: The Map Was Already Drawn

BlakeWhat if I told you the twenty twenty-six midterms are basically already over and nobody's voted yet?

MaxDude, that's dark.

BlakeI'm serious. The maps are drawn. The lines are set. The election part is just paperwork now.

MaxOkay, hold that thought. I'm Max. I'm Blake, and this is The Common Thread.

BlakeWe've been chasing this shadow docket thing since week thirty-six.

MaxRight. The court quietly running the whole election calendar from the sidelines.

BlakeAnd this week it's not ballot rules, it's the map itself.

MaxTen states have redrawn their lines this cycle already.

BlakeTen, six weeks out.

MaxAnd there's a seat number attached to that that's going to make you sit up.

BlakeDon't tease it, Blake.

MaxOh, I'm teasing it. We'll get there.

BlakeUgh, you're the worst. Every episode, same bit.

MaxHa. I contain multitudes. Also, I've got the receipts this time. Actual reporting, actual numbers. Let's get into it.

BlakeOkay, you said you had the number. Give it to me.

MaxSixteen.

BlakeSixteen what?

MaxSixteen seats. Republicans are positioned to net up to sixteen House seats this fall before a single vote gets counted.

BlakeSixteen?

MaxSixteen. NBC News reported it back in June. After ten states enacted new maps, the GOP is looking at gaining as many as sixteen seats, and Democrats six.

BlakeWait, wait. Sixteen to six? That's not a margin, that's a route.

MaxThat's the number Jane Timm put in print on June third.

BlakeOkay, but hold on. For people who don't live inside a spreadsheet, what does sixteen seats actually mean for control of the House?

MaxIt means the difference between a Republican majority and a fight for the speaker's gavel could already be baked into paper months before Election Day.

BlakeBaked into paper, I like that. Bad for democracy, good bumper sticker.

MaxSure.

BlakeGive me one concrete example, not abstract math, an actual seat that flips because of this.

MaxTake a state that added one new Republican-leaning district out of a redraw. That's a seat that existed as competitive last cycle and now just isn't, without anyone in that district voting differently.

BlakeSo the same voters, same neighborhood, different outcome because the boundary moved.

MaxExactly. That's the whole sixteen to six story in miniature.

BlakeSo who's actually tracking all this? Because I know we're not the only nerds with a spreadsheet.

MaxBallotpedia runs a full tracker on redistricting ahead of twenty twenty-six. That's basically our map of the map fight state by state.

BlakeSo when we say ten states redrew lines, that's not us eyeballing it.

MaxNo, that's Ballotpedia's running count, and it's the thing we're going to keep coming back to as we go state by state today.

BlakeRight, because sixteen to six is a snapshot. It's not a law of physics.

MaxNo, it's a snapshot from June.

BlakeSo here's my actual question for you, Blake. Is that math even still true? Because a lot has happened in the courts since June.

MaxThat's the exact question. Courts moved in September. Missouri moved. Texas moved.

BlakeSo does Sixteen go up? Does it go down? Or does it just get weirder?

MaxI think it gets weirder before it gets clearer.

BlakeOkay, that's not comforting.

MaxIt's not supposed to be comforting. It's supposed to be accurate.

BlakeFair. So June gave us the top line. What actually happened on the ground?

MaxThat's where we have to go state by state because the June number doesn't know what happened this month.

BlakeRight, it's frozen in time. Three months old and the courts haven't stopped moving since.

MaxSo let's leave the national number where it is for a second.

BlakeAnd go to the place where the ground actually moved first.

MaxMissouri.

BlakeMissouri. Let's go. Alright, take me to Missouri.

MaxOkay, Missouri, September third. The state Supreme Court doesn't just rule on this map. It's unanimous.

BlakeUnanimous is the part that gets me. Missouri Independent covered the ruling. Chief Judge Ginger Gooch wrote it, and the holding is blunt. The map that they drew for the August primary can't be used for the general in November. Voters get to decide the twenty twenty-five map themselves by referendum.

MaxWait, the court didn't just strike the map. It ordered an actual vote?

BlakeRight. Every judge signed on.

MaxThat's rare.

BlakeAnd it's not theoretical. Wikipedias page on this pins it down. That referendum is Missouri Proposition A, and it's live on the ballot November third, same day as the general election.

MaxSo voters are deciding two things at once, who represents them and what map decides who represents them.

BlakeSame ballot, both questions.

MaxThat's... Okay, that's a little wild, actually.

BlakeIt gets messier. Five days after the ruling, September eighth, Missouri goes to the Supreme Court asking Justice Kavanaugh to block it.

MaxAnd?

BlakeHe says no.

MaxWait, he just rejected it?

BlakeNBC reported that Kavanaugh rejected Missouri's request outright, and then it gets almost funny. The Secretary of State Hoskins gets briefly held in contempt before he finally directs officials to use the twenty twenty-two map instead.

MaxContempt of court over a map.

BlakeOver a map.

MaxI need context. Contempt of court is usually reserved for, like, ignoring a subpoena, not administering an election.

BlakeRight. It's not a common tool, but the state court used it because Hoskins initially kept moving toward the new map even after the ruling, so the court leaned on the strongest tool it had.

MaxWhat was the redrawn map actually trying to do, like concretely?

BlakeEliminate one specific seat. Congressman Emanuel Cleaver's district, a Democratic-held seat, gets carved up, so it doesn't exist anymore in that version.

MaxOne guy's district, one contempt order, and one justice's single line.

BlakeThat's the whole chain.

MaxSo walk me through what that actually changes for somebody in Kansas City who votes in Cleaver's district right now.

BlakeFor this cycle, their seat exists. It didn't get erased.

MaxBut only because a state court and one federal justice intervened in the span of five days.

BlakeRight. And Prop A is still hanging out there in November. Voters could still ratify a different map going forward.

MaxSo it's not settled. It's paused.

BlakePaused with a referendum attached.

MaxI keep coming back to Kavanaugh didn't rule on the merits here. He just didn't block the state court. That's a pretty thin reed for a whole congressional seat to hang on.

BlakeIt's thin, but it held.

MaxFor now.

BlakeFor now, and that's the pattern with Missouri, the court stepping back, letting the state process run, not touching the substance.

MaxWhich is the opposite of what happens in Texas.

BlakeCompletely opposite. Missouri was the court stepping back.

MaxTexas is next, and this one didn't play out the same way at all.

BlakeYeah, buckle up.

MaxLet's go there.

BlakeSix to three, and this time it's not the court stepping back. It's siding with the map drawers outright.

MaxWait, sided how? Like unanimous, everybody agrees kind of siding?

BlakeNo, divided. A majority granted the stay, and the ruling wasn't signed, no single justice's name on it, just the court.

MaxUnsigned? On something this big?

BlakeFox News reported the order found the challengers failed to give the Texas legislature what it called a presumption of legislative good faith.

MaxSay that phrase again, presumption of good faith.

BlakeYeah. Basically, the standard is unless you can prove the legislature acted in bad faith, the court assumes it didn't.

MaxThat's a heavy assumption to hand to people who just redrew their own district lines.

BlakeRight. And it lets the new map stand while the lower court challenge keeps grinding along underneath it.

MaxSo the map's live, the lawsuit's still alive, but the election's happening on the map, not the lawsuit.

BlakeExactly. Who dissented? Fox News named three, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson.

MaxAll three women on the Court right now.

BlakeYep.

MaxI feel like I coulda guessed that lineup blind.

BlakeProbably, but here's what I wanna flag before we move on. This came down as an unsigned order, no opinion walking through the reasoning line by line, no footnotes explaining why good faith gets presumed here and not somewhere else.

MaxThat's the same shape as the ballot rules stuff from a few weeks back. Fast, thin, no paper trail?

BlakeSame shape, different subject matter, same posture. Decide quick, explain later, if ever.

MaxAnd normal people just see map stays and move on with their lives.

BlakeWhich is the point, honestly. Nobody's reading a shadow docket order at their kitchen table.

MaxOkay, but play that forward. If this presumption sticks, what stops every state from drawing whatever map it wants and just calling it good faith?

BlakeNothing, really. That's the uncomfortable part. The presumption doesn't ask why the map looks the way it does. It just asks whether someone can prove bad intent, and that's a much higher bar to clear.

MaxSo the burden flipped. It used to be closer to prove this is fair, and now it's prove this is corrupt.

BlakeThat's the shift in one sentence, yeah.

MaxAnd burden of proof shifts like that rarely get undone quickly.

BlakeThey don't. Once a court sets that bar, plaintiffs are stuck clearing it in case after case.

MaxFair, but you said good faith like it's a phrase with a paper trail of its own.

BlakeIt does. It didn't just get invented for Texas.

MaxWhere is it from?

BlakeThere's a ruling from earlier this year, and honestly, Blake, I think it's the actual hinge for everything we've talked about today.

MaxThe one you keep bringing up in the group chat?

BlakeThat's the one, Callais.

MaxOkay, let's go there.

BlakeOkay, so back up with me for a second. Before Texas, before Missouri, there's this case in April, Louisiana versus Callais.

MaxCallais. Say it again?

BlakeCallais, April twenty-ninth. The question was whether Louisiana's map, the one that created a second majority Black district, counted as an unconstitutional race-based gerrymandering.

MaxAnd the court said...

BlakeSix-three, race-based redistricting doesn't fly just because you're trying to comply with the Voting Rights Act. Alito wrote that Section Two compliance could not justify the state's use of race-based redistricting.

MaxWait. So the court is saying the law that's supposed to protect minority voting power can't be used as the reason to draw a district that protects minority voting power.

BlakeThat's the tension, yeah.

MaxThat's circular.

BlakeKagan didn't love it either. Her dissent says the court betrays its duty to the Voting Rights Act.

MaxStrong word, betrays.

BlakeShe picked it.

MaxOkay, so here's what I keep turning over. Alito's writing in April about race and maps. Then in September, you've got this Texas order using totally different language, presumption of good faith towards the legislature.

BlakeDifferent case, different vocabulary, but-

MaxBut it's pointing the same way.

BlakeThat's my read too. Less scrutiny on why a legislature drew a line, more benefit of the doubt to the people holding the pen.

MaxSo I wanna be careful here because that's us connecting dots, not the court saying it out loud.

BlakeRight. This is our read, not a rule anybody's written down.

MaxBut if you squint, Callais and Texas are the same sentence in two fonts.

BlakeSame sentence, two fonts. I like that.

MaxDon't get used to it. Won't. So courts are backing off, giving legislatures room, less second-guessing on the front end.

BlakeAnd that's not just a Missouri thing or a Texas thing.

MaxNo?

BlakeNo. Georgia's got a fight going. Louisiana still got more than just Callais on the docket. New York, Virginia.

MaxWait, Louisiana again. Different case?

BlakeDifferent fight, same state. It's not two states doing this. It's a pattern running through half the map.

MaxA pattern running through Georgia, Louisiana, New York, Virginia, on top of what we already covered.

BlakeRight, on top of it.

MaxSo it's not one court making one weird call in one place.

BlakeNo. It's the same posture showing up everywhere there's a fight.

MaxOkay. That actually clarifies something for me, because I kept treating Missouri and Texas as two separate stories with two separate outcomes.

BlakeOne backs off, one leans in.

MaxRight. But underneath both of them is the same instinct: don't second-guess the legislature. Let the political process handle it.

BlakeAnd Callais is where that instinct got written down first in the context everyone's paying least attention to.

MaxBecause it's about race and voting rights, not about a specific seat.

BlakeExactly. It reads like a voting rights case. It's actually the hinge for the whole map fight.

MaxAnd that's exactly why it flew under the radar for most people back in April. Nobody outside election law circles was watching a voting rights case for redistricting signals.

BlakeFair point. Everyone was watching the ballot fights, not the doctrine underneath them.

MaxSo if that's the thread running under all of it, Callais, Texas, the good faith language, all of it pointing the same direction, what does that actually mean for the country once you step outside the docket and look at the whole board?

BlakeAll right, zooming out for a second.

MaxSo step back a second. Why should someone who doesn't follow the court care about any of this?

BlakeBecause normally you wait ten years for new maps. Census, redraw, done.

MaxRight. That's the whole point of the cycle.

BlakeThis isn't that. States are redrawing mid-decade off schedule because the political math changed, not because the population did.

MaxAnd that's legal now?

BlakeApparently. Ballotpedia is still tracking new states filing changes as we speak. That tracker we've been leaning on this whole episode isn't done moving.

MaxIt's a live document.

BlakeExactly. Which means the picture keeps shifting under people's feet while they're trying to figure out who represents them.

MaxOkay, but here's my actual worry. If maps can just be redrawn whenever a party smells an opportunity, what's even the point of a midterm?

BlakeThat's the question, Blake.

MaxI mean it. My uncle in Kansas City votes like it's sacred. He's not wrong to.

BlakeNo, he's not.

MaxBut if the outcome's mostly locked by August because of a court order, his ballot is doing less work than he thinks it is.

BlakeLess, not none.

MaxSure, competitive races still exist, but the House majority, a chunk of that's already accounted for before he walks into a booth.

BlakeThat's the part that should bother people more than it does.

MaxWhy do you think it doesn't?

BlakeBecause it's boring. Nobody's marching in the street over a state Supreme Court docket entry.

MaxFair.

BlakeBut the effect is the same as if someone stuffed a ballot box, just spread out, legal, and done in April instead of November.

MaxThat's a strong way to put it.

BlakeI mean it, though. If your vote can't change the outcome because the lines were fixed months ago, calling it democracy is generous.

MaxGenerous is one word for it.

BlakeAnd that's not a knock on courts doing their job. It's just a mismatch between what people think their ballot does and what it can actually still do.

MaxWhich is exactly the kind of gap this show exists to point out.

BlakeSo when people say this is just process, inside baseball, lawyers arguing over commas-

MaxIt's actually the whole ball game.

BlakeIt's the ball game.

MaxOkay, so let's bring it back to that opening number and see if it still holds after everything we just walked through.

BlakeOkay, so where does that leave the June number? Sixteen seats to six.

MaxThat number is already stale. It's a snapshot before Missouri's court fight, before Kavanaugh's ruling, before the Texas stay ever landed.

BlakeSo it could be higher.

MaxCould be higher, could be lower, depending how Missouri's map shakes out on the ballot in November. Nobody's rerun that math since June.

BlakeWait, so the headline number we opened with might not even be accurate anymore?

MaxNot inaccurate. Outdated. Big difference. It was true when it published. The court just kept moving pieces after the fact.

BlakeRight. And that's the thing we kept bumping into all episode.

MaxMissouri, Texas, Callais. Three different fights, three different outcomes on paper.

BlakeBut the same referee.

MaxSame referee. And every single time, the legislature gets the benefit of the doubt before a single voter weighs in.

BlakeNot the court second-guessing the map. The map drawers get trusted full stop.

MaxThat's the through line. Ballot deadlines, ballot rules, now district lines. The court keeps landing on let the people who drew it keep it.

BlakeWhich is a real judicial philosophy. I get it. I just think most people assume somebody's checking the legislature's work.

MaxSomebody used to. That's changing.

BlakeSo what do people actually do with that? Because knowing the pattern doesn't fix it by itself.

MaxNo, but it tells you where the actual fight moved to. It's not in November anymore, not entirely. A lot of it already happened in the room with a map on the wall.

BlakeWhat room, though? Be specific.

MaxEvery state's got some version of it, a redistricting commission or legislative redistricting committee that holds public hearings and takes comment before a map gets finalized.

BlakeAnd most people never show up to those.

MaxAlmost nobody shows up to those. That's kind of the whole problem. Courts are giving legislatures deference, which means the room where the map actually gets drawn matters more than the ballot box does for a while.

BlakeSo the fix isn't just vote harder.

MaxIt's show up earlier. Find a hearing, read the proposed map, say something on the record before it's locked in.

BlakeOkay, give me the version of that I can actually do this month.

MaxLook up your state's redistricting commission or legislative redistricting committee, find out when they're taking public comment, and show up or submit something in writing before the map's locked in.

BlakeThat's a lot less satisfying than a bumper sticker.

MaxSure, but it's the lever that's actually still moving. Missouri, Texas, Callais, all three of those started as decisions inside rooms most voters never watched.

BlakeAll right. That's the pattern. So here's where we land, Blake. The maps got redrawn before anybody cast a vote, and the courts let most of it stand.

MaxAnd my one line is simpler. Whoever draws a district picks a lot of your winner for you months early.

BlakeYeah.

MaxWhich is exactly why the homework matters.

BlakeGo find out who actually drew your district, your state legislature, a commission, a court. Go look it up.

MaxTakes ten minutes.

BlakeTen minutes, and most people will spend longer picking a show tonight.

MaxFair.

BlakeIf this helped make sense of the last few months, send it to one person who's been confused by all this.

MaxAnd subscribe. We're back Saturday.

BlakeEvery Saturday.

MaxGo look up your district. Seriously. It's public. It's not hidden.

BlakeAnd if you find out a court drew it instead of your legislature, that's worth knowing, too.

MaxEverything we talked about today started with somebody not showing up to a meeting like that.

BlakeThat's the whole show this week, Blake.

MaxGo on, Max. Talk Saturday.