Good, but also holy fuck we need to ban gerrymandering
this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
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I guess they don't really care where the corruption and perversion of democracy comes from, as long as the needle gets moved.
Republican candidates for governor are currently ahead, Tom Steyer is running as a spoiler, and a mandatory voter ID law is about to win in the primary. California is a red state wearing a blue T-shirt, and it's about to bite us on the ass.
I think this is really dangerous, actually. SCOTUS is no implicitly (or on their way to) saying that severe and perverse gerrymandering, is okay
They have already ruled that severe and perverse gerrymandering is okay. Only racist gerrymandering is technically illegal, but they recently made that acceptable, too. Burn it down and start over.
This was already legally happening in Texas. Cali did this in response to Texas being allowed to heavily gerrymander their state in Republican favor.
i heard other blue states are doing the same too.
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Aka the supreme court couldnt figure out how to argue this without making themselves look even more like clowns OR they have a plan B.
It's both actually. The justices beholden to Trumpanzee were informed that the election will be stolen anyway and so the fallout from them "looking even more like clowns" wasn't necessary.
In guessing plan B. If California can use this democrat friendly slanted map then every other state can use whatever conservative slanted maps they draw up.
Plan B for sure. It smells like "Fine, gerrymander CA, we're gonna rig the shit out of this election anyway. Good luck, byeee!"
That's plan A.
They were already using it, California did this to get those banned and failed.
Is it really failing when you so often seem to wind up on the same team?
California Gov. Gavin Newsom doubles down on his criticism of the proposed billionaire wealth tax
The comment comes as billionaires in the state have made public their intent to relocate elsewhere in the wake of the tax’s proposal. Venture capitalist Peter Thiel, tech investor David Sacks, and Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have all taken steps to leave.
At the same time, billionaires are dishing out piles of cash to fund a campaign against the ballot initiative. Thiel made his biggest political contribution in years, donating $3 million to a California business group leading the fight against the billionaire wealth tax.
Sometimes it feels like Trump was the response of a crazy abusive asshole (Thiel/Musk/broligarchs) who "tried to do things the nice way by giving you somebody like Gavin Newsome," but since people didn't want that he decided to show how crazy he can really be for a 4 years to wear you down the next time around (if you're lucky enough to even get a next time around).
Then threatening this bullshit of "if you expect me to pay taxes, you're going to regret it. I'm warning you... you're going to be so sorry once I'm gone"
It's like stop flapping your fucking gums and leave already you piece of shit, nobody wants you, and we're already in the toilet with you here. America can do bad all by herself. At least then we won't have to deal with your bullshit on top of everything else.
Anyway, long winded way of saying, I don't trust Gavin Newsome anymore than I trust Peter Thiel. Fuck them both.
Just because they're on the same side doesn't mean they aren't greedy.
More Dems in office means more bribes for them.
I think plan B is the ice agents at poking locations they announced today.
This is my exact take too. Opening the floodgates for ultra gerrymandered maps.
I don’t know enough about how all this works. Would it be possible for them to time in coordinated and abnormally timed map changes (like the one in Texas), and outpace any kind of coordinated democratic response right before an election?
Each state has their own rules and laws. I think the bigger problem is that the majority of states are run by republican legislatures so even if democrat run states went tit for tat with each map change the repugnants would have an advantage.
they would have to admit that the GOP states are doing it unfairly, which they dont want to get on the news.
That's one hell of an interesting twist.
Roberts and Gorsuch aren't obsessed with winning every short-game match up. They need gerrymandering to be legal in the abstract and for the long term. If they start trying to thread the needle between California and Texas, they give the lower courts more opportunities to overturn maps in Republican states and a future SCOTUS more elbow room to overturn their whole reading of legislative maps.
In a wave year where Republicans are likely getting swamped out of dozens of seats anyway, there's very little to gain and a lot to lose by creating an exception to the rule on when gerrymandering is legal.
If they start trying to thread the needle between California and Texas, they give the lower courts more opportunities to overturn maps in Republican states and a future SCOTUS more elbow room to overturn their whole reading of legislative maps.
The Roberts SCOTUS has already given any future SCOTUS ample precedent for utterly ignoring previous rulings as it suits their partisan needs several times over. If they think this one somehow stands separate from anything else it's laughable.
I'm sure they have something worse up their sleeve, and this wasn't worth the PR flak they'd catch.
Congratulations, you can use your maps!
On an unrelated note, your maps don’t matter, because we’re gonna let a pants-shitting child rapist cancel the elections as long as he says they’re “rigged.”
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Nice of them to "allow" it. I thought the states were responsible for their own elections?
The question was more about the constitutionality behind how the map was decided. Republicans were arguing it was about race which is unconstitutional. You can only gerrymander to make a one party state.... Which like... Wtf?
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I'd hope this will bring us closer to real legal barriers to gerrymandering, if hope hadn't been beaten out of me by now.
The weird thing is this CA law removed anti-gerrymandering laws. We had a legal barrier here in CA, but this law was to remove that barrier so we could counter TX. It sucked voting for it.
Yeah this was definitely a race for the bottom, but unfortunately a necessary one. Michelle Obama's idea of "when they go low, we go high" only works if your opponent has a miniscule amount of morals or shame.
Michelle Obama’s idea of “when they go low, we go high” only works if ~~your opponent has~~voters have a miniscule amount of morals or shame.
FTFY
It only works when the voters notice/care. If they did, the Republican Party would have died after GWB.
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It also doesn't work when a very large percentage of people desperately WANT you to go low.
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Is it because they know there will be no elections?
"Oops we fucked democracy. Let's do the bare minimum going forward."
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