Dem
51
Ties
3
GOP
46
There were a couple of pretty big gerrymandering decisions yesterday, and they went 2-0 for the Democrats. You could also argue that democracy won, sorta, because while gerrymandering is undemocratic (in our view), at least the judges said that if it's going to happen, the people should make that decision.
The first of those two decisions came out of Missouri, where the state Supreme Court found unanimously that the new district maps cannot be used for the 2026 elections. It's a little weedy, but the Republican-dominated legislature adopted a new district map, their Democratic colleagues organized a ballot referendum to put the map before voters, and Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins (R) rejected the referendum as invalid. The Court found that Hoskins was wrong, and that the matter should have been placed on the ballot after all, and the maps can't be used until that happens.
Hoskins and his GOP colleagues vowed to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and, of course, you can never know what this SCOTUS will do. They could re-implement the new maps with an unsigned shadow-docket ruling released at 8:00 a.m. on Election Day and we would not be surprised. That said, if yesterday's decision stands, then Rep. Emanuel Cleaver's (D-MO) district, MO-05, will remain D+12 as opposed to the R+9 it would have been under the new map. That means a near-certain Democratic hold, instead of a near-certain Republican flip.
The second decision, meanwhile, came out of Maryland. The situation there is even weedier than the one in Missouri. Basically, the Democratic-controlled legislature wants to eliminate the one Republican-held district in the state (the R+8 MD-01, represented by Republican Andy Harris). To achieve this, the legislature wants to change the rules for redrawing district maps, so that congressional district maps are subject to fewer constraints than state legislative district maps. The blue team put a proposition on the ballot, the red team got a lower-court judge to remove it from the ballot, and yesterday the Maryland Supremes put it back on the ballot.
We are hardly experts in Maryland jurisprudence, but the judges' decisions appear to be legitimate attempts to call balls and strikes, and not partisan. Indeed, the Supreme Court that gave the Democrats the win yesterday is 5/7 appointed by Republican former governor Larry Hogan. The problem was not so much the legality of the measure, but the wording. The lower courts said the wording was misleading, and so the measure could not be on the ballot. The Supreme Court said the wording was misleading, but that a rewording (provided by the Court) was satisfactory to cure the problem.
So, Marylanders will get to vote on the proposition, after all. Given that it's a generally blue state, and that Democrats are out for blood right now, we imagine it will pass. And thus the state legislature will be in a position to redraw that one, lone Republican seat. Sorry, Rep. Harris. (Z)