INSTITUTE INDEX: How court-enabled gerrymandering drove GOP House gains
Two recent rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door to extreme gerrymandering that helped the Republican Party capture the U.S. House of Representatives. (Official court photo.)
Number of previously Democratic U.S. House seats Republicans captured in this year's midterm elections by drawing congressional districts rigged to their advantage, with the chamber now under GOP control while counting is still underway in some races more than a week after Election Day: more than 12
Year in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Rucho v. Common Cause, a case out of North Carolina, that partisan gerrymandering can't be challenged in the federal courts: 2019
Month in which the high court ruled in a redistricting case out of Alabama titled Merrill v. Milligan to suspend the Voting Rights Act's ban on racial gerrymandering, thereby freeing Republican lawmakers in that state and others including Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas to draw maps that diminished Black voting power: 2/2022
Number of words the Supreme Court majority — which did not include dissenting Chief Justice John Roberts — offered to explain its decision to overturn the ruling of the lower court's three-judge panel, which had two Trump appointees: 0
As a consequence of Milligan, estimated number of congressional seats lost by Democrats this year: 7 to 10
In Florida, number of congressional seats the Republican Party picked up under a voting map ordered by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) after he rejected a less extreme one drawn by the GOP-controlled legislature: 4
Year when Florida voters added an amendment to the state constitution to bar gerrymandering, which observers say DeSantis's congressional map likely violates: 2010
Month in which the Florida Supreme Court declined to rule DeSantis's gerrymandered voting map unconstitutional: 6/2022
Percent of the population that's Black in Florida's former 5th Congressional District, which had been represented by Black Democrat Al Lawson before the new map split it up and moved the parts into Republican districts: 46
The GOP's edge in Florida's congressional delegation under the previous congressional map: 16-11
The GOP's edge under DeSantis's map: 20-8
Date on which a federal court allowed a lawsuit challenging Florida's congressional map for diminishing Black power to move forward, though it removed DeSantis as a defendant by reasoning that governors do not directly enforce the map: 11/8/2022
The new congressional delegation party split in North Carolina, where court-ordered districts replaced a map drawn by the Republican-controlled legislature that was expected to yield a 10-4 GOP advantage : 7-7
New Republican majority on the previously Democratic-controlled North Carolina Supreme Court, which could result in a 10-4 map in 2024: 5-2
(Click on figure to go to source.)
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Sue Sturgis
Sue is the editorial director of Facing South and the Institute for Southern Studies.