By BRIAN CRAWFORD
Texas, on the command of Donald Trump, fashioned a new congressional map with the intent of gaining five additional seats to secure the Republican Party’s majority in the House of Representatives. Republican legislatures already envision permanent majorities in their states—why not in Congress? In response, governors in Democratic states, most notably California, are responding in kind. The process of drawing congressional districts to favor one’s own political party is called “gerrymandering.” It has been used by both political parties since the 19th century, and often Black political power is its casualty.
From Reconstruction to the present, African Americans have been engaged in a perpetual struggle for the franchise and the political power implied by its possession. While the ballot is fundamental to democracy, it has never been the main instrument of political power for Black people in U.S. history.
In order to possess the franchise, you must wage a battle against the state. From its inception the United States of America has engaged in all manner of manipulations, legal and extralegal, to prevent Black people from voting.
Reconstruction was a moment with revolutionary potential. It offered full rights of citizenship after abolition. But the promise of the period was squandered to reconcile with the former slaveholders. The 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, was one of the three amendments to the Constitution addressing the conditions of the freed slaves. Section 1 states: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” But laws are reduced to ink on a page without enforcement. In the former slave states, not only were the laws not enforced, but the opposite was true. The Old Confederacy violated the letter of the 15th Amendment using various methods, including gerrymandering.
The process of redrawing districts is generally conducted every 10 years in accordance with the census. The process varies by state. In some states an independent commission is in charge while in others it is left to the legislature, which often has partisan intentions. Gerrymandering usually involves either “cracking”—splitting one or more Black districts and incorporating them into majority white districts—or “packing”—consolidating multiple Black districts. In both cases, the intent is to reduce Black influence in the electoral process.
The 1965 Voting Rights Act was a defense against gerrymandering, but in 2013, the Supreme Court removed federal oversight, which allows states with a long history of racial discrimination to redraw congressional districts to their liking. Some states’ minority populations have significantly increased, yet congressional districts do not reflect this change. Texas is a case in point. Districts as drawn do not represent the increase in the Latino population. Meanwhile, two Black districts disappeared with the most recent version of the congressional map.
In the meantime, in Louisiana v. Calas, a case that the Supreme Court heard on Oct. 15, the justices will decide the constitutionality of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. As Leah Litman writes in The Guardian, the Supreme Court “is being asked to find section two illegal—to say that considering political equality is a kind of discrimination. The argument is that prohibiting legislatures from discriminating against Black voters, by denying them political opportunities, actually discriminates against white voters.”
What is to be decided is whether race can be considered in drawing congressional districts even in cases to address racial discrimination. In the Southern states, gerrymandering for party advantage is synonymous in practice with dilution of Black political power. Steve Menendian in “Race, Racism and the Law,” writes: “Racial gerrymanders are subject to strict scrutiny judicial review whereas partisan political gerrymanders are not subject to judicial review whatsoever.”
States that wish to limit Black political power through the electoral process can simply argue that their intent is partisan and not racial. In essence, the legal arguments rests on how to rig an election legally. The Supreme Court in a ruling in 2019 washed its hands of the issue of partisan-motivated gerrymandering. While agreeing it was undemocratic, the highest court in the land decided it was not an issue for the court to decide.
The California response has been to counter Texas’s gerrymandering with its own. Proposition 50 would redraw congressional districts ahead of the 2026 mid-term election, overruling the commission designated for the process. The new districts would be in effect until the next census in 2030. The proposition that will appear on the November ballot would ask Congress to amend the Constitution to institute independent commissions to oversee redistricting. In their feckless efforts to inspire their base, the Democratic Party is once again mimicking the GOP. If you can’t beat them, join them! A history of rightward turns to compete with the Republican Party is the history of the last 40 years. In the heat of battle, Republicans and Democrats are seeking to entrench their majorities.
Should these efforts succeed, fewer congressional districts will be competitive. According to Fair Vote, 81% of the 2026 congressional election has already been decided. Further gerrymandering increases the number of uncompetitive districts. It will hardly revive the fortunes of the Democratic Party.
For the Democrats, postmortems of the 2024 election continue. What were the causes of its death? How can it avoid repeating this? How can the party be resurrected? But opportunism is a malady with no cure. The Democratic Party has no program for the working class. Its efforts are expended soliciting votes from its otherwise neglected base, paying consultants millions and chasing after Republican votes.
As a party whose benefactors are billionaires that expect their interests to come first, but which portrays itself as the “party of the people,” it must try to reconcile this contradiction. The problem is that it can’t be reconciled. Millions of people have abandoned the party because they realize the party is disingenuous, two-faced, and has no program to alleviate their misery. Thus, rather than producing a program for the working class (we should not expect one from either party), the Democrats are engaged in a fruitless battle over gerrymandering.
Rather than ingesting the poisoned promises of politicians, we must free ourselves. The precedent has been set in the history of African American struggle; we begin and the masses follow. So must it be again within this period of right-wing consolidation of power. While the Democrats and Republicans engage in dueling election rigging, we will bring together the masses. The working class is the only agent of change. We are the answer—multiracial and independent.
