Texas Democrats have relocated the fight to Illinois and New York, building a public case that this redistricting crisis isn’t a local quirk but a dawning national crisis. At stake, they’re arguing, is whether the rules can be rewritten state by state to manufacture Republican majorities in Washington. So far, national Democrats are taking the crisis seriously, but it’s unclear how they will respond. Will we descend into a tit-for-tat redistricting war between red states and blue states with high-profile partisans like Donald Trump and Gavin Newsom as their proxies? Or will we move toward a system buttressed by pro-democracy interventions like independent redistricting boards? The outcome depends greatly on how organizations, labor unions, and regular people organize at this moment.
The labor movement seems to recognize both the opportunity and the responsibility inherent in the current crisis. State AFL-CIO bodies from Texas to California to New York released a joint statement calling the Republican coup what it is: a coordinated attempt to disempower working people. Other labor unions have rightly joined in, claiming the redistricting fight as a working-class fight. Grassroots groups, meanwhile, have begun to stage protests outside of the Texas State Capitol in support of the Democratic walkout.
If the quorum break fizzles and becomes memory instead of momentum, Republicans will only be emboldened to escalate their strategy, and our country will race closer to full-on authoritarianism. But if students, workers, tenants, and local organizers join in to name redistricting as their fight too, that will keep the pressure on. Right now, this issue is strictly an electoral standoff. We need to bring it down to the ground level, generalizing the popular understanding that our democratic rights and working-class power are at stake.
Its never been a better time to move to a better system of voting… ranked choice, or even better options…
Need to get rid of this stupid system that had empowered terrible people for decades just because otherwise it wouldn’t be fair that one side would always win.
Fuck this convoluted system…
Opening move? The coup has already happened. The fix is in. This is an occupation. Opening move? We’re at the fucking starting line still they mean.
The Democrats first moves, yes.
That the Republicans already made a bunch of moves…
The real first moves the Democrats did was to move their pawns out of the path of their king, basically letting Republicans move to “checkmate” without a fight.
The 2024 takeover plan is complete and Project 2025 is well underway, but I’d argue these are the first concrete actions within the plan to cancel the 2026 midterm elections and 2028 general.
To be clear: for now, the entire concept of fair redistricting needs to be categorically disregarded.
The Tribunal of Six has decided that playing overtly political gerrymandering fucky-fuck games is a-okay. Until and unless the practice of gerrymandering is declared wholly illegal, it MUST (and I mean the RFC-2119 definition of “MUST”) be used as a standard tactic by the Democratic Party at a national level.
They’ve refused to level the playing field for fucking decades, and that’s a big part of how we got here. Anything less is frankly gross negligence - or, an admission that they are wholly subordinate to the Republican party.
If there’s one thing that’ll get gerrymandering outlawed, it’s Democrats doing it at scale. I support it
And that is the entire point of the strategy that I’m describing. If it’s “allowed”, then just fucking do it. If everyone agrees it’s illegal, then nobody can do it.
Would’ve been nice if they fucking acted like this in 2010 when republicans did it the first time and actually started the coup. God I hate it here.
I’m wary of the hype over this gambit because it’s been tried several times in the recent past and has always ended with a few key legislators caving and returning to the capitol for no real concessions. Hopefully they realize that people are not in the mood for token resistance (and Abbott’s threats against them will steel their spines).
If Democrats didn’t heavily rely on jerrymandering to maintain control of blue states’ legislatures and seats in the House, they’d have a leg to stand on.
Interesting move for the Democrats. Where was the will to take direct action like this six months ago when it would have mattered?
I mean, where was the willpower of voters/nonvoters 9 months ago when it mattered?
These are local Democrats, not federal ones
Of course.
So like… Two different groups of people.
These ones actually acted when the moment came, they have no control over what happens in Washington
We should be praising them. They did their damn jobs, and we should wildly gesture to them when the fuckers in Washington whine about not having the numbers to do anything
Or will we move toward a system buttressed by pro-democracy interventions like independent redistricting boards?
HAAAA HAHAHA
Oh man, that’s a funny joke.
I want this person’s drugs.It happened here in Michigan a few years ago. It took a ballot initiative, but it’s made a positive difference - it broke the Republican gerrymandered grip on the legislature
Unfortunately, ballot initiatives are literally not a thing in Texas. The change would have to come from either the Texas legislature itself or a sweeping law at the national level. Good fucking luck with either of those solutions.
Oof, that sucks. Ballot initiatives have been huge for progressive victories. It’s how Michigan legalized cannabis and put abortion rights in the state constitution. It’s a shame they aren’t everywhere.
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Democrats have to tread carefully to avoid revealing to the slack jawed public that Democrats invented jerrymandering and have been doing it since 1812.
This was before the parties switched platforms, so it is not the slam dunk you think it is.
Same party. the “party switch” is a myth. The Democratic party of today is the same Democratic party of slavery, Jim Crow, and jerrymandering.
It’s not a myth, that’s just something Republicans say to blame their past doings on the Democrats of today lol.
The Democrats used to be the party of small government, and Republicans the party of big government. Refusing to believe history doesn’t make you any less wrong.
Also you keep misspelling “gerrymandering”. If you can’t even learn to spell it how do you expect people to believe you understand it?
It very much is a myth. The Dixiecrats didn’t become Republicans. They remained Democrats and mentored the next generation of Democrats. Al Gore Sr was a flaming racist and his son almost became president. Some like Robert Byrd acted like they were distancing themselves from Democrat hate groups like the KKK, but Byrd’s voting record still shows he clung to his racist ways by systematically voting against black appointments, especially non Democrat ones.
Also, you don’t found a new chapter of an organization you don’t believe in and Democrats still preach white supremacy. They merely call it “white privilege” now.
Continue being in denial all you want but the parties absolutely switched platforms. Everything else in your comment was a deflection from you being wrong about this point.
Both of yall stop slapfighting. You’re both arguing specific points that don’t necessarily contradict and there’s room for nuance on either side. Provide a source and remember the human.
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Democrats upset that Republicans are doing what Democrats have done since 1812, flee to blue, heavily jerrymandered states to cry foul.
And yet the irony is lost on most people.
Ahh yes, we all remember that time the Democratic president asked a state to gerrymander away some oppositional seats. /s
We also remember when Republicans fled Oregon to deny quorum. (This one is not sarcastic)
The Republicans walked away to prevent the Democrats from saddling their constituents with new taxes. I remember the Democrats losing their shit over it, calling them traitors, wanting them to be imprisoned and lose their seats.
Now that the shoe is on the other foot, the Democrats want to be upset about it.
