When Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Department’s top civil-rights attorney, sent a letter this summer telling Texas officials that their congressional map was unconstitutional, it set off a nationwide battle between the political parties to gain an edge in next year’s elections by redrawing their House districts.
This past week, that letter created major legal problems for Republicans and a setback for the Trump administration.
Dhillon’s warning to Texas was the central evidence a federal court cited in blocking a House district map that could have yielded Republicans as many as five additional seats. The result: President Trump’s push to protect his party’s House majority through gerrymandering is now at risk of costing the GOP seats, rather than producing a net gain.
The Texas ruling left the White House working to shore up the firewall it has been trying to build to ensure that Democrats are unable to gain control of the House, where Republicans currently hold a narrow, six-seat majority, with three seats vacant. With four GOP-led states already putting maps in place that are more Republican-friendly, the White House is pushing Indiana, Florida and other states to follow suit, aware that a Democratic-led House would stymie the president’s agenda in Congress and possibly impeach him.
Late Friday, the administration got good news as Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito issued a temporary pause on the lower-court ruling, restoring the contested map for now. Alito, the justice who handles emergency appeals from Texas, ordered the groups that challenged the map to respond by Monday.
Still, the Dhillon letter “was clearly an unforced error,” said Jacob Rubashkin, an editor at Inside Elections, a nonpartisan newsletter….
“Marjorie Taylor Greene is resigning. Here’s what to know about her five years in Congress”
AP News reports Marjorie Taylor Greene is resigning her office to spare her district an ugly primary fight after her fall from Trump’s grace. The Atlanta-Journal Constitution quotes the resignation speech at greater length:
“She said both parties had failed the American people, and she was no longer interested in playing the game as a member of the U.S. House unable to ‘stop Washington’s machine from gradually destroying our country.’ Instead, Greene said, common Americans possess the real power, and once they realize it, ‘I’ll be here by their side to rebuild it.’”
UPDATE: Justice Alito Grants Administrative Stay: Texas Files Emergency Supreme Court Motion to Stay District Court Order Throwing Out 2026 Gerrymandered Maps for Congressional Elections; Justice Alito Asks for Response by Monday at 5 pm ET: What Should We Expect at SCOTUS and When?
The State of Texas, as expected, has filed an application for a stay at the Supreme Court of the 2-1 racial gerrymandering decision issued earlier this week (over a fiery dissent by Judge Smith). Justice Alito has already requested a response by 5 pm Monday and will almost certainly refer the question to the entire court.
Also as expected, Texas makes two primary arguments: first, this case comes too late under Purcell, with candidates filing for office under the 2026 lines now and the filing deadline coming December 8. If the Supreme Court does not intervene, it’s possible the timing of Texas primaries could be pushed back. The second argument is that this was all about politics to help Republicans, not race, and therefore the Texas legislature did not have the intent to do a racial gerrymander.
If I had to bet, I think the Court will likely put the district court ruling on ice, for three reasons. First, the election season is already underway, and the Court in cases like Milligan put the lower court ruling on hold when the election was even further away. Second, there’s a fair chance a majority of Justices see this as politics, not race, that predominates. Third, Judge Smith’s dissent may convince some of the more conservative justices that the majority did not give the dissent a chance to make a fair case, and that the ruling was rushed and should be reversed.
I also think we will hear something soon, maybe even before Thanksgiving.
Nothing is for certain, of course. And if the Texas ruling comes too late for the 2026 elections, this could well be true for the California maps enacted via Prop. 50 that are a Democratic gerrymander, which has been challenged by California Republicans.
Stay tuned.
UPDATE: Justice Alito, not unsurprisingly, has granted an administrative stay, which keeps the 2026 maps in place until the full court can decide what to do on the request for a stay. I would not read too much into it on the merits, but as I said above, I think there’s a good chance of a stay being issued when the full court considers the case.
Rebecca Green, “Administering Election Disputes”
Greetings, I’m honored to join the roster of contributors here at ELB. I’ve long been a fan. Normally I forward my new scholarship to Rick to post. Flush with newfound power, here’s my latest (full draft posted on SSRN, abstract below):
U.S. election administration has become supercharged with controversy. A process that should be mundane—casting and counting votes—has become the target of relentless litigation, much of which ends in non-merits rulings that perpetuate rather than resolve public concerns. The high volume of election litigation is costly, strains election officials, and risks eroding public trust in both elections and the courts. Recognizing the need to resolve election claims fairly and efficiently, Administering Election Disputes examines administrative remedies as an under-theorized alternative to judicial resolution. Increased use of well-designed administrative election dispute resolution (AEDR) processes could reduce pressure on courts, deliver faster and more durable remedies, and cost far less. The article begins by explaining why many election disputes are ill-suited for judicial resolution. Through the lens of largely overlooked state administrative complaint procedures mandated by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), it then catalogues state HAVA AEDR models. After noting drawbacks of AEDR and procedural hurdles that deter its use, it closes by identifying five core design features necessary for AEDR to serve as a credible alternative to litigation. While AEDR cannot cure the deep dysfunction of post-2020 election conflict, Administering Election Disputes offers a practical, off-the-shelf framework to channel and contain it.
“How billionaires took over American politics”
Washington Post offers a long profile and striking charts along with a second article that maps who the top 20 most politically influential billionaires are. The thesis and argument are short and sweet and, of course, there are great graphics.
“The concentration of wealth among the richest Americans is unlike anything in history — and so is billionaires’ influence in politics.”
And sometimes, despite their wealth, they still don’t get what they want: Zohran Mamdani’s defeat in NYC–showing once more that political organization can be an important counterweight to money in politics. Still we should be concerned:
“[A]t least 17 billionaires, collectively worth more than $1 trillion, claimed coveted seats in the Capitol Rotunda” on Inauguration Day. “The three richest men in the world — Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos (who owns The Washington Post) and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg — took places of honor next to Trump’s family.”
“Billionaires didn’t acquire their influence in D.C. overnight.” Presidents from Bill Clinton to Barak Obama courted them.
Still, “Trump’s Cabinet is the wealthiest in U.S. history, with a combined net worth of $7.5 billion, according to Forbes. That’s more than double the $3.2 billion net worth of Trump’s first Cabinet and 64 times the combined wealth held by Biden’s Cabinet.”
“Advisory Proxy Resolutions Are More Important than Ever”
Karl Sandstrom, Senior Advisor to the Center for Political Accountability and a former member of the Federal Election Commission, and Bruce Freed, President of the Center for Political Accountability, have released this short statement in response to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman, Paul Atkins’s recent push to eliminate advisory proxy resolutions that seek to discipline corporate political spending and preserve board oversight.
A Reply to Rick Pildes on Proposition 50 and Voters’ Intent to Engage in a Racial Gerrymander
Rick Pildes has a characteristically thoughtful post responding to my Slate piece with Matthew Cooke arguing that when the three-judge court assesses whether California voters approved a racial gerrymander, we need to consider the voters’ intent, not the intent of… Continue reading
“Uncharitable Think Tanks”
Faith Stevelman has written this paper for the FIU Law Review, on the intersection of tax law and lobbying/policy advocacy.
“Black Residents in West Tennessee Just Won Fairer Districts. Now Comes SCOTUS”
New article from Bolts Magazine reporting on what the likely demise of the Voting Right Act could mean for local governments — specifically in the context of a battle for Black voting power in a rural county in west Tennessee.… Continue reading
“Republicans’ Redistricting Push Is at Risk of Backfiring”
Nate Cohn for the Tilt at the N.Y. Times focuses on the “series of setbacks for the G.O.P. [that] leave[] an unlikely opening for Democrats to narrowly win this year’s redistricting wars.
” . . . .[I]t’s worth being cautious… Continue reading
“Voting rights groups ask federal judges to block new gerrymandered NC congressional districts”
NC Newsline’s the Pulse reports on oral arguments yesterday before a federal three-judge panel in Winston-Salem, NC, with respect to the NAACP and Common Cause’s challenge to the newly drawn congressional districts for eastern and northeastern North Carolina–the ones Republicans… Continue reading
2024 PlanScore data
PlanScore has been updated to include 2024 partisan fairness scores for state house and state senate plans nationwide. Also coming soon will be an aggregate evaluation of the U.S. House — both current, incorporating ongoing re-redistricting nationwide, and historical for… Continue reading
“Attorney general’s edits to constitutional initiative went too far, Montana Supreme Court rules”
AP News: Montana Supreme Court, over two dissents, sided with Montanans for Nonpartisan Courts, finding that the Montana Attorney General “went too far in editing ballot language for an initiative calling for nonpartisan court elections.” Earlier coverage of the issue… Continue reading
“As Trump plans backfire, Democrats are ahead in House redistricting fight”
From the Washington Post. My own view is that this is a quintessential example of counting one’s chickens before they hatch–in this case, radioactive chickens that threaten a foundational democratic norm against entrenchment.
Nevertheless, because many will be… Continue reading