Tim Pool analyzes the Louisiana v. Calais Supreme Court ruling, which bans racial gerrymanders and threatens to flip 12 Democratic seats in Texas, Virginia, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina. He argues this "nuclear bomb" could shift the House by 24 seats toward Republicans mid-decade, despite his personal opposition to race-based districts. While criticizing Democrats for extreme gerrymandering in Fairfax County and Illinois, Pool suggests the decision exposes structural racism while potentially securing a permanent Republican majority in Congress. [Automatically generated summary]
Ladies and gentlemen, the Supreme Court has just dropped a nuclear bomb on politics in this country with a landmark ruling on the Voter Rights Act, essentially saying the Southern states, the Republican states, don't need to have forced racial gerrymandering.
In fact, in some instances, they actually have to get rid of them.
If the Republicans decide to take this ruling to heart and now, under this pretext, Redraw their maps, it will remove 12 Democrat seats and boost the Republicans' 12 seats in Congress, creating what appears to be a near permanent majority for the Republican Party, which is why I'm pretty sure they're not going to do it.
But anyway, opinions aside, the crux of this has to do with the fact that for a long time, there have been congressional districts in Southern states made specifically based on race.
They're calling them majority minority districts.
And the argument was if you got a bunch of black people in the state, they deserve to have their own representative based on nothing but their race.
And I think that's just plum nuts.
To create members of Congress whose sole or principal issue is their race is to create permanent structural racism in this country.
Now, the left argues.
That black people have interests based on race because of historical inequities, and thus they should get their own congressional districts where they can elect who they think will represent them better.
Now, perhaps that made sense a long time ago.
And this is something the Supreme Court actually brought up.
Perhaps there should have been a sunsetting.
Perhaps it should have been that over time, these provisions become weaker.
Now, the interesting thing Alito, writing for the majority, did not say they should throw out.
The Voting Rights Act, but that there are certain ways it must be addressed.
With some conservative commentators saying, brilliant move.
It actually allows conservatives to use the VRA to their advantage to argue they can now redraw all their maps.
That is, my friends, as the liberals were complaining, Trump told Texas to redraw their maps now, mid decade, to give the Republican Party an advantage.
So they did.
Democrats said we can play ball.
The only issue is the reason Trump told them to do it is because Democrats already did.
In New England, for instance, where you've got 30 to 40% Republican, you have almost no representation.
In Illinois, they create these thin strips that make no sense as congressional districts just to make sure they can get a majority Democrat district.
Now, I'm not going to sit here and defend Republicans mid decade redistricting.
At the very least, you can argue Democrats, I'm sorry, Republicans mid decade, I said Democrats, Republicans mid decade.
You can argue Democrats have weird gerrymandered districts, but at least everybody waited till the census to make these changes.
However, it created permanent political control in some of these states.
California responds by drawing up ridiculous maps to ice out Republicans.
Florida is now responding.
So you know what?
Maybe Hakeem Jeffries is right.
Maximum warfare.
That's what he called it.
In Virginia, I'm going to tell you the issue I take with Democrats.
I'm going to tell you they have historically gerrymandered in ridiculous ways.
And in Virginia, they're trying to put Five congressional districts in Fairfax County, which I find offensive.
Now, I don't live in Virginia, but as someone who lives in the tri state, I go to Virginia every single day.
Okay, not literally, actually, yeah, maybe every single day.
I go there for donuts.
Not literally because I don't eat donuts, but the Dunkin' Donuts is on the other side.
And we live on the border in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia.
So Virginia is a common place for us to go.
We eat there quite a bit.
Got great restaurants, by the way.
And now they are affecting these districts where some of our crew actually lives and taking away their representation and making it all Democrat with tricks.
You can argue that Texas should not have redistricted.
But what Texas did was they basically said, we've seen a major population shift.
So we're going to redraw the maps.
Light red areas became dark red.
And what this did was it made Republican districts less competitive, meaning even if the polls swing towards Democrat, they were giving themselves an advantage.
It wasn't a guarantee, but by all means, argue it was dirty.
That's fine.
I don't think they should have done it, but I understand the idea of political warfare.
Well, Democrats struck back tenfold.
And now, if Republicans decide to play ball, it is going to be the most insane of midterm elections.
But let me just wrap in one point on this one, my friends.
The Republican Party, the midterms, they're now in play.
And I'm taking a look at these prediction markets, and they are not factoring in this news.
I actually believe right now, right now, there's a strong probability Republicans win for one simple reason that all of these red states in the South can redistrict based on this ruling.
Let's just call it the gates of hell being unleashed, my friends.
You may be in favor of it, that's fine.
But let's break down the news.
Before we do, of course, you guys got to go to timcast.com.
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They met in the Discord and they married each other.
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Join, support the work we do, get involved, and you can find love.
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Here's the news from The Guardian U.S. Supreme Court rules Louisiana must redraw its congressional map in landmark case.
Now, already, this is a major boon for Republicans.
Let me show you this right here.
Greg Price says Louisiana v. Calais did not strike down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act entirely.
It ruled that it's unconstitutional to draw majority black congressional districts that look like this one on the sole basis of race.
In fact, There are two here, the sixth district and the second.
But let me just say how psychotic this district is.
Seriously, in order for them to have a race based congressional district, they had to draw it in this very strange way.
Now, I say shenanigans.
I agree, that should not be allowed.
In this, from SCOTUSWIRE, in a six to three vote, the Supreme Court strikes down Louisiana's new congressional map that added a second majority black district, holding that it constitutes a racial gerrymander.
The court narrows its previous interpretation of the Voting Rights Act.
This is massive.
Alito delivered the opinion to the court.
Thomas concurs.
Kagan dissents.
They say in today's Voting Rights Act ruling, the Supreme Court has fundamentally reshaped how courts apply Section 2 to voting maps, especially in relation to politics, making future Section 2 lawsuits extremely difficult to win.
This is massive news, my friends.
Will Chamberlain lays it down, saying this is the key passage in Louisiana v. Calais.
While not overturning Section 2 of the VRA, it construes it into near irrelevance.
All minority voters are entitled to is that the map jars not use race as a metric in drawing their maps.
No more majority minority districts.
I think that makes sense.
You cannot make a gerrymander to exclude a racial group.
You also can't make, well, I mean, that's just basically it.
Therefore, if you gerrymander to create a majority black district, that's unconstitutional.
As it should be and should have always been, The opinion says, if a districting map is produced by computer, as is generally the case today, we may think of all the parameters in the algorithm that the mapmaker uses.
One necessary parameter would be the number of districts required by law, and another would have to be a range of inter district population variations that is small enough to comply with the one person, one vote requirement.
The algorithm might then go on to lay out and assign priorities to whatever additional permissible criteria the legislature chooses to use.
For example, the legislature might want to minimize changes in the prior map, avoid districts with discontiguous territory, and avoid splitting counties or municipalities.
It might impose a certain standard of compactness, aim to protect some or all incumbents, or promote the prospects of a particular political party.
When this algorithm is used, the map it produces may place a particular voter or group of voters in a district in which a majority generally agrees, generally disagrees, or only sometimes agrees with their voting preferences.
But in any event, The opportunity of these members of the electorate to contribute their votes to a winning cause is whatever opportunity results from the application of the state's combination of permissible criteria.
That is what a randomly selected individual voter and group of voters can expect regarding their opportunity to elect a preferred candidate.
And under Section 2, a minority voter is entitled to nothing less and nothing more.
Just that one sentence.
Just because of your racial breakdown, you do not get special treatment.
What's going to happen is there's going to immediately be lawsuits in these states filed by hundreds of parties arguing that race based gerrymandering is illegal, is unconstitutional.
And thus, when it goes to the courts and they instantly cite the Supreme Court, lower courts can have no argument.
It's been decided.
In which case, the states could actually just say, nope, we're not fighting it.
We agree.
The Supreme Court has laid this down.
The attorneys general.
Of these states, when faced with these lawsuits, may just say, based on our opinion from the Supreme Court ruling, the merit in this is unquestionable, and we therefore accept terms and move towards remedy.
In which case, if they so choose, it will be a finger snap.
These states will then say, We apologize, but we have no choice.
The Supreme Court issued the ruling, and these racial gerrymandered districts cannot be allowed to persist.
Thus, we have no choice but to right now redistrict.
On the fly.
Now, I'm going to tell you why I'm in favor of this because I know there's going to be a bunch of libs being like, Tim, you're complaining about Virginia the whole time.
Well, I'm not a big fan of redistricting.
Mid-decade redistricting, I'm not a big fan of it.
I'm not a big fan of gerrymandering.
However, what we are looking at right now is, as King Jeffries said, total warfare.
Total warfare.
On principle, I would say there should have never been race-based districts.
That I am happy with.
The fact that they said no more of this.
But I will agree.
The idea that mid-decade we're doing all this redistricting, I think, is a very, very bad thing.
But who am I?
Honest question.
Because as much as I have tried to maintain a structure of principle, we are beset on all sides by evil, by vile, narcissistic, and selfish behavior.
And if Hakeem Jeffries says, I don't give a damn, well, my friends, if there's a man outside my house pointing a gun at me, I can sit here and maintain my principles all day saying, I do not want violence.
I do not want to shoot anybody.
But when we ask this man, please put your gun down, and he says, No, it's time for maximum warfare, I don't give a damn.
You know, I got to be honest.
I want to be careful in how they say this, but if someone pointed a weapon at you and said, Maximum warfare, pulled the hammer back, I mean, it's clear cut self defense at that point.
So again, I'm not going to absolve Texas of their responsibility.
They make their arguments for why they're redistricting.
Virginia is doing it in direct response to Texas.
But there's a lot of arguments people are going to make.
I'm just going to say this the war has started.
And if Democrats want to pull the shenanigans they did in Virginia, which directly affects me, maybe indirectly affects me because I don't live in Virginia, but I'm literally three minutes away, but we have staff who do live in these districts, well, that pisses me off.
And they're lying about it.
Now, we've got an interesting conundrum.
The guys of, let's call it officiality, I suppose.
These Republican states have to redistrict now.
It's not a question of choice.
The Supreme Court issued their mandate, right?
The ruling is clear.
Here's Hakeem Jeffries.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Monday fiercely defended his use of the phrase maximum warfare.
After Virginia's narrowly voted last week to approve a new map that would give Democrats a 10 to 1 majority, He said, We are in an era of maximum warfare everywhere all the time.
And the best part, they still won't get anything done.
So, good luck, my friends.
Let's take a look.
Let me show you some stuff.
Mark Elias, prominent Democrat legal dude, says today's VRA decision is intellectually dishonest and wrong.
The conservatives basically said black people can vote for their preferred candidates as long as they prefer the right candidates, which will be Republicans, an absolute mockery of the law and stain on the court.
That's actually not at all what they said.
They said, you can't draw a map to exclude certain races.
If there is a minority population, the color of their skin is immaterial to political arguments.
The idea that we must give special access politically because a group of people have a different color skin is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of in my life.
Sorry.
I throw it to affirmative action.
Democrats love it.
And I say to these people, okay, that little Asian kid, right?
He's from Detroit.
Family's not wealthy.
I want you to be the one to go to him, eight years old, and say, you can't go to Harvard because you look too much like those people.
If you were to take like Framingham and connect it to these and make the same district that you got with a 13th in Illinois, you'd create a Republican district.
But they do it intentionally.
It is one big game.
And they're going to act like it's only Republicans that are playing this game.
Okay, well, look, I'll be honest, which is okay.
Texas decided to redistrict mid-decade.
The war began.
The argument is from Hakeem Jeffries: maximum warfare.
What Texas does has no bearing on whether or not you should strip the voices of people in Virginia.
You may not like what Texas did, but saying you will remove the right of Republicans, half the state of Virginia is Republican, you would remove their right to speech is fascistic.
Thank you and have a nice day.
Say the same thing in Texas, by all means.
They're all fascists.
That's fine, but you are too.
So if you're on maximum warfare, you get it.
Now, here's where it gets funny.
First, I'll just point out this the prediction markets have not adapted to this.
This is a landmark ruling.
And right now, Republicans have jumped for control of the House and Senate by one point.
Now, look, I'm not telling you what to do in terms of betting markets.
I'm just saying, a landmark ruling which would require all of these states to redistrict, not an argument they might require them to.
Republicans are going to have way more red districts.
That's just it.
Good luck.
So I'm actually surprised that Kalshi hasn't adapted to this.
You know, we've got Republican House and Republican Senate only went up by a single point since this ruling, and Democrat House and Republican Senate only went down a little bit.
I'm actually really, really surprised by that because the expectation is with this change, if the Southern states redistrict, adding 12, removing 12 from Democrats, adding 12 Republicans, it's a 24 seat swing.
Democrats lose 12, Republicans gain 12.
It's not like you got Democrats and Republicans and Republicans go up 12.
And when you factor in this news, which is probably copium, Harvard Harris, Harris X, did a poll and found in the generic congressional ballot, Democrats and Republicans are now tied.
I don't believe it.
It's a single poll, and the markets didn't react to it.
However, Decision Desk says Democrats are still underdogs in the Senate.
I mean, this is actually pretty wild, if you ask me.
Let's jump to 270 to win and go to the Senate map and take a look where we are.
Democrats are underdogs.
There's four toss ups and 50 Republican guarantees.
Meaning, with JD Vance, even if they lose every toss up state, they still have the Senate.
I don't see how Democrats can win.
When we jump to the House interactive map, it's interesting.
Democrats have an advantage right now 215 to 202, but 18 toss ups.
If Republicans lose every toss up, it is bad.
Democrats have a massive majority in the House.
However, Let's go down to Virginia.
I love this.
It looks like they've changed Virginia.
Actually, did they actually change it?
They did.
Currently, the map 270 to win is using is the new map which has been barred by the court so far.
You can see it's got five districts in one area, and there's the lobster.
So let's fix this.
Let's assume this is.
Can we change this actually?
Is there a way to change it back to the old map?
It's very weird that they changed the map considering.
So here's what we're going to do for Virginia.
There should be five red and six blue.
So we're just going to change some to red to get the current makeup.
It doesn't necessarily matter which ones we choose.
Right now, if you don't allow the change in Virginia, what do you get?
206 Republican, 211 Democrat.
And now.
You've got 18 toss ups only slightly favoring Democrats.
We're going to eliminate this district, these two here, these gerrymandered districts in Louisiana, because of the Supreme Court ruling, turning it pure red, and now it's a dead heat.
Based on the current legal standing we have right now with Louisiana and with Virginia, it's 209 Democrat to 208 Republican, creating a pure toss up.
With the latest poll from Harvard Harris X, We have no idea who's going to win.
Factor in the previous polls, Trump unfavorability, things like that.
I'm still betting on Democrats to take this one.
But let's play this game.
Let's say we go the way that new map is going to go and we eliminate the gerrymandered racial districts in other states, which is basically all of them.
To be fair, there should be at least one that's blue in these areas.
So based on the newly drawn maps after the ruling from the Supreme Court, it's 202 Democrat to 215 Republican.
Let me just say, wow, that's if they do it.
As of right now, now, again, don't get me wrong.
Virginia may actually end up winning this one, in which case, we're going to have to eliminate all of these.
Oh, I'm sorry.
There was a toss up there.
That's not right.
Let's eliminate these red districts in Virginia.
And then it's 205 to 213 still.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
There should be one less Republican in that, two less.
Way off, way off.
There you go.
That's the proper Virginia mat.
207 to 211, giving Republicans a slight edge.
It's a toss up, ladies and gentlemen.
Right now, if the South does say, well, the Supreme Court ruled they got to change these maps and they eliminate most, it's going to be a toss up for Republicans.