rationally BASED
Episode 40 | Missouri’s Map Fight and the Gerrymandering Arms Race
Midterms are around the corner. Democrats have a shot at the House and Senate. And the maps that will decide those races are being fought in courtrooms as much as in legislatures. Hosts Kathryn Johnson, Joshua Kleinfeld, and Ilan Wurman take on the gerrymandering arms race — and the deeper question underneath it: Should courts referee election maps, or does that hand too much power to judges who never have to face the voters? They start with Virginia, where Democrats tried to turn a 51 percent state into a 10–1 congressional map, then lost on a technicality. Then Texas and California: two states with 60–40 splits in 2024 but maps that look nothing alike. Josh argues that partisan gerrymandering is exactly the kind of attack on democratic machinery courts exist to stop — and that Rucho v. Common Cause was one of the Supreme Court’s great mistakes. Ilan disagrees on the merits: the Fourteenth Amendment protects civil rights, not political rights, and nothing in the Constitution forbids a political gerrymander. Then the Missouri firestorm. Republicans passed a new congressional map. Democrats put it to a referendum. State and federal courts issued conflicting orders to the same official. The U.S. Supreme Court stepped in three times — on the shadow docket — and Missouri will go to the midterms with the old, more Democratic-friendly map. The hosts ask who was right, what the Purcell principle actually requires, and why the Left’s sudden silence about the “shadow docket” is so revealing. This is the rational — and based — discussion of gerrymandering, judicial power, and election maps you won’t hear anywhere else. Be sure to LIKE, SHARE, COMMENT, and SUBSCRIBE to rationally BASED! Subscribe to our Substack! New Podcast Episodes every Thursday morning, find us on Spotify , Apple Podcasts , or on YouTube ! Follow us on social media on Instagram , X , Facebook , and TikTok !
