The Gerrymandering Deadline with Michael Li

This podcast is part of the Democracy Group.

Welcome to another episode of Another Way, the podcast produced by Equal Citizens. This is Adam Eichen, the executive Director of Equal Citizens. The movement to pass the for the People act is growing, and every day I get more encouraged that we will turn this historic Fair Elections bill into law. Think about it. In just the last few weeks, tens of thousands of Americans have taken action to pressure the Senate for the for the People Act. Hundreds have put their bodies on the line, risking arrest to push the ball forward. The media is covering the fight again, and as we heard from Jana Morgan, the director of the Declaration for American Democracy Coalition, Senate Democrats are working hard on a slave slight compromise bill that will unify the caucus and make it easier to pass through the Senate at least once the filibuster question is resolved. There is no roadblock that we cannot overcome. Well, that is, except time. What do I mean by that? As I've alluded to in my previous interviews, we do face a deadline for the for the People act to have the most impact. It must be passed before, or at least soon after, the Census Bureau releases precinct level data that states will use to redistrict congressional and state maps. Once that data is released, it will be significantly harder to rein in the worst gerrymandering practices this decade. Oh, and did I mention that that deadline is now this week, on August 12th? Don't despair, though. Like I said, I'm still extremely confident that we will win reform, including that which will put significant protections against the next round of gerrymandering. So to help break down what to expect from the upcoming redistricting cycle, how the for the People act would prevent extreme gerrymandering, and the consequences of this upcoming census deadline, I spoke to Michael Lee. Michael serves as the Senior Counsel for the Brennan Center's Democracy Program, where his work focuses on redistricting, voting rights, and elections. Prior to joining the Brennan Center, Lee practiced law at Baker Botts LLP in Dallas for 10 years. He was the author of a widely cited blog on redistricting and election law issues that the New York Times called indispensable. He is a regular writer and commentator on election law issues, appearing on PBS NewsHour, MSNBC and NPR, and in print in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Roll Call, Fox, National Journal, Texas Tribune, among many, many others. I sincerely hope you enjoy the interview, but above all, don't give up. Time may be short, but we have the people power to make the for the People act the law of the land.

Michael it's great to have you on the podcast.

Well, thanks for having me.

So you're an expert on gerrymandering, and I always have to ask a basic question to get us started, which is, what's gerrymandering? We've talked about this on the podcast before. We've had, you know, friend of the podcast, Dave Dalyon. But let's start us off here. What's gerrymandering, Michael? And why should we care about it?

So gerrymandering is the word that we use in America to describe the manipulation of electoral districts, either for partisan advantage or to discriminate against racial minorities, although it's most often used sort of in the political context. And, you know, it's something that has been with us since the very beginning of the republic. In fact, it predates the term gerrymandering, which comes from 1812. But, you know, even before 1812, you know, Patrick Henry of Give me liberty or Give me death fame was famous for that. But he also was governor of Virginia when the very first congressional map had to be created for Virginia. And he tried to have the map drawn in a way that a man named James Madison couldn't win an election to Congress. He was not successful. But even the founding generation engaged in the manipulation of districts. So it's something that's been with us a long time, although it is getting worse now because of data and technology. It's much easier now to draw maps that sort of are drawn with micro precision and that stick for the whole of the decade and really sort of of render elections meaningless.

Right. And the last round of redistricting in 2010 was particularly bad. Right. I mean, the maps that we had for the last decade were unbreakable.

Absolutely. The 2010 cycle of redistricting produced some of the most aggressive gerrymanders in the country's history. So you ended up with like a 103 map in North Carolina that had 10, a map that had 10 Republican seats, three Democratic seats in a state that's 50, 50. Pennsylvania, another 50, 50 state, was a 13, 5 map. Ohio, all decade long, it's been a 12, 4 Republican map. And these gerrymanders, for the most part, have stuck all decade. Now, Pennsylvania and North Carolina were redrawn because of state court litigation, but Pennsylvania or Ohio, rather, has stuck the whole of the decade.

Right. And as you said, a lot of this, and this is really what I think is really underreported, which is it really is this the rise of big data and just kind of the tools, the digital tools at Mapmakers disposal have kind of allowed for these maps to really be unbreakable, as we just said. So, okay, you know, Michael, if the last decade was bad, you know, again, assuming the legal status quo holds, no reform, just how bad is the upcoming round of gerrymandering going to be?

So when we look at the cycle that's about to start it two weeks or so when the data comes out from the Census Bureau, it really is a tale of two countries. A number of states that had really bad gerrymanders last decade look better now. So, like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania now have Democratic governors who can veto maps and send the maps into courts. There have been reforms in states like Michigan and Ohio where things look a little bit better now because Michigan in particular has created an independent commission. But on the other hand, if you look at the south, where Democrats tried to win a seat at the table in 2018 and 2020 and fell short both times, those maps will be drawn once again under single party Republican control. And the cycle there really looks very dark and ominous and really with, again, people of color, communities of color bearing the brunt, because it really is very hard to gerrymander in the south without targeting communities of color. Democrats in Texas and Georgia only get about 25, 28% of the white vote. And the problem with white Democrats is that they tend to live really close to white Republicans in the same neighborhoods and sometimes in the same houses. And so unless you're drawing a line down somebody's bed, it's really hard to sort of, like, do that much gerrymandering targeting white Democrats in the South. But because of residential segregation, it's much easier to pack together or break apart communities of color in order to move the partisan dial up or down. And, you know, so it really looks like a very dark cycle in those states. The four states in particular, Texas, you know, Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina, it's very conceivable that Republicans could easily gerrymander their way back to the House majority, not only in 2022, but for the whole of the decade.

Right.

So let's.

Let's dig into that a little bit. I mean, again, you know, this is a nonpartisan podcast. You work for the Brennan Center, a nonpartisan organization. Equal Citizens is a nonpartisan organization. But. But the political stakes here are, you know, as you just put that, the fate of, you know, who's going to control the people's House, the House of Representatives, as you said, will likely come down to aggressive gerrymandering, not about the will of the people, but essentially about which, like how politicians can essentially rig maps to ensure elections. I mean, is essentially that affair characterization of, you know, what could happen if reform, if we don't reform this, you know, broken system of redistricting.

Yeah, that's exactly right. John Adams, back at the founding of the country talked about how legislatures, how Congress should be an exact portrait, a miniature of the people as a whole. And the idea really being like, if your interests were at the table, so should you be. And when you have maps like a 103 map in North Carolina or a 124 map in Ohio that underrepresent one party versus the other, that isn't the case. Right. And it sort of results in real SKUs that are very anti democratic. And in many cases the result of the general election is predetermined. Basically the founding generation set up for us to have elections every two years because they thought as the mood of the people changes, so should the composition of Congress. But when you rig maps like this, there really isn't a need for elections every two years. Right.

And so the stakes are really high from a partisan perspective and certainly a small d Democratic perspective. But there's something I want to dig into a little bit, you know, before we get into the solutions to this problem. You recently penned an op ed in the Washington Post, and I wanted to read a small passage from it and ask you to explain, you know, a little bit about what you wrote because I think it's a really important point, you already alluded to it. So let me, let me read a little bit from, from this op ed and we'll link to it in the show notes. And so you wrote, most people of color in the country's metro areas now live in the suburbs rather than in traditional majority minority districts in inner cities. Here a new type of minority power has begun to emerge as multiracial coalitions have come together around cities such as Atlanta, Dallas and Houston. But these districts are not protected by the voting rights laws as interpreted by the Supreme Court and will likely be dismantled by partisan map drawers in redistricting. The damage will last a decade. Michael, can you tell me what you meant by that?

Sure. One of the new things that's happened in our country over the last 20 years or so is that most people of color who live in the metro areas now live in the suburbs rather than in the city. And even though there is still is segregation in the suburbs, people are no longer segregated into like district sized units. And so, you know, one of the requirements of voting rights law as interpreted by the Supreme Court is you have to show that you could draw a majority district. And that's like, really hard to do in the suburbs because, you know, it's a little bit more like Swiss cheese. Right. There are a lot of people of color, but they're, they're, they exist in patches. And so, you know, you have to draw districts that sort of aren't, are no longer compact, you know, and that another requirement of voting rights law. And so, you know, because of that, voting rights law doesn't really reach those areas. And so those areas are sort of vulnerable. Right. You know, and the, the way that voting rights law works today really was designed for a black, more black and white, literally a black and white world of 1965. It's not designed for the more multiracial world of today. And, you know, it can be really hard to use. So there are places like outside of Houston in the Texas 22nd congressional district where, you know, it's a very diverse, like heavily heavy Latino population, heavy South Asian population, heavy Vietnamese population. Those districts, you know, Democrats have really been very competitive and they didn't win it, but they came really close. And if those districts survived for another five years, at some point these multiracial coalitions that are emerging would win those districts. But because we have to redistrict, you know, Republican map makers can just kneecap that. Right. So the future of the country is multiracial and it's coalitional, but they will just come back and they will try to kneecap that and sort of set the political power of communities of color back a decade.

Right. So again, just to, you know, to make this really clear, that essentially because of demographic changes, some of the former protections that we had against the worst excesses of gerrymandering, especially cracking and packing certain communities of color, I mean, specifically, I guess in this case, cracking communities of color have gone somewhat out the window because, because of these demographic shifts. So this will be, you know, maybe not the first election, but it will be, you know, one of the first elections where you do have these kind of multiracial coalitions in the suburbs that, that it won't be quite as easy for courts to, to strike down maps that do, you know, cut up these communities like Swiss cheese. I mean, is that, is that kind of what you're suggesting here?

Yeah, that's absolutely right. You know, like, there are districts that Democrats either won using, you know, that multi racial coalitions either won or came close to winning in the suburbs of Atlanta, the suburbs of Dallas, the suburbs of Houston that could easily be dismantled now. Right. Because they're not majority black or majority Latino. They're, they're a hodgepodge of people. You know, for example, there's the Georgia 7th Congressional District, which is about 46% non white. Right. Almost majority non white, where multiracial coalitions have had a lot of success electing candidates at all levels of government. Yet because it's not majority black or majority Latino, majority Asian, it can easily be dismantled. And there's a perfect justification for it because of the Supreme Court's ruling in regional versus common cause, which says that you can, you can target people of a different political party. And so all map makers have to do is say we were trying to discriminate against Democrats at the fact that they're mostly people of color. Well, so be it. Right. But you Supreme Court have told us that it's perfectly fine to discriminate against people of a different political party, and that's all we're doing.

Yeah. And I want to dig into the fact that we can't sue in the federal courts anymore around gerrymandering a second. But before we get there, Michael, you know, beyond partisanship, why is it so detrimental to our democracy that lawmakers can, you know, turn areas with communities of color into Swiss cheese? Like, why does it matter from a kind of a small d. Democratic point of view that, you know, you can splice and dice communities of color into different districts? Like what, what value does, like do majority minority districts have or have traditionally had in our society?

Well, I'll go back to what John Adams said when he talked about how Congress should be an exact portrait, a miniature of the people as a whole. That sort of is the goal. And if you're sort of slicing and dicing in order to minimize the voices of people they're not able to elect candidates, then the result is that Congress doesn't resemble, it isn't an exact portrait of miniature of the people as a whole. But moreover, you're doing damage to sort of like, I do think it's important to say that gerrymandering damages both political parties, including the party that does it in this case, the Republicans. Right. Because the future of the country is multiracial. It's coalitional. Latinos and Asians combined will be a third of the population of the country by 2030. Right. In a different world. Right now, Republicans in many parts of the country are trying to deny that the, you know, this multiracial, you know, this emerging multiracial America, you know, pretend like it doesn't exist sort of do things to, to minimize its power. But if they, if you, if you had fairer drawn districts, they would have to reckon with that and they would have to figure out how to go compete for the votes of black voters and Latino voters and Asian voters. And you know, we saw in 2020, like there, there are appeals that Republicans, you know, these voters are open to more conservative messages and appeals. Right. And, you know, and so it's not as though Republicans would get completely shut out now. They would have to change some of their more sort of racist and, you know, xenophobic lines and things like that. But, but, you know, they would, they would, they would say, okay, we live in a multiracial world. We're going to go out and compete in for voters in a multiracial world. But right now they could just ignore it because of gerrymandering, kick the can down the road, essentially. So it sort of, you know, is damaging to, frankly, both parties.

I think that's exactly right, that, that beyond, you know, gerrymandering as a partisan issue, it does, when you draw districts that empower a often rural white vote, it does empower or allow for a certain xenophobia or racism to persist in American democracy. And so, you know, fair maps would potentially lead to a body politic that's more inclusive and welcoming of all groups and would bring us, I think, closer to a vision or a reality of a multiracial democracy in a way that we have not seen, or at least we've seen disappearing in the past 10 years. So I think that's a really, really great point. So, Michael, you know, that's all great and quite troubling, obviously, in terms of, you know, what the states have done to impact gerrymandering, to mitigate it. You know, what are some of the things that you've seen in states? And also you knew, again, you briefly mentioned this, but why, why can't we sue right now in the federal court? Can't we bring these cases to the Supreme Court? And obviously I asked that question knowing the answer, but I want to kind of have you answer that question about what happened to using the federal court system to try and rein in this egregious gerrymandering.

So there's good news and bad news about the war on gerrymandering. And the good news is that on several fronts, the war is going quite well. There have been a number of states that have passed redistricting reforms to strengthened and fixed the process, which was very broken. States like Michigan and Colorado created independent commissions, a number of states passed other types of reforms. There have been successes in litigating cases in state court and places like Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Likewise, you know, there is legislation, which we'll talk about in a minute, about moving through Congress that could help fix partisan jury bandering. But the bad news is that a lot of the reforms have come through ballot initiatives rather than through legislatures. Partisan lawmakers are oftentimes very hesitant to give up their power. And you don't have ballot initiatives everywhere, particularly east of the Mississippi. There are very few states that actually do allow for ballot initiatives. So it can be really hard to do reforms in much of the country. And likewise, the Supreme Court at the federal level has said that, you know, you know, partisan gerrymandering violates any number of constitutional norms. But you can't bring partisan gerrymandering claims in federal court because it is what they term a quote, unquote, political question, meaning that it's something for the political process to work out. And, you know, Chief Justice Roberts, in his opinion in Rucho v. Common cause in 2019, that said, all of that said, like, you know, it's really an issue for Congress and the states to fix. And so that is where a lot of the current focus is on, you know, on the states, but more particularly right now in Congress.

So, so again, you know, the, the reforms available on the state level have been, you know, around independent redistricting commissions, which, you know, we'll talk about a bit more on the federal level as well. But the idea of, like, taking power, you know, the power to draw maps out of the hands of the state lawmakers and into the hands of independent commissions, you know, other types of reforms. And as you said, you know, a lot of these reforms have been done on the ballot. I mean, I think about, you know, Mission, Michigan, especially, right with Katie Fahey, who we've had on this podcast before, and there has been a really, a tremendous movement in states to try and reform this process. But I think that what you just said about, you know, just how difficult it is to convince state lawmakers to give up their own power to draw the maps is really the operative thing here and will guide our conversation about why we need federal reform. Because state lawmakers, with the exception of Virginia, and maybe, maybe Michael, you can tell me that I'm, I'm wrong here. I can't think of another instance necessarily where lawmakers have actually kind of given up their power to draw maps. At least in the past couple years. Most of the reforms have been bypassing the legislature and via ballot initiative.

That's right. I mean, New Hampshire, they passed an advisory commission there, got vetoed by the governor. In Pennsylvania, there is bipartisan support for redistricting. Your forms there, the leadership hasn't brought it up to a vote, so even lawmakers are increasingly getting it. But, you know, there's also a lot of, of course, pushback in the political class and, you know, among elected officials, just sort of like changing too much of the process. So, so mostly it's been through ballot interest.

Right. So, so, you know, that, that brings us a little bit to, you know, the, there's probably a limit to how much reform we can do at the state level. You know, we're not there yet. There's still plenty of movement happening on, you know, in states. And, and there is, you know, we need the state level effort, especially because, you know, federal reform. And again, we'll talk about this can't necessarily affect the state level maps, which are often just as, if not more gerrymandered than the congressional district maps. You know, you think of like Wisconsin, Michigan, you know, those state level maps. So for like the state House and state Senate are, you know, truly unbreakable maps. I mean, I think of North Carolina too. You know, there's a limit to kind of what the federal government can do, you know, for those state maps. But again, you know, there's progress being made. It's very, it's increasingly clear that we do need federal reform at least if we're going to fix the House of Representatives, because these states are not going to, you know, take the, you know, give up their own power, especially if there's partisan advantage in places where the state maps are, you know, in this case, you know, in 2020, heavily skewed towards the Republicans. You know, the Republicans want to take control of the House. They're not going to give up their power to draw, you know, 13 to 5 maps in favor of the Republican Party. I mean, that's just the political calculus here for the congressional maps. So we need some sort of federal legislation to take that, to kind of forcibly take that power out of the hands of the state legislatures and giving it to independent commissions or at least having putting some sort of, you know, guidelines or some sort of restraints on what the state legislatures can do when drawing the congressional maps in 2021. So let's, let's move to the for the People act, which we've talked about many times on this podcast. In fact, this, we're devoting this little mini series to the for the People act as it reaches a crescendo. What protections does the for the People act have for gerrymandering for this upcoming round of gerrymandering? And why do these main components matter? Like, give us a rundown of of what's in the anti gerrymandering portion of the for the People Act.

So the the for the People act would be the most transformative piece of legislation passed about congressional redistricting in history. And it does a number of things. One is that it would ban partisan gerrymandering by statute. The Supreme Court has said that you can't bring partisan gerrymandering claims under the U.S. constitution in federal court. But Congress has the power under the elections clause to ban partisan gerrymandering as part of its ability to dictate how congressional districts are drawn. And so the for the People act would do that. It would also strengthen protections for communities of color, making clear that you can have coalition and crossover districts that would give communities of color new legal tools to fight gerrymandering. It also would impose transparency requirements on the process, which can be really critical. In Pennsylvania in 2011, Republicans held the map in secret until the day that it was to be heard in committee. Then they voted the bill out of they released the map, they voted the bill out of committee, and they voted it out of the Senate the same day. And so the public had almost no chance to review the map or comment on it. The newspapers didn't have a chance to run stories before the map had already passed the Senate. And so the for the People act would impose minimum transparency requirements, require states to make data available requirements, proceedings to be streamed online would allow people to make comments and submit their own map proposals. And then, you know, last but not least, it would change the way that cases get litigated. Right? Because right now, cases oftentimes get bogged out in court and, you know, and taxes. What court? Three years to decide a case about redistricting. And so it would speed up the process and even the playing field a lot. And I should add one other thing which there isn't time for this decade, which would be independent commissions. The HR one, as it's currently written, would create independent commissions. But independent commissions take about nine months to set up. And with the data coming out in a couple of weeks, there isn't time to set up a commission to draw maps this decade. That might be something that could be phased in for 20, 30 and years beyond. But even the things that I talked about before, independent commissions would be groundbreaking and lead to a Much fairer and better outcome.

Right. So you talked a little bit about the short deadline, and in the last episode I did, it was with Jana Morgan of the Declaration for American Democracy Coalition. And we spoke about just the urgency around this upcoming deadline. You're the perfect person to give us a little bit more, or rather to get a little bit more into the weeds about why this August 16th deadline is so important and really what it's all about. So can you tell us a little bit about what is the significance of August 16?

So on August 16, the Census Bureau will release the block level redistricting data that states need to produce maps. A few months ago, it produced the population totals for each state, but that only tells us how many people live in each state. It doesn't tell us where they live or anything about them, such as their age or ethnicity, which is information that you need to draw maps. And that data will now be released on August 16th. It will take the states a couple of weeks to process it, to put it in the precincts that they use to draw maps, but then it will be off to the races. And a number of states are expected to draw maps and pass them very quickly. 18 states have some deadline either this fall or early next year that will require them to draw maps. Another 14 states customarily draw maps in the year ending at 1. And so there's every indication that they will try to keep to that. So by the end of the year, most of the country will be done with redistricting. And so if Congress is going to step in and fix the process, the optimal time for it to do so would be now. Which is not to say that something couldn't be done later, but it becomes, first of all, less robust. Like, you can't obviously go back and tell states to have a minimum number of hearings or something like that after they've passed maps. Right. That would be good for states to know beforehand. On the other, at the same time, if you're going to have to litigate about maps, say like in January or February, that increases the likelihood that primaries and the like get moved and, you know, the election schedule gets a little bit disrupted. So to have the smoothest redistricting process and the smoothest 2022 elections possible, Congress really does need to act now or shortly after Labor Day at the very latest.

Right. So again, and that's why there's so much movement right now for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to cancel the recess to try and get the for the People act through the Senate to break the filibuster ASAP to get it before the census releases. These the numbers that will allow states to kind of officially start the process of gerrymandering or I guess in some places not German or but to redistrict. But can you talk a little bit about the kind of how every state does have a different timeline here? I'm not going to put you on the spot to tell me the deadlines that each state constitution outlines about when the maps have to be set in stone. But I mean, what kind of variation are we looking at? And do you expect any states to move within the first two weeks? I mean, you know, are, you know, are some states, you know, do you think that they already have kind of sample maps prepped by now that are ready to go to kind of, you know, start the process to gerrymander? I mean, you think of, you know, your home state of Texas, you know, we know that the Texas lawmakers have a certain tendency to lean towards anti Democratic policies. Are they. Do you expect that they're already have a couple drafts ready to go once they, you know, that they'll just kind of plug in the numbers from the Census on the 16th when they're released and then, you know, they'll move pretty quickly thereafter?

Yeah. I mean, I think it's almost a certainty that, you know, partisan lawmakers and partisan interests in virtually every state have already been sort of toying around with what maps could look like based on, you know, the American Community Survey and other data sets. Right. They know that they'll have to adjust them for the final census numbers to make sure that they're legally compliant. But they're already kind of trying to figure out what they can do, you know, both in a good way but also in a bad way. And so, you know, like, I think, I do think a lot of states will move very fast to redistrict in part because they're already behind the, you know, the, you know, the ball because of the late release of the census data. You know, most states already, you know, most ordinarily the data would have come out in February or March. States would have redistributed in the spring and summer. And but now they have to rush in order to complete maps for the upcoming election. And, you know, a number of states like Illinois and Texas have fairly early filing deadlines in the fall and early winter. And so, you know, in order to get maps done in time for those to meet those deadlines, you know, they really do have to rush to do it. And so, you Know, and you know, I think many states are ready to get this over with and I think also some states are going to use the delay as a reason for like just cut, you know, having a rush process, cutting the public out as much as possible. Right. Just saying, like, we have to do this. And so, you know, you know, redistricting, you know, you know, I like to say redistricting is at every 10 year Olympics. And we're about to, you know, start having people competing in the redistricting Olympics and winning medals. And you know, like before you know it, it's like the real one, that because it's here, it's gone and that's, that's what's going to happen.

And the reason why the census numbers were delayed was because of the Trump, Trump administration mishandling of the census, is that correct?

Well, that was the Trump administration's actions, but also Covid, right. The census got off to a late start because of COVID just as the Census Bureau was preparing to send people in the field to go knock on doors. We were right in the middle of the pandemic. So there are legitimate reasons. But then there were efforts to add a citizenship question, a lot of litigation over the census. And so Census Bureau really, I think, has taken the time that it needs to make sure that the data is as good a quality as it can be despite the political interference and despite the unusual circumstances caused by the pandemic. But that has meant that data that normally comes out in February now is coming out in the middle of August, and it will be a time crunch for many states to get things done.

Right. So again, let's make it very clear to our listeners, if, if Congress passes the for the People act, say in two weeks, or let's say more likely in mid September, what are the guardrails that would be in effect immediately for this next cycle? In other words, like, what are the best things that we can still make federal law because we can't give up, right. Even if we can't have IRCs necessarily, the Independent commissions for this round of redistricting, what specifically, you know, as you already said, like what, what specifically can we actually put into the books to mitigate the worst of this upcoming round of gerrymandering?

So, you know, reform that passes sometime in the fall could create a, a cause of action for partisan gerrymandering, that people could take states to court if they gerrymander, and that would be really powerful. It also could streamline how litigation gets litigated and make it more likely that you get to a quick decision and that things don't sort of get bogged up in the appellate process, which would be really powerful there. Also, you know, Congress would have the opportunity to impose national uniform rules for how districts are drawn. You know, right now, there aren't actually really a lot of rules in most states for how you draw congressional districts. Their states are much more prescriptive about legislative and state senatorial districts than they are about congressional districts. And so in most states, you know, there really are very few rules. And so you would, for the first time, have national uniform rules that, you know, not only ban partisan gerrymandering, but that strengthen protections for communities of color in critical ways. I mean, all that could be done, you know, and, you know, and it would be really powerful. But Congress does need to act soon if it's to, you know, get the bill in time to avoid a lot of disruption to the process. You know, you know, it needs to act like, pronto, but certainly by early fall with the latest.

And so those kind of standards would be a game changer. I mean, again, just because we can't get everything, that would be a really big deal, Michael. Right.

I think everyone from the civil rights groups to the good government groups agrees that this is necessary and it is critical. And no one is letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. People have different views on what, what reform looks like. Some of the good government groups in particular, really are big proponents of independent commissions. But everyone says just doing this would be, you know, a game changer. It would create a more level playing field. It wouldn't necessarily, you know, you still have to have a lot of fights because states like Texas will do what states like Texas will do and have historically have done. But, you know, people would have tools that they don't currently have right now. And without this, it's going to be a really dark and ominous cycle, particularly again for communities of color and not

to get into the weeds too much. But, you know, how would the court actually determine what is a partisan gerrymander? So if the for the People act becomes law and it says partisan gerrymandering is banned, well, how do the courts determine a partisan gerrymandering?

So the for the People act would ban maps that have either the. That were drawn either with the intent or that have the effect of creating an unfair partisan advantage. And the effect part really is key because, you know, when people are litigating partisan gerrymandering claims in court under the US Constitution or under state constitutions, it's always an intent claim. So you had to prove that lawmakers intentionally were trying to do something bad. What the for the People act would do is say, like, even if you didn't have the intent, even if you were doing things, if you're just perfectly acting in good faith, if your map produces an unfair partisan effect, it needs to be redrawn. And that will make that simple fact that you can now either bring an intent claim or an effect claim makes litigating cases much more straightforward than it was before. And because you have national uniform rules, you don't sort of get states to. In the partisan gerrymander case of states always had excuses, right? Like, oh, we try to protect incumbents or we are trying to, you know, keep counties whole or something like that. You know, those would no longer be defenses. So the litigation would become a lot more straightforward. And, you know, it would be, you know, you know, you know, it really would be incredibly powerful, you know, in the. In the handful of states where we know that people are already plenty aggressive gerrymanders.

And so with the four of the People act, enact a kind of a statistical test to determine, you know, at what point something becomes a partisan gerrymander as opposed to just, you know, I don't know, geographic sorting.

Well, we know, you know, there are different ways that you could go about it. And I know that, you know, people are debating, you know, perhaps tinkering with the test that's currently in the bill. I think people do want to make sure that it is easy to use and straightforward, but statistical test would be a part of that for sure.

And there are certainly. I mean, you know, this is one of the things that I think is so interesting about the, you know, the folks working to combat gerrymandering is there are a lot of mathematicians who have been working on this issue.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the. The science around partisan gerrymandering and the analytics around partisan gerrymandering have. Have grown by leaps and bounds over the last few years. But I also want to stress that when you're talking about a 10, 3 map in North Carolina, a 50, 50 state or a 12, 4 map in Ohio, like that, that doesn't require a lot of sophisticated analytics, right? It's a little bit like sometimes when you go in the doctor, you know, like, you know, sometimes they have to do MRIs and take all kinds of complicated tests and other cases, the doctor just looks at you and says, okay, I know what you have, right? And things like that. And so the gerrymanders, the last decade were so bad. It doesn't really take a lot. You don't need a lot of computers to do it. But there will be harder cases and the analytics will be helpful there. And the hope is at least the easy cases get knocked out really quickly and those maps get redrawn and then people can spend more time litigating about cases that are a little bit more on the edge.

No, that makes total sense. So a penultimate question for you. The president recently implied that a lot of the suppression that we're seeing in our democracy can be out organized. Can you out organize a gerrymander? If we have the, if we don't pass the for the People act and we have egregious maps in Texas, in Alabama, Florida, is that something that people can just, you know, put in an extra five hours a week and get equal representation or.

Well, as with respect to president's, President Biden's comments about out organizing voter suppression and like, you know, I would just say like, as people in Texas say, like, you know, bless his heart. Right? So, you know, I think, you know, it's, you know, there's stuff that you could do like, you know, out organize some forms of voter suppression, although, you know, I think they will never end. But you can't out organize a gerrymander. You just can't. And you saw that, you know, last decade where, you know, in Pennsylvania, as a prime example, you know, Democrats in Pennsylvania in 2012 won 51% of the vote and got five seats, you know, so 27% of the seats. Right. When they, and you know, by many estimates, If Democrats got 56% of the vote under that, you know, the map that passed in Pennsylvania last decade, they would only win six seats. So barely a third, well, a third of the seats. You know, by contrast, in 2006 when Democrats got 56% of the vote in Pennsylvania, they won 11 seats. Right. And that gives you some sense of like how skewed these gerrymanders are. And then you look at states like Ohio where it's been 12, 4 all decade, Democrats get 25% of the seats in a state where they get a lot more than 25% of the vote. And it's been 12,4 all decade and nothing has changed in good years, in bad years, even with the tsunami elections of 2018, nothing changed. And you can't out organize that. You can't outrun it. What voter suppression does is it tries to make it harder for you to vote. What gerry battery does is it, it makes it so that even if you Manage to go through all those hurdles and vote your election. Does your vote doesn't mean anything.

What we really need is for Biden to embody another Texan, lbj, President Johnson, who really took leadership when he passed the Voting Rights act of 1965. We need the president to kind of not be making claims that we can out organize gerrymandering and voter suppression, but really champion the for the People act and the protections, as we've been talking about, against the upcoming wave of gerrymandering and make that, you know, make the stakes very clear because, you know, the president recently said that the stakes of, you know, voter suppression are, you know, or at least the GOP efforts to undermine democracy are, is democracy, authoritarianism and, you know, essentially what we're. If those are the stakes, then we need him to kind of embrace, embody LBJ as quickly as possible to get this through the Senate. So I do like to end Michael with an optimistic note, or at least let's say a more hopeful note. And that's what should folks be doing to stop the next round of gerrymandering through legislation like the for the People Act.

So the most important thing that people can do is call their members of Congress, both in the U.S. house and the Senate, and tell them that they need to pass something soon and tell them that like redistricting is starting up and that they really need to act in the next month or so. And the number there is 202, 221, 3121. I know that off the top of my head because I've given it out so many times again, 202, 221, 3121. So call your member of Congress and tell them that they need to do something, even if that means changing the filibuster. Because, you know, there are Democrats beyond Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema who sort of have expressed concerns about changing the filibuster. Dianne Feinstein, for example, has said that she would support changing the filibuster if our democracy was in crisis, but she didn't know that our democracy was in crisis. And so I think even people, you shouldn't assume that just because you're represented by Democrats that they sort of understand what is at stake. So do that. And then this August is, I think around the country is going to be a month of action. You know, a lot of people, their marches on the August 28th on the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington that will call for democracy reform there, you know, there's action all around the country, you know, but, you know, talk to people, you know, get engaged, tell them to call their member of Congress, because the only way the filibuster has been overcome in the past is is because of pressure from inside and outside, and that outside pressure has to come.

Well, Michael, thank you so much for joining me today and really taking us through what's a very complex issue of gerrymandering and making it very, very clear and really articulating the stakes of this fight for fair maps. This is really about representation and about ensuring that community, communities of interest can actually have political influence over the next decade of our politics. So, Michael, thanks so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me.