Texans Against Gerrymandering - TAG

06/11/2026

“Democrats are setting the stage to pursue redistricting efforts in as many as 13 states before 2028, redrawing congressional lines to secure potentially dozens of additional House seats, according to an internal strategy memo obtained exclusively by TIME. To move forward on that plan, party strategists have a list of fewer than two dozen state legislative seats they need to flip in this year’s midterm elections.

“‘Our ability to go on offense in this year’s environment is not only important for power in 2026, but will have an enormous impact on the power we can build through the end of the decade and wield in the post-2030 redistricting process,’ wrote Heather Williams, the president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the Democrats’ official arm that works on state legislative races.”

An internal memo lays out how Democrats could flip key statehouses to gain potentially dozens of House seats before 2028.

06/02/2026

The USPS anti mail-in voting rule was published this morning in the Federal Register, so the deadline for submitting comments is 1159pm Eastern on Thursday July 2nd.

Here's the final language of the proposed rule:

The Postal Service is proposing to amend the Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM), regarding the transmission of mail-in or absentee ballots for federal elections pursuant to its rulemaking authority.

05/31/2026

“Creating the Gerrymandering Partisan Index”

“The GPI tracks how far seats deviate from the votes that produced them. Applied to every House election since 1976, the GPI tells a clear story: three decades of rough proportionality, a sustained upward turn after 2008, and in 2026 a single-cycle jump driven not by changes in how voters voted but by changes in how districts were drawn. The projection for the post-2030 redistricting cycle points to a country whose democracy no longer resembles the one Americans have known. The shift is no longer just qualitative. It is measurable, and the measurement is sobering.

“The GPI counts seats won by the majority party beyond what closest-to-proportional rounding would award, summed across all states and expressed as a share of the maximum possible for each cycle on a 0-to-100 scale.

“Imagine a state with 10 districts and a 61 to 39 vote split. In this scenario, proportional representation would deliver six or even seven seats to the majority party. Any other outcome would depart from the principle of proportional representation. The further the gap between how seats are distributed and how people voted, the larger the distortion. Importantly, distortion in either direction counts: a Republican-engineered Tennessee and a Democratic-engineered Maryland both add to the total amount of gerrymandering.”

“How the GPI has changed over time”

“Since 1976, the GPI has ranged from 5 in 1986 to 34 in 2024. In order to get a general baseline for how much distortion is ‘normal,’ thresholds were set at one and four standard deviations above the average levels from 1976 to 2008, the period preceding the post-2010 rise in partisan gerrymandering. Then, I divided the scale into three tiers of escalating partisan distortion: proportional representation, partisan skew, and single-party dominance.

“From 1976 through 2008, the GPI was low and stable, averaging 13, but the composition shifted markedly over time. In 1976, 97% of displaced seats over-represented Democrats, and in 1978 and 1988, 100% did. This is the historical asymmetry that today's Republican rebalancing argument cites. The 1994 Republican Revolution offset that asymmetry through votes rather than maps: Republicans won the House for the first time in 40 years, taking 53% of the seats on 54% of the vote, a proportional outcome. That equilibrium was sustained not by the courts or the Voting Rights Act but by behavior. Both parties chose to operate within a tighter latitude than the formal rules required. The arrangement reflected a Madisonian premise: that legislative majorities should be checked and minority political interests deserve representation.

“Then, things shifted in 2010. After Republicans won state legislative majorities in roughly a dozen states and used new precinct-level mapping technology, the 2012 GPI jumped to 28 and never returned to pre-2010 levels. Democrats followed with aggressive maps in Illinois, Maryland, and (until courts struck them down) New York. The partisan shares returned to near-parity, but the total stayed elevated. The system escalated symmetrically rather than rebalancing.

“Now, the country is experiencing a significant increase in gerrymandering. The 2026 election cycle is projected to produce a GPI of 45, a 30% jump, driven entirely by new maps rather than any change in voter behavior. It is the largest one-cycle move in the modern record, the product of several developments converging in rapid succession.”

America needs a Gerrymandering Partisan Index. Here’s what it reveals.

05/30/2026

“The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) said in a yet-to-be-published proposed rule Friday that it’s drawing up plans to radically crack down on mail voting by sending ballots only to voters who are registered with the federal government.

The proposed rule, which will be formally published next week, is an alarming step toward implementing President Donald Trump’s sweeping attack on mail voting ahead of the 2026 midterm election. And it would represent a massive expansion of federal control over voting, without congressional authorization.”

It signaled it plans to send ballots only to voters who are registered with the federal government.

05/30/2026

“Louisiana Republicans passed a new congressional map Friday that eliminates the majority-Black district that was at the center of the Supreme Court ruling overturning the Voting Rights Act.”

Louisiana is eliminating a majority-Black district and handing Republicans another seat in Congress.

05/15/2026

“A total of nine states — Alabama, California, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas and Utah — have redrawn their maps since last year. At least three other states — Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina — appear likely to follow suit, though Georgia’s new maps would not be in effect for the upcoming midterm elections.
As things currently stand, Republicans are likely to gain up to 17 seats, while Democrats are likely to gain up to six seats.”

Excerpt From
“The redistricting frenzy is scrambling the midterm elections. Here’s where things stand now.”
Anna Claire Vollers
Stateline
https://apple.news/AILdZy0D2RZaq10dsBwcyHg
This material may be protected by copyright.

In the past two years, a dozen states have either approved new U.S. House maps or are moving toward doing so — a highly unusual mid-decade revamp prompted by President Donald Trump and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling late last month.

05/13/2026

05/12/2026

“Lawmakers on Tuesday failed to reach the two-thirds majority needed to approve a measure that would have allowed them to take up a vote on redistricting even after the legislative session ends later this week. Five Republicans joined all Democrats in voting against the proposal.”

Tuesday’s vote doesn’t mark a definitive end for efforts to redraw the state’s maps — but it does make it harder to accomplish this year.

05/09/2026

Montgomery, AL (AP) — “Alabama lawmakers approved a plan Friday for new US House primaries if courts allow the state to use different congressional districts in this year’s elections, sending the legislation to Republican Gov. Kay Ivey.”

Alabama filed an emergency appeal at the US Supreme Court on Friday asking the justices to allow the state to revert to a congressional map with one majority-Black district, setting up a potentially thorny question for the high court as the justices have openly sparred over whether partisanship has....

05/08/2026

Shell-shocked Democrats are scrambling to pick up the pieces after the Virginia Supreme Court quashed a new map designed to help them seize control of the House in November’s midterms.