On Gerrymanders: Just stop now!

No one should cheer the result of the Virginia referendum just as no one should lambast it.

A majority of the electorate voted, yet a state judge in Virginia’s Tazewell Circuit Court stayed the people’s decision just a day later as he found the 51.5 percent who cast a ballot in favor of the 10-1 split of Democrats in Congressional seats versus Republicans did not reflect the presidential result of the state where Kamala Harris won just over 52 percent of the vote to Trump’s 48. That judge will likely be overturned by the state’s Supreme Court, as the Tazewell Circuit Court was during the lead up to the referendum vote, for a good reason.

The Virginia General Assembly’s plan to gerrymander a Democratic dominance in U.S. seats, like California’s effort, came as a result of a popular vote, something that cannot be said of the Republican efforts to gerrymander congressional districts in Texas, Ohio and Missouri. In each of those cases, their legislatures acted alone.

The irony remains that the effort that began in June of 2025 (at the behest of Pres. Donald Trump) of Texas drawing a supermajority of GOP seats has, according to commentator Chris Cillizza, either resulted in “either a wash in terms of the total number of seats the two parties might gain or might even gain Democrats seats. It is a great example of the law of unintended consequences.”

Currently, Democratic referendums have netted their party ten seats, and Republican legislators picked up a net of nine congressional districts. All of this political capital was spent to effectively end up where this process began – essentially even.

Florida remains to be the X Factor. Gov. Ron DeSantis can stop this madness if he so chooses. Trump counts on the Florida Legislature to up the proverbial ante. There is just enough time under Florida law to undertake a massive redistricting this year, so that Republicans pull ahead in the zero-sum game by November. It would be no more fair in this purple state for Republicans to gain 80 percent of the congressional seats than it was in the purple state of Virginia for the same.   

At least the “Old Dominion” had a public vote, no matter how unequal it might seem for 51.5 percent of the population to decide the fate of the representation of 80 percent. In Florida, it would just take an act of the Legislature, but Gov. DeSantis has always been uncomfortable with such a major redistricting. Many reasons for his hesitancy exist, including the law of unintended consequences; however, in order to execute an equivalent gerrymander to overcome the Virginia seats, the “Sunshine State” would need to virtually eliminate all major majority-minority seats. 

This brings the issue of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to the forefront of the midterm elections, and DeSantis may not be prepared to have that fight – even if the Supreme Court rules on Section 2’s constitutionality in the next month. At least, it appears the governor of Florida is not anxious to stand in the forefront of such a racial battle. After all, the voters of Florida put strict anti-gerrymandering language into their Constitution, so lawmakers cannot blatantly redraw the congressional lines for partisan gain without extreme court challenges.

Trump urges him to do just that, regardless of the political or judicial blowback. 

If DeSantis allows his Legislature to act, regardless of the consequences, other southern assemblies will redistrict with a pro-GOP gerrymander as well. The irony is that minority-majority districts across the South tend to force these former “Jim Crow” states to draw congressional maps which relatively reflect how their citizens tend to partisanly split in presidential elections.

This year, the Pelican State would stand as a sole exception to the redistricting wave, as our congressional primary elections occur on May 16. It’s too late for us to redraw for 2026, but not too late for 2028. The fact remains that Louisiana’s congressional map stands as an actually pretty accurate representation of the results that presidential candidates earn in the state. Democratic contenders over the last three election cycles won an average of just over 40 percent of the vote. Republicans took 60 percent. Our allegation is split 4-2, with the two African-American majority seats held by Democrats Troy Carter and Cleo Fields representing that 40 percent.

Far from being a gerrymander, Black majority congressional seats tend to exemplify an accurate expression of the popular will of a large minority of the electorate. Ideally, the next president of the United States – of either party – would recommend bipartisan legislation to be passed where each state had to draw congressional districts reflective of the results of the average of the last three presidential races. That’s not likely going to happen even if a Democrat wins; however, it’s hard to imagine any such fair map where minority-majority districts do not dot every state in the South under such a model – regardless of a Ron DeSantis or five members of the Supreme Court rule. No other way exists to draw the map in Southern states fairly that expresses the will of the Democratic minority – which is overwhelmingly African American.

This article originally published in the April 27, 2026 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.