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Ahead of the 2026 midterms. You have states right now basically racing to change their congressional maps before the actual election to basically redraw the lines in order to benefit the party in power. You have both Democrat as well as Republican states playing the same game right now, a game, I should mention, which might actually determine who controls Congress. It's a game in which, at the moment at least, Republicans are winning both numerically by having gained nine extra districts, but also legally, with the US Supreme Court just ruling that Republicans can go ahead and ignore both race and ethnicity when redrawing the map in order to bolster the gop. Let me give you a bit of backstory on that particular case that appeared before the US Supreme Court, as well as how that case might help determine the winner of the next election cycle. And of course, if you appreciate content like this, please do smash those like and subscribe buttons. Subscribe so that this video can reach ever more people via the YouTube algorithm. And also by smashing that subscribe button, you'll get informed of any new videos as soon as we publish them. Thank you very much. Now, getting back to the case at hand. Every 10 years, the boundaries of a state's voting districts are redrawn based on the results of the most recent census. In total, the US is divided into 435 different congressional districts, with the US citizens living in each one of those districts from responsible for electing one member to the U.S. house of Representatives. Each district is supposed to have roughly the same number of people living in it to make sure that everyone's vote counts equally. That's why, for instance, you have the state of Wyoming, which is huge. It's about the same landmass size as the uk, but they only have one congressional district because even though they're big, not too many people live there anyway every 10 years, once the new census numbers come out, and every state that has more than one congressional district. So for instance, Wyoming doesn't have to do this, but other states, they must go back and redraw the lines of the districts on the map in order to reflect the changes in the population, to make sure again, each district is still representative of the same number of people on average as every other district in the country. And so that all neatly brings us along to the case out of Texas, because so many people moved into that state, both a bit during the COVID lockdown period, but but also a huge influx of illegal migrants who by the way, are counted in the census. Because of these two factors, the state's share of the national population grew significantly. And so, after the 2020 census was concluded, it was found that Texas would be given two additional congressional seats on top of what they already had, which was huge. Two more lawmakers representing the state of Texas in Congress. Now, the next task was to go to the congressional map and and redraw all of the districts to add two more. However, the obvious question here is who gets to redraw the districts? The answer is actually simple. It's whichever party happens to be in power in the state legislature, which in Texas is the gop. And so Texas state Republicans, they drew up a new map which significantly favored them. In August of this year, the Texas GOP unveiled this new map. You can see it up on your screen, and it's a little hard to tell from just looking at it, but that new map, it would actually give Republicans a huge advantage come the midterms. Quote. Texas Republicans unveiled a new congressional map on Wednesday that would provide their party with five new red leaning districts. The redraw would significantly benefit Republicans by making districts held by Democratic Representatives Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, who both represent heavily Latino areas of the Rio Grande Valley, redder and make some Democratic controlled districts even bluer in an attempt to create GOP leaning districts elsewhere. And so, in short, the new map would basically consolidate the Democrats into tighter pockets, while at the same time, it would create five new districts whose populations voted for Trump by double digits in the previous election. And that's obviously significant at a time right now when Republicans are holding on to the House by a margin of just seven votes. And actually, now that I think about it, it's less than 7 because Marjorie Taylor Greene is resigning. And so it'll be more like six votes going into the midterms. Well, getting five new surefire seats doesn't hurt. In fact, maybe those five new Texas seats literally might prove to be the difference between losing the house or retaining control of the House for the Republicans. However, the Texas GOP ran into a bunch of hurdles. First of all, the Democrats in the state legislature, they fled the state in order to break the quorum and to basically not have a vote on it. We did a whole episode on that debacle, but in the end, that tactic was didn't work. Eventually, all the Democrats returned to the Texas legislature and the state voted to pass the new map with those five additional Republican leaning seats. But almost immediately, as you would expect, lawsuits began to be filed. The main case was brought forth by a group that was called the League of United Latin American Citizens. Their main argument in bringing forth this case was that the new congressional map basically diluted the strength of minority voters by splitting up minority communities across several different districts. They claimed that this was a form of racial discrimination with the specific intent to disadvantage voters based on race, which would be illegal. It would violate the 14th Amendment's equal protections clause. On the flip side, however, you had lawyers representing the state of Texas. They denied those allegations and their argument was that the new maps were based on party advantage rather than on racial advantage. As funny as it sounds more one of them is allowed while the other is not. The U.S. supreme Court has ruled previously in previous cases that creating maps to the advantage of one party over another is generally legal. And so that's why you also have those crazy gerrymandered districts all across the country that look wild now. Eventually, the Texas case made its way in front of the U.S. district Court for the Western District of Texas. And after a nine day long hearing which included the introduction of thousands of exhibits from both sides, the the district court ruled on November 18th against Texas. The three judge panel voted two to one that Texas may not use the new map because quote, substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 map. Now the state of Texas, you could say, got a bit lucky because under the federal Voting Rights Act, Texas was allowed to save time by filing an appeal directly with the US Supreme Court because essentially because of the nature of the case, they were able to bypass the Court of Appeals. And so the U.S. supreme Court, they took up the and on Thursday, December 4, they reversed the lower court ruling in a split six three decision. You had justices John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh as well as Amy Coney Barrett all rule in favor of Texas. In their order, the US Supreme Court majority, they wrote the Based on our preliminary evaluation of this case, Texas satisfies the traditional criteria for interim relief. Texas is likely to succeed in its claim that the district Court committed at least two serious errors. First, by construing ambiguous direct and circumstantial evidence against the legislature, the district Court failed to honor the legal presumption that the Texas legislature acted in good faith. Second, the district Court failed to draw a dispositive or near dispositive adverse inference against the respondents even though they did not produce a viable alternative map that met the state's avowedly partisan goals. Now that's obviously a bit of legalese, but in plain English, to the best of my understanding, the US Supreme Court is saying that the lower court erred by, for one, using circumstantial evidence against the state legislature, which assumed that the state legislature was acting in bad faith. And secondly, because gerrymandering for political purposes is legal, the plaintiffs didn't explain how the GOP could do so without violating the or diluting the power of minorities. Basically, they did not provide an alternate map which would achieve the goal of political gerrymandering without diluting the votes of minorities. So basically, they made it an impossible situation for the gop. And as such, quote, the high court said Texas also made a strong showing that it would suffer irreparable harm if the district court's ruling were not stayed. And so the lower court's ruling was overturned. Now, the case is still playing itself out in the lower court system, but with this U.S. supreme Court decision now in place, Texas has effectively won. And so there you have it. Republican state legislatures, not just in Texas, but across the whole country, can go ahead and they can ignore both race and ethnicity in order to bolster the GOP strength in congressional maps, which is a big deal up on your screen right now. It's the current state of redistricting across the whole country. And here are the other changes thus far for the Democrats. You have California adding another five Democrat leaning seats and Utah adding one Democrat leaning seat. It's kind of a long story as to why Utah's Republican state legislature added a Democrat seat. But the short of it is that they were basically forced to by a judge. Then on the flip side, on the Republican side, you have Texas adding five Republican leaning seats. You have Missouri adding one seat. You have Ohio adding two, North Carolina adding one, and then Indiana is on the verge of adding two new Republican districts. Their plan has already passed the state House and is now being voted on in the state Senate. Also on top of those states, you also have the Republican leaning states of Florida, Nebraska and Kansas in the process of discussing, redrawing their maps, as well as the left leaning states of Illinois, Virginia and Maryland discussing it as well. And so those states, they're in the early process of drawing up their maps and it's not clear whether they're actually going to do it or not before the midterms, however, with just the states that have already done it, and the GOP appears to have an advantage of three seats over the Democrats. Democrats were able to flip six seats while the Republicans flipped nine thus far. And who knows, when you're talking about razor thin margins, maybe this whole redistricting battle will literally determine who controls the House starting the next session. If you'd like to see a visual of all the newly drawn districts, or if you'd like to read the full text of the majority opinion in this Texas case, all those links will be down there in the description box below. Below this video for you to peruse at your own leisure, which is again that same description box right below those like and subscribe buttons, both of which I hope you already smashed. But if you haven't, here's another opportunity. Lastly, if you are looking for a good gift, Christmas gift, New Year's gift, maybe for yourself, maybe for a loved one, consider the Epic Times. We're running a phenomenal holiday sale on subscriptions. It's a trial subscription. It barely costs anything. 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