Myles Parks (1:47)

Yeah. So I mean, redistricting is just the kind of drawing of political maps, right? It happens every 10 years after the census. But gerrymander, which is kind of what we're talking about now, is doing that with the explicit idea of benefiting one side or the other. This has happened in American politics basically since the country was founded. But a few things have changed since then that make it kind of especially important right now. One, in 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that courts had no role in policing political gerrymandering. They basically said state legislatures can decide whether this is okay or not. And at that time, they experts saw that and said, oh, it's open season. I mean, there are going to be some states that just do this now explicitly Knowing that they can get away with it and not get sued. Number two is that these sort of things, anytime we talk about election manipulation, changing the election system to benefit one side or the other, whether it's drawing the maps, changing the voting rules, it matters the most when elections are close. And right now, this country is incredibly closely divided. You know, Democrats only need to net a handful of seats to retake control of the House of Representatives. And so anytime we are in this situation where an entire body of government rests on, you know, whether how a map is drawn or whether an election policy increases turnout by 1% or something in some state, there are just going to be a lot more fights over these little aspects of elections.

Tamara Keith (3:15)

Yeah. And a partisan gerrymander is essentially the politicians choosing the voters rather than the voters choosing their representatives, their politicians. It is carving up different cities and areas and demographics and creating the perfect way to win.

Myles Parks (3:33)

Yeah. And I will say also, it's a lot easier now than it was 100 or 200 years ago because of computers. You know, it used to be kind of like, we're going to draw this map. And I think this city might vote for me more than this other city. But now, you know, with all of the ability for data analysis that politicians have at their fingertips, it's a lot easier to predict how different demographics are going to vote.

Tamara Keith (3:52)

So, Ashley, you have lived in Texas, you have covered Texas, and now we are going to talk about Texas, which is where all of this started this year.

Ashley Lopez (4:01)

Yeah.

Tamara Keith (4:02)

What are Texas Republicans trying to do?

Ashley Lopez (4:05)

So they are in the process of. I mean, depending when you're hearing this, the Texas Senate could have already approved a new congressional map that will create five more potentially safer seats for Republicans. And this was a specific ask from President Trump to Texas Republicans. And, you know, this should be headed to the government governor's office as soon as today.

Tamara Keith (4:26)

Okay. And as you say, this is something that President Trump explicitly asked for. There is no secret here.

Ashley Lopez (4:34)

Yeah.

Tamara Keith (4:34)

As we talk about all the time, he says the quiet part out loud. And what he is saying out loud is, I want more Republicans. I want Republicans to have an advantage, and I do not want to risk Republicans losing the House in these midterm elections in 2026.

Ashley Lopez (4:49)

Yeah. And Texas is a great place to start because one, it is big. It gained congressional seats during the census. A lot of states didn't. It is also a state where Republicans made gains among Latino voters and some other key demographics. So if you look at 2024 data compared to 2020 data, you have like, A new group of voters you can sort of pull from. And also politically speaking, this is a state that has had uniparty control by Republicans for now 30 years. There's really nothing stopping them. So it was a sort of easy place for. If you want to gain some seats for Republicans. Like, that is a good start.

Tamara Keith (5:24)

Miles, while we have been watching this drama play out in Texas, and it has been fairly dramatic, there has been this bubbling up in California, and now California is poised to try to do the same thing.

Myles Parks (5:39)

Right. It's a little bit more complicated in California. Right. Because what the California legislature has approved is this new map that now is actually going to go before voters, and voters are going to have to decide. Honestly, I feel like what it means is that California instantly becomes the most interesting election to watch this year. Right. Because there are just. Maybe it's just for voting nerds, but I feel like there are a lot of political dynamics at play. And when we start talking about, do voters support getting rid of an independently drawn map to explicitly favor one party over the other? Political wisdom has said they don't. But it's gonna be really interesting to see if, in this special case, how California voters feel about those.

Tamara Keith (6:21)

Yeah. And I think what we have to explain is that California voters decided that they didn't want gerrymandering anymore. There was a long history of both partisan gerrymandering in California and also gerrymandering meant to protect incumbents. And then California voters. Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is one of the big people who campaigned for this, actually approved ballot measures that said there should be an independent commission. There shouldn't be gerrymandering. The goal should be that the state's residents are well represented and that their districts are contiguous and all of these things that. That have nothing to do with partisan advantage.

Ashley Lopez (7:03)

Yeah, but that was 2008, I should say. The world was very different back then. There was a lot more optimism about government. If everyone remembers then things like hyper partisanship has been on, like, a steady incline for, like, the past 10 years that has been only accelerated by Trump. It is not solely because of Trump. And, you know, the world looks very different. The whole understanding of these good government proposals is that everyone would do it, you know, swing states and Republicans. But it turned out to be just mostly swing states and Democratic states. And that has caused a situation where Democrats find themselves with their hands tied behind their back and they say. And they're, you know, so it's just not in vogue anymore. Like, we're in a different world. Right now. And so, you know, unfortunately for California, when they're looking at what, you know, how easy it is for Texas, like, once Governor Abbott signs that bill, it's done. The maps are in. But, you know, California Democrats have to convince voters to vote for this ballot measure, and then they have to redistrict. You know, it is a. It is going to be a lot longer of a process. But I will say this does offer Democrats an opportunity that they haven't really had in the. In the second Trump administration, which is a place to fight where they actually have power in California. They have power where they don't have in Congress, where they don't have in the White House. So this is a place where Democrats can sort of flex their muscles. And by the way, you know, we're about to find out how voters feel about that.

Myles Parks (8:19)

Yeah. I feel like your point about this political moment being different than anyone before it, it all does go back to Donald Trump winning the popular vote in 2024 after trying to overturn an election in 2020. It makes sense to me that politicians would look at that and say, voters told us they really do not care as much as we thought they did about these sort of big Democratic ideals. So that is why we are now seeing the lawmakers in Texas are not being quiet about this. They are saying explicitly, we are doing this to try to gain power in Congress. And so I just, I just do not think that they would be so open about it. They might still try to do it 10 years ago, but their openness and kind of not being as scared of how voters are going to perceive that, that is a post 2024 Trump winning tactic, I think.

Tamara Keith (9:08)

Yeah. And in California, they're saying, this isn't about redistricting. This is about democracy. This is about fighting Trump. That's what Democrats in California are saying.

Ashley Lopez (9:19)

And by the way, even good government groups are saying, hey, we were. This was like, the whole basis of our, like, worldview of politics. And now we are taking it back because the situation is so different. Like, groups like Common Cause have said, go ahead. This is a different reality than we were in, you know, just a year ago. So it is. I mean, things are very different right now.

Tamara Keith (9:38)

All right, it's time for a quick break. When we come back, the political implications of all this.

Ashley Lopez (9:45)

Stars.

Tamara Keith (9:46)

They're just like us. John Legend goes to cbs. Well, that's because he has his own skincare line.

Myles Parks (9:51)

It was so exciting to actually go into one of those stores. We had the end caps.

Tamara Keith (9:56)

Were you like, I Don't want this locked up.

Ashley Lopez (9:59)

John Legend is one of many stars.

Tamara Keith (10:00)

Riding the celebrity branding wave.

Ashley Lopez (10:02)

He tells us about it on the.

Tamara Keith (10:04)

Indicator from Planet Money.

Ashley Lopez (10:05)

Listen in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Myles Parks (10:09)

On the next through line from NPR.

Ashley Lopez (10:12)

The man who saw a dangerous omission in the U.S. constitution and took it upon himself to fix it.

Myles Parks (10:18)

If something happened to a president who was still alive, the consequences for the country would have been enormous.

Ashley Lopez (10:26)

The 25th Amendment.

Tamara Keith (10:28)

Listen in the NPR app or wherever.

Myles Parks (10:31)

You get your podcasts.

Tamara Keith (10:34)

And we're back. And miles other states are now contemplating similar plans. Do we have an idea as to what the overall benefit for each party would be if they gerrymander everything based on their current ruling party's lives?

Myles Parks (10:49)

I wish I could give you an exact number at this point, but that would be, I think, a little bit too speculative. I know it's a little unsatisfying. I will say that Republican controlled states have a lot more flexibility in this area generally than Democratic states. And so we're already seeing President Trump and his administration put pressure in other states to try to take action here. Florida, Indiana, Missouri, are all states that we're watching that potentially they could eke out a seat or two seats or a few seats here and there. I think there is a little bit of flexibility in some, some other Democratic controlled states like Illinois. But I think the bigger point here as we talk about this is it's easy to talk about when we talk about gerrymandering, as these are a sure thing. But a year and some change is a really long time on the political calendar. And I think it's very unclear how the political winds or the direction the political winds are going to be pushing come November. And so the voters will still have to decide there are going to be a bunch of competitive seats. And so it's really hard to say with certainty at this point how even if these districts are drawn in a way that advantages Republicans generally, it's just very unclear whether that's going to actually translate to them keeping control of the House.

Ashley Lopez (12:02)

Yeah, sort of the margin of benefit for each party is probably getting a little smaller. But also, like, I do think it's important to note that like a lot of the data that is being worked into these maps that didn't exist in 2020 is the 2024 election. And that was an election that had a lot of voters that don't usually participate in elections. Voters that, I mean, Latino voters are a great example of this. These are swing voters. Those are not Reliable voters for any party. And so I look at a state like Texas that, you know, those maps that were gerrymandered in the sort of southern part of the state near the border, you know, Latino voters, we're already seeing, like, polling that suggests that Latino voters aren't as in the bag for Trump as they were before. The economic reality hasn't changed much for much of them. So they are not looking to support Republicans. A big chunk of them are not looking to support Republicans in the next election. Or we haven't seen polling that suggests they're gonna support Democrats, but they might just sit it. So we actually don't know how reliable 2024 data is when you're looking at a midterm election. And so much of these new maps rely on this new information from this latest election, which I don't think is a given to begin with.

Myles Parks (13:07)

Yeah. I will also add that, like, the demographics over the last 10 years have changed a lot. I feel like 10 years ago the political wisdom was that Republicans had an advantage in midterms. That has completely changed with the Trump demographic of 2024, which really relied on low propensity voters. The high propensity voters, the college educated voters, those are Democrats and those are the people that turn out in off election years.

Tamara Keith (13:30)

And we should note that President Trump is not technically going to be on the ballot in 2026, but he has a whole lot at stake, which is why he is running this game right now.

Myles Parks (13:39)

Yeah. I mean, what happened the last time that the House. He was in the presidency and the House was controlled by Democrats, Tam?

Tamara Keith (13:46)

Oh, well, he got impeached twice and his agenda was put on ice. There were a lot of investigations, a lot of pushback, and he does not want that. Right now, the President of the United States controls all of the levers of power. He has the House and Senate very compliant, doing what he asked them to do. And the only check on that, there's the courts, but that's slow. The only other check on that would be Congress. And right now he controls Congress and he does not want to give it up. And Republicans in Congress don't wanna give it up either.

Myles Parks (14:19)

Right. I mean, there's this like, explicit motivation for President Trump to be politically invested in the 2026 midterms. But I will also note, even in addition to this redistricting war, we are seeing Trump having this outsized impact on election policy more broadly. He clearly feels like he, as the president, should have a role in how elections are run across the country. This taps into a lot of his fraud narratives from 2020 and 2016 as well. Democrats seem to think these attacks on democracy matter a lot. It is an open question how much voters feel like these things matter a lot.

Ashley Lopez (14:57)

There have been a lot of concerns raised about this path that we're currently on. This was predicted by a lot of people who were concerned by, as Miles said, that Supreme Court ruling, the hyper partisanship of our politics. There have been efforts to slow that roll as it goes. You know, there were last year there were a bunch of ballot measures proposed that would create nonpartisan primaries, things that are aimed at reducing partisanship in politics. Like, people have been worried about this and I am sort of shocked that one. You know, those all pretty much unanimously, those efforts all failed across the country. But also just how still there are so few guardrails to stop us from going down this path because this is it really seems like there's really nothing in the way of stopping parties in control from doing something like this in the future now.

Tamara Keith (15:42)

All right. Well, with that, we're going to take one more break and then it's time for Can't Let It Go.

Myles Parks (15:49)

There's a lot of news happening. You want to understand it better, but let's be honest, you don't want it to be your entire life either. Well, that's sort of like our show Here and Now Anytime. Every weekday on our podcast, we talk to people all over the country about everything from political analysis to climate resilience, video games. We even talk about dumpster diving on this show. Check out Here and Now Anytime, a daily podcast from NPR and WBUR. This message comes from ZipRecruiter. Finding great candidates to hire can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack, unless you use ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter doesn't depend on candidates finding you, it finds them for you. That's why four out of five employers who post a job on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And right now, you can try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com Zip that's ZipRecruiter.com Zip pop culture happy hour NPR's easy.

Ashley Lopez (16:45)

Breezy, laid back pop culture podcast has brought you the best in culture for the past 15 years.

Myles Parks (16:51)

That means we spent the last 15 years talking about what exactly?

Tamara Keith (16:54)

Bad reality TV?

Ashley Lopez (16:56)

Actually good Marvel movies?

Myles Parks (16:57)

Actually awful Marvel movies, reboots, pop music, prestige dramas, Netflix slop.

Ashley Lopez (17:03)

That's 15 years of buzzy pop culture.

Tamara Keith (17:05)

Chit chat and here's to many more.

Ashley Lopez (17:07)

With you along for the ride, listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Myles Parks (17:14)

I'm Peter Sagal. NPR is very serious. Mostly, it treats newsmakers with all due respect almost all the time. It brings you the most important information about the issues that really matter, usually. And it never asks famous people about things they don't know anything about, except once in a while. Join us for the great exception. Listen to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. The news quiz from npr.

Tamara Keith (17:37)

And we're back. And it's time for Can't Let It Go. That's the part of the pod where we talk about the things from the week that we just cannot stop thinking about, politics or otherwise. I will go first, of course. This week there has been a lot of continuing coverage of President Trump's federalization of law enforcement in Washington, D.C. the addition of National Guard troops from several more states. I saw some Guard troops from South Carolina last night on the metro. However, yesterday President Trump announced that he was going to go out on patrol. Now, the reality, it was a little less exciting than that. He went and he rallied various law enforcement, National Guard, federal law enforcement. All of these people at a command center gave him pizza and burgers. And he delivered some extemporaneous remarks that included a lengthy discussion of grass.

Ashley Lopez (18:33)

Hmm.

Myles Parks (18:34)

One of the things we're going to be redoing is your parks. I'm very good at grass because I have a lot of golf courses all over the place. I know more about grass than any human being, I think, anywhere in the world. And we're going to be regressing all of your parks, all brand new sprinkler systems, the best that you can buy. Just like Augusta. It'll look like Augusta. It'll look like, more importantly, Trump National Golf Club. That's even better. But we're going to look, we're going to have all brand new, beautiful grass. You know, like everything else, grass has a life. Do you know that? Grass has a life? You know, we have a life and grass has a life. And the grass here died about 40 years ago.

Tamara Keith (19:12)

Really philosophical.

Ashley Lopez (19:13)

What?

Tamara Keith (19:13)

We have a life. Grass has a life. The remarkable thing about this second Trump term is the amount of focus on aesthetics, on remodeling or renovation. He's redone the Rose Garden with a deck instead of grass. There's a ballroom coming. And he is focused on aesthetics.

Myles Parks (19:35)

Aesthetics.

Ashley Lopez (19:36)

Yeah, I was gonna say the last. Can't let it go. We did, I think you did bring up him doing a tour of the renovations he made, I think, in the oval. And I'm like, oh, I guess he's moved on to landscaping, which is, I guess, like how every homeowner, like, I guess they sort out the interior first and then work on landscaping.

Myles Parks (19:52)

I mean, I do have to say, though, I can't help but now imagining, like, a putt putt golf course on Capitol Hill, which would work, considering the sort of like, hilly nature of it, that it would for an 18 hole little putt putt course. I don't know. I'm more open to it than I thought I would be, is all I'll say.

Tamara Keith (20:09)

I want fairway grass on my median strips. That's all I can say. Miles, what can't you let go of?

Myles Parks (20:15)

So what I can't let go of is this is actually a throwback. Can't let it go because you'll remember, Tam, maybe my end of year. Can't let it go. Last year was about how I was, like, voraciously consuming poker videos on the Internet. Like, hundreds of hours of poker videos during my parental leave at 2 in the morning. And I just wanted to circle back on that because I played poker at a casino for the first time last week. I found myself in Biloxi, Mississippi, basically the Vegas of the South. And I decided at the casino, I was talking to somebody who said, I've never done this before. I've always been intimidated about playing poker. And I was like, me too. And we both kind of decided, should we just do it? And we did. And so circling back on this question of, like, does consuming hundreds of hours of poker videos make you better at poker? I turned $100 into $550.

Ashley Lopez (21:12)

Oh, wow.

Myles Parks (21:13)

Whoa.

Ashley Lopez (21:13)

Congrats.

Tamara Keith (21:14)

And not $5.

Myles Parks (21:15)

No $550. I made $450. Well, so small sample size, but I am, like, I got home and I was, like, all proud of myself. But there is nothing scarier than telling your wife that you think you might be good at gambling just because where does this head? You know? And so I don't think I can leave my job and become a professional poker player today. But I'm just saying, not off the table. Based on my one experience in Biloxi.

Tamara Keith (21:42)

Don't let it get to your head.

Myles Parks (21:43)

Yeah.

Ashley Lopez (21:44)

You know, the first time's always the best time.

Myles Parks (21:45)

Yeah. Yeah, right. I'll just live on that forever.

Tamara Keith (21:48)

Ashley.

Ashley Lopez (21:49)

Okay, so what I can't let go of this week is this story I saw on NBC News. So last weekend, human handlers from 16 countries competed their humanoid robots for what is basically like a robot Olympics. So according to the story, they put about 500 bipedal robots through various motions to showcase the promise and limits of embodied artificial intelligence. Yeah. So apparently they competed in like 26 different sports from like kickboxing to soccer, as well as more practical job skills such as sorting medicine and hotel concierge duties. I find this super upsetting. But do.

Myles Parks (22:27)

Would people pay money to watch the humanoids compete?

Tamara Keith (22:30)

Yeah, yeah, unlike ESPN the Ocho. Like, this is not, this is not battlebots, though.

Ashley Lopez (22:35)

This is like on their feet humanoid robots, which I find really upsetting. I kind of just want us to decide as a society, like the human race that we want, like Star wars droid level, like helpful R2D2 types and not three CPOs. Like, I, I think we should draw a line somewhere because humanoid robots make me really uncomfortable.

Tamara Keith (22:53)

No robots with anxiety. Yeah.

Myles Parks (22:55)

It just also, like, ruins the point of sports to me personally, as a big sports fan is like, the whole point of me watching is like, I want to be able to slightly imagine myself in there, you know? Like, I know these guys are not like me, but they're like, also they're kind of like me. They're human beings as well. And so, I don't know, I just, I have a little trouble imagining paying my hard earned cash to go see a bunch of humanoid sort medicine. But maybe that's just me.

Tamara Keith (23:18)

I mean, robots can't even like, fold laundry yet. And until they can fold laundry, I'm not ready for it.

Ashley Lopez (23:24)

Yeah, but I just don't want us creating a space to compete them to get better at anything. I think that's my final thought.

Myles Parks (23:29)

Don't encourage, don't encourage them.

Ashley Lopez (23:30)

Let's keep them kind of mediocre at a lot of stuff.

Tamara Keith (23:34)

Okay, that's all for today. Our executive producer is Mathani Muturi. Our producers are Casey Morell and Bria Suggs. Our editor is Rachel Bay. Special thanks to Ben Swayze. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House.

Myles Parks (23:46)

I'm Myles Parks. I cover voting.

Ashley Lopez (23:47)

And I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics.

Tamara Keith (23:49)

And thank you for listening to the NPR politics podcast.

Myles Parks (24:01)

Marlee Matlin was the first deaf actor to win an Academy Award. She also helped pass a bill that requ Captioning in movies and TV shows. So if you're one of the folks who uses captions, you know what to do. I see people with their laptops watching movies and with captions. I want to say, are you enjoying captions by the way, Marlee Matlin from Coda, the West Wing. And more on Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR.

Ashley Lopez (24:26)

Keeping up with the news can feel like a 24 hour job. Luckily, it is our job. Every hour on the NPR News now podcast, we take the latest, most important, important stories happening and we package them into five minute episodes so you can easily squeeze them in between meetings and on your way to that thing. Listen to the NPR News now podcast now.