Three weeks ago, many Republicans were gloomy about the prospects of retaining a majority in the US House of Representatives after the midterm elections, but two court rulings have lifted their spirits, although this may not last, writes the BBC.
US President Donald Trump’s approval rating, particularly on the economy and inflation, has fallen since the US and Israeli attacks on Iran two months ago. Republican efforts to secure a favorable outcome by changing electoral boundaries in Texas and several other conservative states have been offset by Democratic counterattacks in California and Virginia. Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich said in April that if the elections were held in May, the Republicans would lose. He said that at least one of the issues — war, the cost of living, or gas prices — must be addressed in order to win.
Now, two court decisions have changed that. Last week, the state Supreme Court in Virginia overturned the results of a voter referendum that approved new district boundaries that would have given Democrats four seats. After the court’s decision was announced, Republican Congressman Richard Hudson said his party now has an advantage in the November midterm elections.
A week earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned decades of precedent, ruling that the Voting Rights Act, passed in the 1960s, does not require states to create electoral districts that would allow minorities to elect candidates based on their total population in the state. The court said that only overt racism can be a reason to invalidate a state’s electoral map.
The manipulation of electoral districts to favor one party is constitutional,
even if it diminishes the importance of minority votes.
This has prompted a number of Republican-dominated southern states to rush to dismantle minority districts that historically have been dominated by black Democrats and redraw them so that Republicans win.
Tennessee was the first to do so, approving a redistricting map that favors Republicans in all nine of the state’s districts. On the morning of the 12th of May, the Louisiana Senate approved a new distribution that is likely to destroy one of the two districts that had Democratic prospects. Alabama is set to follow suit. Although several Republicans in South Carolina have joined Democrats in preventing similar action, the state’s governor can still call a special session to move ahead with redistricting.
Combined with Florida’s redistricting, which it did the same day the court announced its decision, the battle over redistricting, which had seemed like a stalemate, could now give Republicans a significant advantage, gaining at least eight additional seats.
Republicans currently hold a majority in the House of Representatives with 218 seats
to Democrats’ 212, making it even more difficult for Democrats to regain control of the chamber. Georffrey Skelley of Decision Desk HQ, an election analysis website, said the changes leave Democrats with very little room for error.
However, even redistricting may not help if Trump’s public approval rating is low and the prevailing political winds may be too strong for Republicans to hold on to. During Trump’s first term in 2018, when his approval ratings were higher than they are now, Democrats won 235 seats in the midterm elections. In a letter to the Democratic Party, House Majority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said that given the very unpleasant political climate surrounding Republicans, extremists will not gain much from their manipulation scheme. However, given that the entire House of Representatives is reelected every two years, which creates the possibility that at some point the attitude towards conservatives will be more favorable, Democrats do not plan to stop. Jeffries wrote that Democrats’ efforts to oppose the Republican redistricting scheme will not end, and that this is just the beginning.
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