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24 Feb, 6 tweets, 4 min read
NEW: Democrats in Congress must pass major new election reforms to save democracy from an increasingly radical GOP. Dems have a historic chance to pass the biggest expansion of voting access since the Voting Rights Act, a ban on gerrymandering, & more dailykos.com/stories/2021/2…
In reaction to 2020 Dem wins, Republicans are advancing new voting restrictions in AZ, GA, FL, IA, TX, & more states.

Only congressional action is guaranteed to block these voter suppression measures & protect voting access. Dems must pass #HR1 & the John Lewis Voting Rights Act
Following the 2020 elections, Republicans are poised to dominate redistricting by drawing 2-3 times as many House districts as Dems, leading to another decade of biased maps.

Congressional Dems must pass #HR1 & ban House gerrymandering once & for all dailykos.com/stories/2021/2… ImageImage
If congressional Dems don't do anything, GOP minority rule could return to the Senate as soon 2022.

Ensuring we have majority rule & not minority rule is crucial for democracy, & Dems could modestly rebalance the Senate by making D.C. & Puerto Rico states dailykos.com/stories/2021/2…
Preventing the GOP from gaining minority-rule control over both chambers of Congress in 2022 is essential for having a fair 2024 election. The GOP tried to overturn the 2020 Electoral College results even after Trump's insurrection, & they could do it in 2024 with both chambers
Many of these Republican-backed voter suppression bills will become law if congressional Democrats don't curtail the filibuster & pass #HR1 & the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to enact major national protections for the right to vote dailykos.com/stories/2021/2…

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More from @PoliticsWolf

Stephen Wolf Profile picture
23 Feb
NEW: We calculated 3 decades of the Senate "popular vote" & how many people each party represented. The results are astonishing: The GOP hasn't won more votes or represented more people than Dems since the 1990s but has run the Senate > half the time since dailykos.com/stories/2021/2…
GOP minority rule is a defining feature of what's wrong with American politics, & no institution has it worse than the Senate. Dems represent tens of millions more people & won millions more votes but won the same number of seats as GOP in 2020. Minority rule could return in 2022
From 2000-2006 & 2014-2020, Senate GOP owed its majorities to minority rule. The results are far-reaching: A majority of 5 SCOTUS justices were confirmed by GOP senates elected with less support than Dems. Those justices have since undermined voting rights & upheld gerrymandering
Read 13 tweets
Stephen Wolf Profile picture
19 Feb
.@DKElections presents the 2020 presidential results by congressional district! As shown on these maps, Biden won 224 districts to Trump's 211. The median seat was #IL14, which Biden won by 50-48, meaning Trump could've lost the popular vote by 2% & still won a majority of seats
The 2016 presidential results for the congressional districts in use in 2020 saw Trump win the median seat by 2% despite losing overall by 2%, meaning the GOP had a 4% advantage over the popular vote. That advantage fell in half in 2020, but GOP gerrymandering remains a threat
Republicans are poised to draw 2-3 times as many congressional districts as Dems after 2020, & SCOTUS could make GOP gerrymandering worse within states. GOP gerrymandering will remain a major problem in the 2020s & beyond if congressional Dems don't ban it dailykos.com/story/2020/11/…
Read 4 tweets
Stephen Wolf Profile picture
18 Feb
In state after state, Republicans are moving to restrict ballot initiatives after they’ve been used to enact progressive policies & pro-democracy reforms. This is part of the same broader effort to restrict voting access so that only Republicans are able to govern
Arizona voting advocates had tried to use a ballot initiative in 2020 to adopt automatic & same-day voter registration, expanded public financing, & more. The pandemic & AZ's GOP-packed Supreme Court stopped them from getting enough signatures, but they could try again this cycle
Arizona is hardly the only state where the GOP has restricted ballot initiatives or is trying to after voters passed democracy reforms/progressive initiatives. The same thing happened in AR, FL, ID, ME, MI, MO, ND, SD, & UT in just the last several years dailykos.com/stories/2019/7…
Read 5 tweets
Stephen Wolf Profile picture
12 Feb
This will wreak havoc with redistricting timelines. Many states have constitutionally mandated deadlines for drawing new districts before then & are likely to face litigation over them. Some could even see legislatures lose control over the process to courts & backup commissions
⬇️ The delay means we’re more likely to see redistricting blitzkriegs where partisan mapmakers wait until the last minute to release proposed maps before passing them, giving the public little time to mobilize against flawed or outright bad maps
More news related to the delayed release of the census' reapportionment and redistricting data
Read 9 tweets
Stephen Wolf Profile picture
27 Jan
This could mean that the release of population data at the census block level, which is what is used in redistricting itself, may not be released until after April 30. That could cause serious problems for states whose constitutions mandate redistricting deadlines weeks afterward
It appears highly likely that New Jersey will use its current legislative maps for 2021 & won't redistrict their legislature until 2023. Virginia may end up doing the same for November. Several other states with early summer deadlines for redistricting could be thrown into chaos
The census delaying the release of redistricting data this year is a good reason why states should change their redistricting deadlines to make them more flexible in similar future situations, but amending state constitutions is a lengthy process, & it's too late to do so by 2022
Read 4 tweets
Stephen Wolf Profile picture
22 Jan
5 of 14 New Hampshire GOP state senators have introduced a bill that would gerrymander the state's Electoral College votes by assigning them by gerrymandered congressional district. GOP legislators proposed this same scheme this month in MI & WI too gencourt.state.nh.us/bill_status/bi…
In a 4th state, the GOP is proposing *ending* the allocation of electoral votes congressional district: Nebraska, where Biden won the 2nd District & its one electoral vote.

GOP could pass these power grabs in NE & NH now, but MI & WI depend on GOP winning 2022 governors' races
An important point: These GOP Electoral College manipulation schemes aren't even guaranteed to help the GOP, & so much of it is just a knee-jerk reaction to the specific manner of Biden's 2020 win. But eventually, the GOP may get smarter about these power grabs & actually do it
Read 4 tweets

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