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Sheldon Whitehouse Profile picture
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Mar 9 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Americans hate politicians picking their voters by gerrymandering. SCOTUS just decided a big case on this issue, and it’s good news/bad news.
Partisan gerrymandering, corrosive and undemocratic, is fueled by dark money groups with big-donor agendas too unpopular to win a fair fight. It’s that simple.
Dark money uses sophisticated mapping to weaponize gerrymandering for special interests. SCOTUS decisions opened the door for gerrymandering, worsening partisanship and dysfunction.
SCOTUS did NOT strip state courts of power to review rigged maps; BUT at least 4 conservatives launched a wacky theory to make courts subservient to legislatures as to gerrymandering.
Rampant gerrymandering endangers democracy. Power taken from voters doesn’t just go away; it goes to special interests, and the results are predictably rotten.

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More from @SenWhitehouse

Sheldon Whitehouse Profile picture
Feb 25
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is a thoroughly qualified nominee. She will bring to the Court a wealth of experience, a sharp legal mind, and a firm commitment to equal protection under law. I look forward to considering her nomination in the Judiciary Committee in the weeks ahead.
I hope my colleagues across the aisle consider Judge Jackson in good faith, as our Founders envisioned when entrusting the Senate with the responsibility to provide advice and consent.
Even before this nominee was named, the right-wing donors who packed the Court under President Trump sought to disparage Justice Breyer’s replacement, alleging the same dark-money scheme that they, themselves, hatched and executed.
Read 4 tweets
Sheldon Whitehouse Profile picture
Feb 7
Gerrymandering at its worst because Supreme Court at its worst said political gerrymandering cases were “non-justiciable” despite lower court cases finding “justiciability.”
washingtonpost.com/opinions/inter…
Easy to spot: significant unexplained difference between statewide vote and delegation make-up (i.e. 50/50 and 13-5). Plus trial discovery showed redistricting mischief in plain view.
Easy to repair: approve maps, with benefit of doubt to those drawn by bipartisan commissions.
Read 4 tweets
Sheldon Whitehouse Profile picture
Feb 3
The attack on Biden’s Supreme Court nominee has begun, spearheaded by the Judicial Crisis Network, and it all boils down to one thing: dark money.
Can we start with the fact that the Judicial Crisis Network is not even a real organization, but a “fictitious name” of another organization, one of several “fictitious names”?

Throw in the secret donors, and it’s so gross it would gag a maggot.
In 2011, the Supreme Court’s conservative justices opened the floodgates for dark money with Citizens United, allowing unlimited spending in our politics. Right away, a network of right-wing groups, donors, and non-profits sprung up and got to work.
Read 5 tweets
Sheldon Whitehouse Profile picture
Jan 19
Here’s the deal. Once Senate debate on a measure ends, you can pass the bill with a simple majority vote. So if you’re willing to outlast the other side, you don’t need cloture. This could take weeks, as other Voting Rights bills did, but we have a few tools that help.
One is my DISCLOSE Act being in the bill. Republicans must vote against it for their dark-money donors, but that kills them with voters. Ditto gerrymandering. Lots of focus on those painful votes for them in the bill will help.
Another is the Senate speak-twice rule. Senators who’ve spoken twice on a question can be ruled out of order if they keep at it. That’s why real filibusters were long, uninterrupted speeches. Not one and done, but two and done. (Yup, that’s 100 speeches by Rs — sorry!)
Read 7 tweets
Sheldon Whitehouse Profile picture
Jan 6
One year ago today, I watched from the window in my Capitol office as insurrectionists sent by the former President launched an assault to stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Today, I’m thinking of the United States Capitol Police, the Metropolitan Police, and all of the law enforcement officers who lost their lives or were injured protecting our Capitol. We owe them all a debt of gratitude for their bravery and service.
We still need to fully understand what took place that day. It’s not enough for law enforcement to prosecute the looters and trespassers who breached the Capitol. The House’s Select Committee and the Department of Justice must follow the money.
Read 6 tweets
Sheldon Whitehouse Profile picture
Dec 8, 2021
The Commission has accomplished its job of killing time for the Biden Administration while avoiding any controversy or impact.
whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/w…
Unfortunately, this law school faculty-heavy commission failed to accomplish even the opening “issue-spotting” work taught in first year in law school.
If another country had given its judicial selection over to a private, partisan group, while that partisan group was taking massive anonymous private donations, we’d have something to say about the obvious dangers of that. Not here.
Read 8 tweets

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