5
#000000
#FFFFFF
voting rights
How Will John Roberts Be Remembered? As a Democracy Destroyer
It is unlikely that any Chief Justice in history played more of a role in destroying more of our nation’s democracy rules than this man.
Sep 15, 2025
Chief Justice John Roberts is smart and skilled. He will be remembered, however, as a historic failure.
This is not a claim to make lightly, but his record compels it, because Roberts’ legacy will be defined by two catastrophic roles he played.
First, Roberts has played the lead role in destroying indispensable rules of our democracy.
Second, Roberts has played the lead judicial role in serving as the handmaiden to President Trump’s efforts to turn our democracy into an autocracy. (This historic failure will be detailed next week in Part II).
Roberts’ role in destroying essential rules of our democracy
Chief Justice Roberts has taken the lead in writing a series of opinions that have destroyed essential rules governing our democracy. They deal with:
- The sacred right of every eligible citizen to vote.
- The integrity and honesty of the political system.
- The right of citizens to have an unrigged opportunity to choose their representatives.
- The idea that public officials should not be allowed to sell influence with their office.
- The foundational principle that no person is above the law.
The following opinions, written by Roberts and joined in all but one case only by the Republican-appointed majority on the Court, have done unprecedented harm to our democracy.
Roberts wrote the majority opinion for a 5–4 decision in Shelby County v. Holder (2013). It declared key sections of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, the most consequential voting rights law ever enacted, to be unconstitutional. The Act was reenacted periodically over decades until the Shelby County decision.
The Roberts opinion unleashed a wave of regressive and discriminatory voting changes by states and local jurisdictions that disadvantaged minority voters and impeded their voting rights and their ability to fully participate in the democratic process.
McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission
Roberts wrote the majority opinion for a 5–4 decision in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission (2014) which struck down the aggregate limit on all contributions by a donor in an election cycle, a provision previously held constitutional by the Supreme Court in Buckley v. Valeo in 1976.
In Buckley, the Supreme Court had found that unlimited contributions given to support candidates were inherently corrupt. The McCutcheon decision, however, eviscerated the limits on individual contributions to candidates by unleashing billionaires, millionaires, and other big money donors to give unlimited, often huge, contributions to Super PACs to benefit specific candidates.
Roberts wrote the majority opinion for a 5–4 Court decision in Rucho v. Common Cause (2019), in which the Court decided that it could not act on challenges to partisan redistricting plans. The decision claimed that the Court is incapable of establishing standards for determining when partisan maps become unconstitutional, no matter how extreme.
The Rucho decision means that there are no constitutional restrictions on partisan gerrymandering, no matter how rigged the plans are. The result is that politicians get to choose their voters rather than voters choosing their representatives.
Roberts wrote the unanimous opinion in McDonnell v. United States, (2016), which vacated the conviction of former Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell for honest services fraud and extortion. In his opinion, Roberts said that McDonnell’s actions did not constitute “official acts” under the applicable laws, including the bribery law.
In its decision, the Court adopted a narrow, unrealistic construction of the term “official act” to exclude various acts of an officeholder that should be covered, even when those acts are done in direct exchange for gifts or other benefits. For all practical purposes, the Court has left the country without effective bribery laws to prevent public officials from selling their office for financial benefits.
Roberts wrote the opinion for a 6–3 majority in Trump v. United States (2024), which gave Trump presidential criminal immunity. The decision violated a guiding principle of our Founders that no person is above the law. The Roberts opinion placing Trump above the law and also giving him personal control of the Justice Department and FBI can be seen in such outrageous Trump pronouncements as the statement that he has “The right to do anything I want to. I’m the president of the United States,” and “I run the country and the world.”
It is unlikely that any Chief Justice in history played more of a role in destroying more of our nation’s democracy rules than Roberts. And that is how he will be remembered.
Keep Reading
Show Less
Voting Still Matters, But Only If We Fix It
A 20-step blueprint for rebuilding the foundation of US democracy.
Sep 06, 2025
Recent voices insist that federal elections are meaningless, corrupted beyond repair, and no longer worth defending. Their evidence is grim: More than $5.5 billion was spent in the 2024 presidential race while Wisconsin’s legislature stayed locked by gerrymander regardless of the statewide vote. A Senate where about 588,000 in Wyoming cancel out 39.4 million in California. An Electoral College that twice in 25 years handed the White House to the loser of the popular vote. Voting restrictions crafted to suppress minorities. Federal courts that see partisan gerrymandering and refuse to act.
On the facts, they are right. On the conclusion, they are dangerously wrong.
To say elections no longer matter is to surrender the battlefield. It is to tell millions that nothing they do will change anything. That is exactly the message authoritarians want Americans to believe. If people stop fighting for elections, those elections will not be stolen. They will be abandoned.
At the signing of the Voting Rights Act, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared, “The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice.” Months earlier, on the road from Selma, Martin Luther King Jr. had proclaimed, “Voting is the foundation stone for political action.” One spoke from authority, the other from struggle. Yet they spoke of one shared truth. The vote is the cornerstone of freedom.
Our democracy is under strain. Its foundation unsettled, its cornerstone cracked by distortion and distrust. Yet it stands. It can be repaired.
What We Can Agree On
The failures often described are undeniable. Gerrymandered maps keep parties in power regardless of popular will. The Senate’s imbalance gives a permanent veto to sparsely populated states. The Electoral College warps presidential contests. Voting restrictions disenfranchise millions. Campaign finance turns federal races into billion-dollar spectacles. Even when majorities vote for change, legislatures rewrite the rules after the fact to strip power from those elected.
The result is predictable. Citizens see futility everywhere. Why vote if the outcome is predetermined? Why care if Congress’ approval rating was 15% in 2023, when 95% of incumbents still won reelection the following year? These questions cannot be ignored. They demand an answer that is better than surrender.
Where the Conclusion Goes Wrong
History shows what happens when people believe elections are meaningless. They disengage. And when they disengage, minority rule hardens into permanent rule. This is not theory. It is the story of every society where cynicism took the place of resistance.
Americans are not exempt. We too have often waited until crisis forced our hand. As Winston Churchill allegedly observed, you can count on Americans to do the right thing, but only after they have tried everything else. That is a weakness, but also a pattern. Delay does not mean defeat. In the end we have always found a way to repair what was broken.
Concerned citizens are right that federal elections have become distorted. They are wrong to say they cannot be repaired. Consider Poland. In 1989, Solidarity forced elections that dismantled one-party rule. In 2023, Polish voters once again removed an illiberal government at the ballot box. Chile’s 1988 plebiscite ended Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. Serbia’s 2000 election, defended in the streets, forced Slobodan Milošević to step down. South Korea’s generals conceded to constitutional change in 1987, opening the door to real elections. These are not anomalies. They are proof that entrenched systems get broken when ballots are defended.
Lessons from Abroad
Other democracies once faced problems strikingly similar to our own. Britain, Canada, and Australia abolished partisan gerrymandering through independent commissions. Germany rebuilt its democracy with proportional representation and strict constitutional limits. France capped campaign spending to prevent billion-dollar elections. Most advanced democracies automatically register citizens to vote. Many hold elections on weekends or declare them national holidays to ensure participation. Dozens of countries restrict donations and enforce transparency that makes dark money impossible.
These reforms are not utopian dreams. They are daily realities elsewhere. They show that systemic flaws get corrected when citizens demand reform and refuse to accept a rigged game as permanent.
The Blueprint for Reform
Democracy cannot be rebuilt with slogans. It requires structure: foundations that carry weight, pillars that resist pressure, walls that shield citizens from abuse.
King warned against waiting for a more convenient season for change. “We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”
Now is the time to plan and to lay the foundation for that change. What follows are 20 pillars of reform. Each is a proven step in healthy democracies.
Pillar 1: Universal Voter Registration
Millions of eligible citizens are kept off the rolls by bureaucratic hurdles. Automatic registration would eliminate these barriers. Congress could update the National Voter Registration Act to require enrollment at age 18 using Department of Motor Vehicles, Social Security, and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data, with strong privacy protections. Oregon and Colorado already run this system successfully. Registration should be a feature of citizenship, not an obstacle course.
Pillar 2: Preregistration at 16 and Civics Integration
Young voters often begin adulthood unregistered and disengaged. Preregistration ensures that turning 18 means being ready to vote. States can collect data at 16, activate it at 18, and pair the process with high school civics classes that teach how voting works in practice. Hawaii and Colorado already do this. A culture of participation starts in the classroom.
Pillar 3: National Voting Access Standards
Access to voting differs wildly by state. Some citizens enjoy weeks of early voting, others face closed polls and endless lines. A federal baseline would guarantee two weeks of early voting, secure drop boxes, no-excuse absentee ballots, and Election Day as a paid holiday. Congress has the constitutional authority to set these standards. Democracy should not depend on a ZIP code.
Pillar 4: Restoring the Voting Rights Act
The US Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County decision gutted preclearance and unleashed a wave of suppression laws. Without federal oversight, discrimination spreads unchecked. The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would restore preclearance and force states to prove their laws are not discriminatory before enactment. History shows this works. Thousands of bad laws were blocked under the old system. We need that protection again.
Pillar 5: Independent Redistricting Commissions
Gerrymandering allows politicians to choose their voters instead of the other way around. Independent commissions dismantle this scheme. States like Arizona, Michigan, and California already use commissions that draw fair maps with transparency and citizen input. Congress could require them nationwide for House districts. Abroad, countries like Canada treat neutral commissions as the democratic norm. We should too.
Pillar 6: Ranked-Choice Voting
Plurality elections reward division and spoilers. Ranked-choice voting (RCV) ensures winners have majority support. Voters rank candidates, and if no one wins outright, the lowest is eliminated and votes reallocated until someone secures a majority. Maine, Alaska, and dozens of cities already use it. RCV rewards broad appeal, reduces negative campaigning, and gives voters real choice.
Pillar 7: Proportional Representation
Winner-take-all districts exaggerate partisan dominance and silence millions. Proportional representation matches seats to actual votes. Congress could repeal the 1967 single-member district law and allow multi-member districts using proportional systems. Germany and New Zealand use hybrids that balance local representation with fairness. This reform opens space for independents and new voices while reducing polarization.
Pillar 8: Expanding the House of Representatives
The US House has been capped at 435 seats since 1910, while the population has more than tripled. Districts now average about 761,000 people, based on the 2020 Census. Expansion would reduce district size, bring representatives closer to constituents, and reduce Electoral College bias. Congress could adopt formulas like the cube-root rule, which would expand the House to 600-700 seats. In the last hundred years, Canada grew its House by over 50%. Germany by about 60%. Italy by nearly 20%. The US House has not moved at all.
Pillar 9: Small-Donor Public Financing
Money tilts politics toward the wealthy. Matching small donations with public funds shifts power back to citizens. A $50 gift could be matched 6 to 1, turning it into $350. New York City’s program has proven this model. Candidates who opt in agree to limits on large contributions. Public financing amplifies everyday voices and reduces dependence on billionaires and PACs.
Pillar 10: Dark-Money Transparency
Secret spending corrodes trust. Voters deserve to know who is paying for influence. Congress could require disclosure of major donors behind election ads, the IRS could tighten rules for nonprofits, and the Securities and Exchange Commission could require corporations to disclose political spending. California already maintains an online ad library. Sunlight is not optional. It is the minimum.
Pillar 11: A Constitutional Amendment on Money in Politics
Supreme Court rulings like Citizens United equated money with speech and gave corporations free rein to spend. Without an amendment, reforms remain vulnerable to judicial veto. An amendment authorizing “reasonable limits” would secure lasting change. Amendments are difficult but not impossible. The 26th, lowering the voting age, passed quickly once demand surged. A similar movement would reset the rules of political finance.
Pillar 12: Electoral College Reform
Twice in 25 years, the loser of the popular vote won the presidency. This undermines legitimacy. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact offers a realistic fix. States pledge to award their electors to the national popular-vote winner once the compact reaches 270 votes. The compact total is 209 electoral votes as of April 2024 (NCSL). Once enacted, every vote counts equally, and no state is ignored.
Pillar 13: Statehood for Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico
More than 4 million citizens in DC and Puerto Rico live under federal law without full representation. They pay taxes, serve in the military, and yet remain second-class. Congress could fix this with admission bills. For Puerto Rico, a binding referendum would confirm the people’s choice. Statehood is not a partisan gift. It is a recognition of citizenship.
Pillar 14: Senate Filibuster Reform
The filibuster allows 41 senators representing as little as 11% of the population to block laws supported by majorities. This is minority rule hiding behind procedure. At the start of a new Congress, the Senate could change its rules by simple majority. Carve outs for democracy and civil-rights laws, or a return to the “talking filibuster,” would restore accountability. Without reform, every other measure in this blueprint remains hostage.
Pillar 15: Restoring Voting Rights for Citizens with Felony Convictions
Roughly 4 million Americans could not vote due to felony convictions in 2024, disproportionately African Americans. This is the direct legacy of post-Reconstruction suppression. Congress could restore rights for federal elections upon release from prison, with states following suit. Maine and Vermont already allow incarcerated citizens to vote without disruption. Reenfranchisement strengthens reintegration and affirms that citizenship is not permanently stripped.
As King declared during the Selma march, “So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind, it is made up for me.”
Pillar 16: Professional, Nonpartisan Election Administration
Partisan control of elections erodes trust and invites abuse. States should establish independent boards with balanced membership and fixed terms. Congress could tie federal funds to adoption. Protecting election workers is equally critical, with legal penalties for harassment and security resources for threatened staff. Canada and India already run nonpartisan election commissions that command trust across divides. Administration must be neutral, or democracy will never be trusted.
Pillar 17: Paper Ballots and Risk-Limiting Audits
In an age of hacking and conspiracy, trust depends on evidence. Paper ballots provide a physical record that gets checked. Risk-limiting audits verify results before certification. Colorado already runs statewide audits successfully. Congress could require paper ballots nationwide and tie funds to compliance. This is not bureaucracy. It is proof. Without it, lies about stolen elections thrive.
Pillar 18: Anti-Subversion and Certification Safeguards
When local officials refuse to certify results, democracy hangs by a thread. The 2022 reform of the Electoral Count Reform Act helped at the federal level, but state rules remain vulnerable. States should set binding timelines, automatic court enforcement, and criminal penalties for willful refusal. Certification is a ministerial duty, not a political choice. This pillar locks the foundation against sabotage.
Pillar 19: Supreme Court and Ethics Reform
The court cannot remain above the law. Without binding ethics rules, recusal standards, and disclosure requirements, legitimacy collapses. Congress could pass a code of ethics and set staggered 18-year terms for justices. Expanding lower courts will reduce manipulation by partisan litigants. Other democracies enforce judicial standards. The United States must do no less. The court should protect democracy, not place it at risk.
Pillar 20: Strengthening Local News and Voter Information
Citizens need information. Yet local news is collapsing, leaving hundreds of counties in news deserts where disinformation thrives. States could fund independent civic-information consortia. Congress could provide tax credits for subscriptions and newsroom hiring. Nonprofits and libraries could publish voter guides. Switzerland and New Jersey already invest in public-interest media. Without informed citizens, no electoral system will function.
Critics’ Corner: Answering the Naysayers
And yes, there are alternative solutions. Every serious reform agenda will meet resistance. Some critics attack from cynicism, others from realism, and some from outright bad faith. Growth, discourse, and compromise are hallmarks of a strong democracy.
Bring them into the open and address them directly. Put them on the record and meet them with evidence.
“These are liberal fantasies.”
No. These reforms are not partisan dreams. They are basic democratic standards already working in red, purple, and blue states. Maine and Alaska use ranked-choice voting. Florida voters overwhelmingly approved rights restoration for people with felony convictions. Arizona voters created an independent redistricting commission. If these reforms were only “liberal,” they would never have passed in conservative states. They are about fairness, not ideology.
“You can’t reform until you’re in power, and you can’t get into power without reform.”
Yes, this is the chicken-and-egg problem. The answer is incremental and state-based change. Marriage equality, marijuana legalization, Medicaid expansion: Each began in a handful of states and spread until the national system had to adapt. Reform builds in layers, not in one stroke.
“We tried this before and it failed.”
It is true that campaign finance reform was gutted and the Voting Rights Act was weakened. But that is not proof that reform is futile. It is proof that stronger safeguards are needed. Failure is not a reason to give up. It is a reason to come back with better armor.
“The courts will strike it down anyway.”
Courts block progress, but courts are not immune to public legitimacy. When movements gain strength, courts bend rather than risk collapse. That is why judicial reform itself belongs in the blueprint: term limits, ethics codes, and lower-court expansion.
“America is unique. You can’t import foreign models.”
Yes, America is unique. But uniqueness is no excuse for dysfunction. Every advanced democracy has figured out how to prevent minority rule, gerrymandering, and billion-dollar elections. Ours will too.
“The people in power will never vote away their own power.”
They often do, when public pressure leaves them no choice. Incumbents in Maine fought ranked-choice voting, and they lost. Florida politicians resisted rights restoration, but 65% of voters demanded it. History is clear: Power yields when people force it to.
“Voters don’t care about this.”
Reform is not separate from people’s daily concerns. Gerrymandered legislatures block policies that majorities support, from wages to healthcare to climate action. Electoral reform is not abstract. It is the condition for getting anything else done.
“Too complicated. Ordinary people will never support it.”
The technical details are complex, but the principles are simple. Majority rule. One person, one vote. Transparency. Fairness. Citizens voted for ranked-choice ballots, independent commissions, and rights restoration because they understood the basic value, not because they mastered the math.
“This is too radical. It will never all pass.”
True. Not all at once. But reforms are cumulative. The civil rights movement did not win everything in a single bill. It won through steady pressure and incremental victories that reshaped the landscape. A blueprint is not a one-day project. It is a guide for decades.
“Polarization will remain even if reforms pass.”
Polarization is real, but bad rules intensify it. Gerrymandered districts reward extremism. Winner-take-all systems punish compromise. Fair rules do not erase division, but they blunt its sharpest edges.
“Liberals only want reform when they lose.”
False. Independent commissions, voting rights expansions, and redistricting reforms have passed with bipartisan coalitions and often in conservative states. The test is simple: If a party or movement opposes fair elections, it is admitting it cannot win in a fair fight.
“It is already too late.”
Authoritarians want nothing more than for you to believe that. History says otherwise. Franco ruled Spain for nearly four decades before democracy returned. South Korea’s generals held power for decades until protest cracked their hold. It is never too late unless people surrender.
The critics are not wrong about the difficulty. Reform will be hard. Entrenched interests will resist. Courts may obstruct. Cynicism will whisper that it is all impossible. But every democracy that has clawed its way back from authoritarian drift faced the same voices of defeat. And these are different, deadly, critical times that try men’s souls. And the prescription may need to be sweeping and comprehensive and great and radical.
The Real Choice
The design flaws are serious. In other countries similar strain has brought unrest and uncertainty. Here it calls for reinforcement, not retreat. The danger is not that elections no longer matter. The danger is believing they cannot. Despair cedes the field to those who want democracy to die quietly. History proves that elections topple dictatorships and open paths to reform. But only when people defend them and demand change.
Local elections matter, yes. They are vital. But abandoning federal reform is not an option. The presidency, the Senate, the House, and the Supreme Court shape the lives of every citizen. If we concede those arenas as theater, we concede the nation itself.
The Path Forward
The truth is stark. American democracy is rigged, tilted toward minority rule, and riddled with flaws that delegitimize outcomes. But stark is not hopeless. Other nations have faced crises as severe and rebuilt their democracies from the ground up. So will we.
The fight ahead is not about abandoning federal elections but transforming them. Automatic registration. Independent redistricting. Campaign finance reform. Proportional representation. Expanded access. Professional administration. Ethical courts. Informed citizens. These are not slogans. They are the pillars of a rebuilt democracy.
As Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.” Silence is not an option. Nor is delay. King called it “the fierce urgency of now.” He reminded us that “this is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.”
That is the choice in front of us. To retreat into despair and let cynicism rot the foundation, or to rise and defend the ballot as the most powerful instrument of justice ever devised.
The question is no longer whether change is possible. The question is whether we will summon the will to fight for it. Whether we will defend the ballot or surrender it. Whether we will prove that democracy can be realized in this generation by acting, organizing, legislating, and refusing to give up.
Voting still matters. But only if we make it matter.
Keep Reading
Show Less
Inside the Trumpian Plot to Rig the Midterms... and Every Election After
The fate of the American experiment with democracy will depend not on our institutions, but on our collective will to preserve it at the ballot box and beyond.
Aug 28, 2025
With the midterms more than a year away, US President Donald Trump and his enablers have launched a new war on voting rights. Its immediate target is November 2026; its ultimate goal is the institutionalization of one-party control of the federal government. This political “final solution” is the last step in MAGA’s quest to extinguish liberal democracy in America.
The war is being fought along legal and political fronts that stretch across the marble halls of the Supreme Court, Trump’s executive orders, Steve Bannon’s seedy podcast, the transformation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into a latter-day Praetorian Guard, and threats to invoke the Insurrection Act.
The Supreme Court, the Voting Rights Act, and Racial Gerrymandering
When it comes to voting rights, no single institution has been more destructive than the nation’s top judicial body under the hypocritical leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts.
In his 2005 Senate confirmation hearing, Roberts promised to serve as chief justice in the fashion of a baseball umpire, calling “balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat.” That was nonsense then, and it’s nonsense now.
Roberts has always been a Republican insider and activist, dating back to his stint in the early 1980s as a crusading young lawyer in the Justice Department, where he wrote upward of 25 memos, suggesting strategies to limit the scope of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), the landmark legislation passed by Congress in 1965 to outlaw racial discrimination in voting.
Redistricting experts predict that if the GOP gambit in Texas and elsewhere succeeds, the party could hold the House until 2050.
In 2013, he made good on his lifelong mission by authoring the infamous 5-4 majority opinion in Shelby County v. Holder, one of the most regressive rulings in Supreme Court history. Shelby gutted sections 4 and 5 of the VRA, which had required state and local jurisdictions, mostly in the South, with histories of egregious voter suppression, to obtain advance federal approval—a process known as “preclearance”—before making changes to their election procedures. Roberts declared in Shelby that “things have changed dramatically” since the passage of the VRA and that racial discrimination in voting no longer took place.
Shelby left Section 2 of the VRA as the last remaining bulwark of the law. That section prohibits voting practices that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or language. Both the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts have long recognized the right of private parties and organizations to file lawsuits under Section 2 to challenge “racial gerrymanders,” which occur when a state uses race as the primary factor in redistricting to dilute the voting power of minority populations. Civil rights groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund have used Section 2 litigation to force the creation of numerous majority-Black or “majority-minority” voting districts to give minorities a fair chance to elect candidates that reflect their views.
All that could change when Roberts and his Republican benchmates hear oral arguments in Louisiana v. Callais on October 15. The case stems from a complaint brought by a group of individuals who describe themselves in court filings as “non-Black voters.” They contend Louisiana violated their 14th Amendment rights to equal protection when it created a second Black-majority voting district in 2024 to give Black voters, who comprise nearly a third of the state’s electorate, proportional representation in the state’s six-member congressional delegation. If the court agrees with them, it could gut Section 2, leading to the elimination of an estimated 11 Black-majority districts, all held by Democrats, across GOP-controlled Southern states. Such a decision would neuter what little remains of the VRA.
Political Gerrymandering, Texas and California
Even if the court rules against the “non-Black” plaintiffs in Callais, it has given its blessings to another method of election rigging known as “partisan gerrymandering”—the practice of drawing state voting districts to benefit the political party in power. In 2019, by way of a 5-4 majority opinion penned by Roberts, Rucho v. Common Cause, the court held that partisan gerrymandering, no matter how disproportional or extreme, presents a “nonjusticiable political question” that lies beyond the jurisdiction of federal judges to alter or correct.
Both parties have traditionally engaged in partisan gerrymandering, but the GOP has perfected the technique in the wake of Rucho, with Texas as a prime example. Responding to a direct demand from Trump, the state has drafted a new congressional voting map designed to give Republicans an additional five House seats. Other Republican states, including Florida, Indiana, Missouri, and Ohio, are likely to heed Trump’s plea and revise their voting maps before the midterms.
The GOP’s moves have finally awakened a fighting spirit among Democrats, but the outcome of the counterattack is uncertain. Led by Gov. Gavin Newsom, California has set a special election for this November to consider a ballot proposition that would suspend the state’s current congressional map, which was drawn by an independent commission, and replace it with one that could give Democrats a five-seat boost to match the Texas power-grab. Democrats in New York, Illinois, and Maryland reportedly are exploring ways to follow Newsom’s lead.
Meantime, the Texas redo is a done deal, offering Trump and the GOP a clear path to retaining their stranglehold on federal power. Redistricting experts predict that if the GOP gambit in Texas and elsewhere succeeds, the party could hold the House until 2050.
Trump’s Executive Orders, Proclamations, and Rants
Emboldened by the Supreme Court’s 2024 Roberts-authored decision on presidential immunity (Trump v. United States), Trump has made good on his pledge to be a “dictator on Day One” of his second term, releasing a torrent of autocratic executive orders and proclamations. These include an executive order issued on March 25 with the Orwellian title of “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.” Among the order’s many directives is a requirement for voter ID to prove citizenship, and a prohibition on counting mail-in ballots that are sent in by Election Day but delivered afterward.
On April 24, federal district court judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a Clinton appointee who sits in Washington, DC, issued a preliminary injunction, blocking the ID requirement and other provisions, noting that “Our Constitution entrusts Congress and the states—not the president—with the authority to regulate federal elections.” Unfortunately, the judge’s order failed to address the constitutionality of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which in many respects tracks the executive order. The SAVE Act was passed by the House on April 10 and is now pending before the Senate.
A permanent one-party state controlled by Trump and the GOP will set back women’s interests indefinitely.
Undeterred by the courts, Trump has doubled down on his demands, vowing to impose nationwide voter ID by presidential fiat, ban mail-in ballots and replace voting machines with hand counting. In remarks delivered at the White House on August 18, he claimed that “mail-in ballots are corrupt,” and no other country permits them. In fact, some 34 countries allow them.
Trump has also demanded a new census that would exclude undocumented aliens to be conducted as soon as possible. The census is mandated every 10 years by the Constitution and is used to determine how many House seats are apportioned to each state. To date, no census has been conducted mid-decade, and never have the undocumented been excluded.
The Impact on Women
The election law changes demanded by Trump and the GOP will also undermine the voting power of women.
According to the Pew Research Center, despite the Democratic Party’s declining approval ratings, women remain 12 percentage points more likely than men to affiliate with the Democrats. Exit polling conducted by CNN after the last election found a similar gender gap, showing that women nationwide voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris over Trump by a 10% margin. Black women in particular have been the most reliable supporters of the Democratic Party. In 2024, a whopping 92% of Black women opted for Harris, continuing a decades-long trend.
Women also hold more liberal values than men on a variety of key political issues, such as abortion access, gun control, environmental protection, and racial justice. This is especially true of younger women between the ages 18 and 29. A permanent one-party state controlled by Trump and the GOP will set back women’s interests indefinitely.
Steve Bannon and ICE
On his War Room podcast on August 19, right-wing fulminator Steve Bannon upped the ante in the voting rights war, calling for the deployment of ICE to monitor polling places to ensure that “If you don’t have an ID—if you’re not a citizen—you’re not voting.”
It is, of course, illegal under federal law to deploy the military or armed federal troops to patrol polling places as monitors or observers unless they are needed to repel an armed invasion. A section of the US Code makes it a felony punishable by up to five years in prison to do so. The Voting Rights Act also prohibits federal agents from intimidating voters, and the Posse Comitatus Act of 1868 generally proscribes using the military as civilian law enforcement.
These safeguards could easily be circumvented by an ICE army that will be 10,000 strong by the midterms simply by staging high-profile immigration enforcement operations anywhere in blue cities on Election Day. The intimidation effect would be palpable.
The Insurrection Act and the Final Solution
Should all other options for election-rigging appear unavailing by 2026, Trump will have one final card to play: declaring a national emergency and invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807 to delay or even suspend the elections. The act provides an exception to the prohibitions of the Posse Comitatus Act, and as Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Justice Department will no doubt argue, all other federal statutes.
Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in 2020 in response to the George Floyd protests, and again this past June in response to protests in Los Angeles. Never in American history has the act been invoked to disrupt an election. But if Trump feels sufficiently threatened by a potential loss of power, there is little reason to believe he would not choose to become the first. Nor could we count on the Supreme Court to try to stop him.
In the end, as always, the fate of the American experiment with democracy will depend not on our institutions, but on our collective will to preserve it at the ballot box and beyond. Each of us has an obligation to spread the word and peacefully resist in whatever way we can.
Keep Reading
Show Less
Most Popular