It was a dramatic scene that unfolded in the summer of 2025 in the United States: While in Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott angrily threatened to have Democratic lawmakers arrested, in Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and several lawmakers from the South stood before the press. Behind them the American flag, in front of them microphones - and the clear message: The fleeing Democrats from Texas would find protection in Illinois. “They are doing the right thing,” Pritzker said, “and we will protect them from any arbitrary arrest.”
The background is a political battle as old as American democracy itself: Gerrymandering, the partisan manipulation of electoral district boundaries, is once again at the center of the national drama. When dozens of Democratic lawmakers left Texas to prevent a vote on the new congressional districts, they resorted to one of the last measures left to them. President Donald Trump wants the new maps approved before the 2026 midterm elections - maps that could cement Republican majorities for decades. The term gerrymandering has been a synonym for political trickery in the United States for more than 200 years. It dates back to 1812, when the governor of Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry, signed a law that shifted district lines to benefit his party. One particularly bizarrely shaped district reminded observers of a salamander - the “Gerry-mander” was born. Since then, little has changed: Whoever draws the maps decides how the votes count.
In Texas, power traditionally lies with the legislature and the governor. Every ten years after the census, the districts are redrawn - but nothing prevents the majority from redrawing the lines in between. The methods have always been devious. Either the opposition’s voters are packed into a few districts so that their votes in all others almost dissipate, or they are spread so widely that their political impact is diluted. For the Republican majorities in Texas, this technique has long been routine. After the 2010 census, the GOP used its dominance to radically shift the maps to its advantage. An analysis by the Associated Press at the time showed that Republicans gained the greatest partisan advantage in half a century from it. But Democrats have learned as well. After the 2020 census, they also began cutting aggressively in some states and tried to counter Republican dominance with independent commissions and legal maneuvers.
But the real problem lies deeper. The US Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that partisan gerrymandering is not justiciable under federal law. In other words, there is no objective standard to determine whether a map is “fair.” Only when racial discrimination is provable, as in 2023 in Alabama and later in Louisiana, does the court intervene. Political manipulation, on the other hand, remains a gray area that the highest court deliberately leaves to politics. And so the confrontation is becoming ever more extreme. Texas has now become the focal point of Democratic resistance. The images of lawmakers leaving their home to block the legislature have long since become icons of a deeply divided system. In front of the Capitol in Austin, citizens protest with signs, while inside maps are revised that, as in centuries past, decide which votes carry weight and which do not. JB Pritzker therefore spoke not only as a governor but as a warning voice of democracy: “These people are risking a lot to protect our democracy. Anyone who threatens them or even wants to arrest them strikes at the heart of our system.” His words are part of a larger drama in which legal gray areas, partisan interests, and the naked fear of losing power intertwine.
The history of gerrymandering is a reflection of American politics: a game of tactics, cynicism, and hard competition. Today, as in 1812, the salamander shapes democracy - and no one knows whether the country will ever find the courage to finally tame it.
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Ich habe nie verstanden, wie in einer Demokratie Gerry-Mandering erlaubt sein kann.
Es ist absolut undemokratisch.
Auf die Art bilden die Wahlen nie real den Willen des Volkes ab.
Aber das ist nicht nur damit so.
Auch das System der Wahlmänner ist undemokratisch.
Aber gerade In Texas (und anderen Südstaaten) müssen die Republikaner ja extreme Angst vor dem Willen der Bevölkerung haben, wenn sie so massiv darauf zurück greifen.
Und hier ist das perfide, dass die Hilfen für die Flutopfer und ein Frühwarnsystem hintenan gestellt werden, weil eine neue Wahlkarte wichtiger ist.
Die gleichen Republikaner, die keine Gelder vorab bewilligt haben.
Aber die Bösen für MAGA sind die Demokraten.
Die „weinend wie Kleinkinder weggerannt sind“ (nicht meine Wortwahl, sondern MAGA Propaganda)
Ein ganz grosser Kindergarten, wo man sich fragen muss, sind wir wirklich in 2025?