The Supreme Court delivered an enormous win in Texas for Trump’s plan to rig the 2026 election through redistricting – even after a lower court found the Texas map was likely an illegal racial gerrymander.

Friday, December 5

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THIS WEEK

- SCOTUS delivers enormous win for Trump’s redistricting scheme

- DOJ sues six more states in sweeping push to obtain unredacted voter rolls

REDISTRICTING

SCOTUS delivers enormous win for Trump’s redistricting scheme

In a normal year, December can be a wonderful time to unplug from the news and lean into the holiday spirit. Unfortunately, 2025 is not that year.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday night put an end to some of the mounting uncertainty surrounding the 2026 elections: It ruled that Texas can use ([link removed] ) its new GOP-backed congressional map next year – even though a lower court found that it was likely an illegal racial gerrymander. The ruling could result in five more Republican seats in Congress.

Despite this unfortunate new clarity, uncertainty continues to reign supreme seven months into President Donald Trump’s scheme to gerrymander the GOP’s path to victory in next year’s midterms. We’re now waiting for important — doubly important after the Texas ruling! — redistricting updates in Indiana and Missouri.

Trump finally succeeded in bullying Indiana Republicans into taking up mid-decade redistricting ([link removed] ) , but the outcome is still completely up in the air. The Indiana House backs the Trump plan and has advanced a proposed map ([link removed] ) that could eliminate ([link removed] ) both of the state’s Democratic districts (despite accusations that it’s an illegal racial gerrymander). But in the Senate, GOP leader Rodric Bray has insisted there aren’t enough votes to pass the map.

Indiana Republicans have been under relentless pressure ([link removed] ) from the White House to back redistricting since at least August, but that’s escalated into threats and harassment from members of the public in the weeks since Trump called out lawmakers by name on social media.

Indiana is the fourth state to take up redistricting at Trump’s demand, but it’s the first one where the outcome is uncertain. With the Indiana Senate set to convene Monday, the map could be dead in the water if 16 Republicans come out against it. We’ll soon find out where they stand – and no one’s exactly sure where the votes will fall.

Meanwhile, in Missouri, voters have been organizing a citizen’s veto referendum ([link removed] ) to block the congressional gerrymander Republicans passed ([link removed] ) in September. Now, their big deadline is just days away: They must submit more than 106,000 signatures to the state by Dec. 11 to get the measure on the ballot.

The group behind the referendum, People Not Politicians, says they’ve gathered far more than the required number of signatures. That should mean Missourians will get the chance to vote on the map soon. But, unfortunately, it doesn’t. Instead, People Not Politicians faces a gauntlet of legal battles ([link removed] ) , with the GOP throwing new hurdles in their path at every turn – rejecting signatures, proposing misleading ballot language and even challenging ([link removed] ) in court voters’ right to hold the referendum at all.

With only a short window of time between the Dec. 11 deadline and the registration period to secure a place on the 2026 ballot, the next few weeks are going to be an intense legal race to determine who gets to decide the congressional map: Republicans or Missouri voters? Read more about the Missouri referendum here ([link removed] ) .



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VOTER PRIVACY

DOJ sues six more states in sweeping push to obtain unredacted voter rolls

The federal government is escalating ([link removed] ) its ongoing quest to seize unredacted information on millions of voters, with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filing lawsuits this week against six more states to obtain the private data.

The DOJ previously filed ([link removed] ) a wave of similar lawsuits against eight states, which has resulted in exactly zero court-ordered disclosures so far.

The DOJ is arguing that the Civil Rights Act of 1960 gives it sweeping authority to demand entire statewide voter files. The provision was originally enacted to stop Jim Crow registrars from hiding voter suppression records.

If the DOJ is successful, states could be forced to transmit sensitive voter data to federal officials and potentially other agencies with little explanation and minimal judicial oversight. Read more about the DOJ lawsuits here ([link removed] ) .

OPINION

Seven Voting Laws Every Blue State Should Enact Right Now

Screenshot 2025-12-04 at 3.43.10 PM ([link removed] )

It’s no secret: We’re bracing for the possibility of a tumultuous election in 2026. But there are steps blue states can take now to prepare for whatever’s coming. That’s why Marc wrote about seven voting laws every blue state should enact right now. Read his list here ([link removed] ) .

NEW EPISODE

Something Strange Is Happening Inside the Republican Party

Sen. Ruben Gallego joins Marc for an in-depth conversation on the future of American democracy, Latino political power, and why Democrats win when they focus on the economy and authenticity—not manufactured political personas. Watch it on YouTube here ([link removed] ) .

What We’re Doing

This week’s book recommendation comes to us from Democracy Docket reporter Jim Saksa:

“I'm roughly 100 pages into Jill Lepore's magisterial ‘These Truths ([link removed] ) ,’ a history of the United States that beautifully weaves in political philosophy to make the past devastatingly relevant to the present. So far, it's provided me with a deeper understanding of the Founding Fathers' vision for the United States, a vision too often distorted by conservatives who selectively cite the founders’ writings to justify their assault on those very ideals. ‘Very often, histories of nation-states are little more than myths that hide the seams that stitch the nation to the state,’ Lepore writes early on, recognizing the power of narratives to shape the polity. As I finish up these chapters on the nation's founding, I'm excited to see what Lepore has to say about the rest of our deeply complicated history.”

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