The game is rigged – and its time to rewrite the rules.

This week, Texas Democrats walked out of the state House chambers to protest a gerrymandering vote they knew they couldn’t win. The goal? Delay.

The result? Unfortunately – not much.

Republicans have the majority and the new district maps will pass. Trump will get his 5 new GOP-aligned seats and the voters? Out of luck.

Because gerrymandering is legal, and it happens all the time.

📍This isn’t just a Texas problem.

• Jeff Jackson, now North Carolina’s Attorney General, was a duly elected U.S. Representative. When NC redrew its congressional maps in October 2023, they cut him out of his own district.
• Florida’s 2022 redistricting eliminated Black congressional districts. As of July 17, 2025, the Florida Supreme Court upheld the new congressional maps.
• Ohio has ignored their State Supreme Court rulings demanding fair maps in the past. This year, they have to redraw them as the previous maps are expired.
• Texas’s new maps target Jasmine Crockett, Greg Casar, Al Green, Marc Veasey, Julie Johnson, and Lloyd Doggett – all Democrats.
• In response to Texas redistricting, California leaders have openly threatened to gerrymander their own maps to “offset” the GOP gains.

Will more GOP-led states redraw maps if the President asks for more seats? Probably. Will Democratic led states follow California’s lead? Maybe… Either way this disrupts the upcoming 2026 elections.

Why does this happen?

States are required to assess and possibly redraw maps with a new US census (every 10 years) – to ensure distribution of votes across districts and to ensure that there are enough seats to adequately represent the people. This is a good thing, as your communities grow or population migrates – you want to ensure your districts are equally populated and comply with Voting Rights Act. This helps ensure who is elected to state and federal offices represents the people who are in those districts.

However, what has been happening is the party in power, to assure themselves of the outcome of an election, redraws the maps in creative ways. A democratic state would carve up districts to ensure a maximum number of democratic seats – a republican state would do the same to favor republican seats. It basically allows the party to choose the voters, rather than the voters to choose their representative.

Sometimes you can tell a map has been gerrymandered just by looking at it. Are there odd shapes? Lines the split neighborhoods? But this isn’t always the case, sometimes well shaped districts are gerrymandered.

They call it strategy or politics – but let’s be honest:

Its cheating.

If your policies aren’t winning voters, redraw the board. Dilute dissent. Break communities apart. Control the outcome.

Not by representing the people – but by silencing them.

But this isn’t Monopoly. This IS democracy. And rigging the rules here undermines everything we’re supposed to stand for.

What can we do?

We could vote out of spite.

If your district got gerrymandered (or you suspect it did), elect the opposite of what they wanted. Swing the district just to prove you can (I honestly love this idea – chaos has its uses).

OR… we can rewrite the rules entirely.

The New Rules

With a federal referendum it doesn’t matter how the maps are drawn. Gerrymandering only works when lawmakers are the only ones who get to decide.

But imagine a system where:

• Voters propose federal legislation directly
• Those proposals are reviewed, verified, and placed on a national ballot
• Every eligible citizen votes on the law itself – not just on who promises to pass it
• No party could redraw that. No district can suppress it.

That’s what a federal referendum unlocks.

Once that tool exists, the grip of gerrymandering weakens.

Because it won’t be about who holds the seat- it’s about what the people actually want.

So, we have to ask ourselves. Are we really so divided on the issues – or if we removed the partisanship from policy… are we more united?

Bottom Line

If our representatives aren’t representing us and instead are rigging the game to keep power… it’s time to take back our voice.

They write you out because you matter. Your voice matters. They know you can change the game.

So let’s’ do that.

Let’s change the game to favor who democracy should favor – the People.

And maybe we’ll find partisanship was just an illusion all along.