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Democracy and Voting Rights
The 1917 Cloture Rule and Wilson's Little Group of Willful Men How a filibuster against arming merchant ships in March 1917 gave the Senate its first cloture rule, and why that two-thirds bar still shapes what a Democratic majority can pass. Allen v. Milligan, Alabama's Second Black District and the Ruling of June 2023 The Supreme Court told Alabama in June 2023 to draw a second district where Black voters could elect a candidate. The state refused, and a court-drawn map finally did it. California's Proposition 50 and the Argument Over Fighting Fire With Fire Why California voters set aside their own independent map in 2025 to answer Texas, what Proposition 50 actually does, and the honest case for and against fighting a gerrymander with one. Guinn v. United States and the 1915 Ruling Against the Grandfather Clause How Oklahoma's 1910 grandfather clause worked, how a young NAACP filed its first Supreme Court brief against it, and why the 1915 victory was followed by a quieter trick that took decades to undo. How Independent Redistricting Commissions Work, From Arizona to Michigan How Arizona, California, Michigan and Colorado choose their mapmakers, what happened when commissions in Virginia and New York stalled, and how to judge whether a commission is working. How Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act Worked, and What Louisiana v. Callais Changed For forty years, Section 2 let minority voters challenge maps that diluted their votes. How those claims worked, how Louisiana got a second Black district, and what Callais narrowed in 2026. How to Testify at a Redistricting Hearing and Keep Your Community Together A step-by-step guide to defining your community of interest, drawing it on a free mapping tool and giving testimony that a redistricting commission or legislature can actually use. Mid-Decade Redistricting Explained, From Tom DeLay's 2003 Texas Map to Today How a Texas walkout to an Oklahoma motel in 2003 led to LULAC v. Perry, why the Supreme Court let states redraw between censuses, and how that ruling set up the map wars of 2025 and 2026. Packing and Cracking, the Two Moves Behind Nearly Every Gerrymander How mapmakers turn a split electorate into a lopsided delegation by packing opponents into a few districts and cracking the rest, with a worked example and the tools used to measure it. Rucho v. Common Cause Closed the Federal Courts to Partisan Gerrymandering Claims What the Supreme Court decided on June 27, 2019, why it called partisan maps a political question, and the routes that remain open to anyone who wants fair districts. Shelby County v. Holder and the Day Preclearance Went Dark On June 25, 2013, the Supreme Court struck the formula behind preclearance. What preclearance did, why the Court ended it, and what changed in the states it had covered. The 1982 Voting Rights Act Amendments and the Results Test Reagan Signed In 1980 the Supreme Court said voters had to prove intent to discriminate. Two years later a bipartisan Congress wrote a results test into the law, and Ronald Reagan signed it.