Virginia voters said yes. That is what makes this moment so revealing. In April, Virginians narrowly voted on and approved a constitutional amendment that would have allowed lawmakers to redraw the state’s congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections….
Baptist legislator rejects Trump’s redistricting scheme
President Donald Trump asked Texas Republicans in July to take the unprecedented step of redrawing five state congressional maps to favor the GOP. They complied the next month, followed by legislatures in Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio. California countered with…
Gerrymandering the gospel
Two recent news stories caught my attention. The first was about the ongoing gerrymandering fight in Texas, and California’s counter-response through Proposition 50, which passed with strong support. Gerrymandering — manipulating district boundaries to give one group a political advantage — has…
Missouri Republicans Invoke Christian Values to Gerrymander Out a Methodist Minister
As the Show-Me State joins the mid-decade gerrymandering war following prodding by President Donald Trump, Republican leaders quickly framed the effort as a godly mission. Yet, their proposed map seeks to flip the seat of U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a longtime Democratic congressman who…
Everything is connected: A snapshot of Dallas, ICE and gerrymandering
For the last three months, I have been part of a weekly clergy and faith leader’s prayer vigil that holds space and bears witness to the plight of our immigrant neighbors. The vigil takes place outside of the Dallas Immigration…
The dangers of minority rule
America is a nation being held hostage by fundamentalism. In our recent BNG webinar with Robert P. Jones and Greg Garrett and Timothy Peoples, the single thing that stuck with me most is a comment by Jones, who is among…
This Supreme Court’s dangerous vision of ‘history and tradition’
To kick things off today, just a quick reaction to last Wednesday’s Jan. 6 House committee hearings, which featured Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Her testimony contained startling new revelations, even in…
What does the rise of the ‘nones’ have to do with the future of the Republican Party?
America’s shifting demographics portend doom for the modern-day philosophy of the Republican Party, according to a leading social researcher. But democracy still could be “doomed” while waiting for those demographic shifts, according to a national columnist reflecting on the data….