FIRST DRAFT

Yes Virginia, There Are New Districts

Like most of you, I think gerrymandering is wrong. It subverts the will of the people and is just cheating. And I hate cheating. But gerrymandering is also bullying, and President Grievance kicked it all off when he demanded that some red states redo their districts so the GOP could cheat and possibly hold onto Congress in November. And this time the Democrats fought back in a smart way with a temporary response, only activated when red states implemented extreme gerrymandering, that would go before the people for a vote. And tonight the yeas carried the day. On Monday my colleague Parenthetical featured one of my heroes, L. Louise Lucas, the President Pro Tempore of the Virginia state senate. If you’re looking for the person who essentially shut down Glenn “Governor Fleece Vest” Youngkin’s awful agenda you don’t need to look further than Senator Lucas, and I wrote about her when Youngkin took office. She was ready to go on Monday: It’s 4/20 and I’m getting excited for a big win tomorrow! pic.twitter.com/ZGTqa18goJ — L. Louise Lucas (@SenLouiseLucas) April 21, 2026 I absolutely love her. I have a couple of quick thoughts about this victory. First, there are going to be people on the left who will be angry that the Dems took this step. I have argued with a good number of them since 2016—they simultaneously say “THE DEMS NEED TO FIGHT BACK!!!” and then when the Dems fight back, they start in with “No, not like THAT!!”. Too bad for them. I also wonder how the implementation of this result will affect what goes on in the House of Representatives for the rest of the 119th Congress after reading this piece at Public Notice: As with the Pressley vote, the mix of members that defied Johnson on one or both votes is as consequential as the defiance itself. Unsurprisingly, many members of the House Freedom Caucus took the opportunity to performatively distance themselves from House leadership so they can claim to be the real conservatives. They dominated the second vote against the 18-month extension. The first vote, though, included an eclectic mix of members telling Johnson to pound sand. Brian Fitzpatrick and Mike Turner, both of whom had voted to protect Haitian immigrants earlier in the day, decided they enjoyed defying leadership so much they’d do it again. New Jersey’s Jeff Van Drew was elected to Congress in 2018 as a Democrat and switched parties in December 2019; his no vote is a rare instance of him bucking leadership. Iowa’s Mariannette Miller-Meeks is from a swing district in a state that looks bluer this cycle. Zach Nunn, from the same state, is in a safer district, and like Van Drew is usually a reliable GOP vote. Tennessee’s John Rose is currently running in his state’s primary for governor. The immigration vote shows how Johnson is struggling in the face of a growing bipartisan coalition. The FISA vote, in contrast, finds him losing votes on left, right, and even in the center of his caucus, in what seems to be a remarkably non-factional expression of no confidence in his leadership. I’ll drink to the victory and the pressure it puts on Mike Johnson. I’ll leave you with this: