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Above view of residential areas in Richmond, Virginia.

How the Former Confederate Capital Slashed Black Voting Power, Overnight

Did Richmond violate the Voting Rights Act by adding thousands of White residents? The historic Supreme Court case foreshadowed today’s gerrymandering fights.
by Leila Barghouty via Retropolis on July 9, 2023
Demonstrators outside the Supreme Court holding signs that read "People Over Politics."
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A Post-Reconstruction Proposal That Would Have Restored Power to the People

Largely forgotten today, Albion W. Tourgée’s legislation could have prevented Moore v. Harper.
by Brook Thomas via Made By History on December 19, 2022
Drawing of a voting booth on top of a gerrymandered district with a saw cutting the floor out from under it.

American Democracy Was Never Designed to Be Democratic

The partisan redistricting tactics of cracking and packing aren’t merely flaws in the system—they are the system.
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on August 15, 2022
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Gerrymandering's Surprising History and Uncertain Future

Both parties play the redistricting game, redrawing electoral boundaries to lock down power.
via Retro Report on October 18, 2021

History Frowns on Partisan Gerrymandering

On the eve of a major redistricting case at the Supreme Court, a look back at what the nation's founders would have thought.
by Michael Waldman, Cliff Sloan via Washington Post on October 1, 2017

Where Did the Term 'Gerrymander' Come From?

Elbridge Gerry was a powerful voice in the founding of the nation, but today he's best known for the political practice with an amphibious origin.
by Erick Trickey via Smithsonian on July 20, 2017

Ahead of a Major Supreme Court Case on Gerrymandering, Here Are the Term's Origins

The word is two centuries old.
by Olivia B. Waxman via TIME on June 19, 2017

The New Racism

A glimpse inside the Alabama State House suggests that the civil rights movement may have reached its end.
by Jason Zengerle via The New Republic on August 10, 2014
illustration of a hand with a shredded ballot

John Roberts’s Long Game

Is this the end of the Voting Rights Act?
by Linda Greenhouse via The Atlantic on September 20, 2022
4 photo collage illustrating the partnership between the White League and the Ku Klux Klan in engaging in vigilante terrorism and racial violence

Colfax, Cruikshank, and the Latter-Day War on Reconstruction

Unearthing the deep roots of racialized voter suppression—and explaining how they shape ballot access today.
by David Daley via The Forum on August 3, 2022
Civil rights era photo of young people protesting for voting rights in between black and white photos of black people lined up to vote

American Democracy Is Only 55 Years Old—And Hanging by a Thread

Black civil-rights activists—and especially Black women—delivered on the promise of the Founding. Their victories are in peril.
by Vann R. Newkirk II via The Atlantic on February 11, 2021
"A National Game that is Played Out," political cartoon, engraving by Thomas Nast. From Harper's Weekly, 23 December 1876, page 1044.

Who Counts?

A look at voter rights through political cartoons.
via Massachusetts Historical Society on September 15, 2020
Robert E. Lee Memorial covered in graffiti and projections and surrounded by protesters.

The Racism of Confederate Monuments Extends to Voter Suppression

GOP-led state legislatures have not only prevented voters from exercising their rights as citizens, they have usurped local control to remove monuments legally.
by Karen L. Cox via Karen L. Cox Blog on June 30, 2020
Supreme Court building under dark rainclouds.

The Supreme Court Is in Danger of Again Becoming ‘the Grave of Liberty’

Supreme Court decisions have practical consequences, which justices too often blithely ignore.
by Eric Foner via The Nation on July 1, 2019

The Forgotten History of How Abraham Lincoln Helped Rig the Senate for Republicans

The Great Emancipator has a lesson for today's Democrats about how to play constitutional hardball.
by Ian Millhiser via Think Progress on May 5, 2019

Fighting to Vote

Voting rights are often associated with the Civil Rights Movement, but this fight extends throughout American history.
by Michael Tomasky via New York Review of Books on October 22, 2018

Re-mapping American Politics

The redistricting revolution, fifty years later.
by David Stebenne via Origins on February 5, 2012
Chief Justice John Roberts.

The Supreme Court Has Murdered the Constitution

America’s founding document is now an all-but-meaningless scrap of paper. Happy Fourth!
by Ryan Cooper via The American Prospect on July 4, 2024
Engraving of "We the People," in which the words "We" and "the" are painted over.

How Do We Survive the Constitution?

In “Tyranny of the Minority,” Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt argue that the document has doomed our politics. But it can also save them.
by Corey Robin via The New Yorker on October 4, 2023
Scale, with pile of U.S. states weighing down one end, and the U.S. on the other.

How a Fringe Legal Theory Became a Threat to Democracy

Lawyers tried to use the independent-state-legislature theory to sway the outcomes of the 2000 and 2020 elections. What if it were to become the law of the land?
by Andrew Marantz via The New Yorker on June 5, 2023
Campaign banner ad from former Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters, stating that he "won't ask for your pronouns in the U.S. Senate."

The Modern Electoral History of Transphobia

How transphobia has been a consistent liability for Republicans, and why the right refuses to give it up.
by Ettingermentum via Ettingermentum Newsletter on March 18, 2023

Republicans Have Won the Senate Half the Time Since 2000 Despite Winning Fewer Votes than Democrats

How the Senate has become a bastion of Republican minority rule.
by Stephen Wolf via Daily Kos on February 15, 2023

Civil Rights Legislation Sparked Powerful Backlash that's Still Shaping American Politics

Conservatives and the GOP have mounted a decadeslong legal fight to turn the clock back on the political gains of the civil rights movement.
by Julian Maxwell Hayter via The Conversation on February 3, 2023
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) points to a newly installed sign above his office after he was elected in 15 rounds of votes.
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What Lessons Can the House Draw From 1923’s Speaker Battle?

The House speaker fight was eerily reminiscent of 1923 — but the differences between the two will drive what comes next.
by Christopher McKnight Nichols, Maxine Wagenhoffer via Made By History on January 9, 2023
George Wallace pointing to map of United States with "Wallace Country" written on it.

How the Right Turned “Freedom” Into a Dog Whistle

A new book traces the long history of cloaking racism in the language of resistance to an overbearing federal government.
by Eric Herschthal via The New Republic on December 8, 2022
Graphic design of a red, fractured United States on a yellow background

There Is Absolutely Nothing to Support the ‘Independent State Legislature’ Theory

Such a doctrine would be antithetical to the Framers’ intent, and to the text, fundamental design, and architecture of the Constitution.
by J. Michael Luttig via The Atlantic on October 3, 2022
Painting of the Constitutional Convention in black and white.

Fraudulent Document Cited in Supreme Court Bid to Torch Election Law

Supporters of the “independent state legislature theory” are quoting fake history.
by Brian Palmer, Ethan Herenstein via Politico Magazine on September 15, 2022
Picture of two warring sides of the abortion debate in a heated exchange.

The Myth That Roe Broke America

The debate over abortion is an important part of the story of polarization in American politics, but it is not its genesis.
by Adam Serwer via The Atlantic on May 18, 2022
A 1948 color-coded map of Robeson County identifying racially segregated schools.

Financing Schools

On school funding and America’s kleptocratic public school divide.
by Esther Cyna via Phenomenal World on May 12, 2022
Blue and red donkey logo of the Democratic Party.

Hope in the Desert: Democratic Party Blues

In 'What It Took to Win,' Michael Kazin traces the history over the past two centuries of what he calls ‘the oldest mass party in the world’.
by Eric Foner via London Review of Books on May 4, 2022
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