The Pour Over Today - TPO Explains | Why’s Everyone Talking About Redistricting?

Episode Date: May 2, 2026

Readers of The Pour Over pick a topic to have explained, and Jason or Kathleen have to get Joe to understand it in less than 30 minutes… This week, Kathleen is explaining redistricting. Check out our Moms, Dads, and Grads Gift Guide ⁠here⁠. Fill out our listener/viewer survey here. Looking to support us? You can choose to pay ⁠here⁠. Get the free newsletter at⁠ thepourover.org⁠. Thanks to our sponsors: Cru: Give Bibles all over the world |  text POUR to 71326 Wild Alaskan: $35 off your first box | code: TPO HelloFresh: 10 Free meals + Free Nutribullet® Ultra Plus+ 2-in-1 Compact Kitchen System on your 3rd box | HelloFresh.com/tpo10fm Christian Real Estate Network: get connected with a Christian Realtor | www.hismove.com Quince: Free shipping | quince.com/tpo Qualia Life: additional 15% off your order | code: TPO CCCU: Apply for the Harvest Bundle | mycccu.com/pourover Upside: extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas | code: TPO LMNT: free 8-pack with purchase | https://links.thepourover.org/LMNT_Podcast The Missing Messiah: Learn more | missingmessiah.com Compelled Podcast: Listen now | CompelledPodcast.com Mosh: 25% off first variety pack + 20% off subscription | code: TPO25 MORE FROM TPO: ⁠Free newsletter⁠ ⁠Watch TPO on YouTube⁠ ⁠Download the TPO App⁠

Can we go to gerrymandering? We can go to gerrymandering. Let's go. Cracking, packing, hijacking, kidnapping. The term sounds so violent. They do. Yeah. Not illegal.

Let's go into it. Let's do it. Okay, Joe. When this episode comes out, if my math is correct, it'll be May 2nd. And that gives you eight days to have your Mother's Day gift. I'm just giving you like a forewarned. Thank goodness. Thank goodness.

Thank you. Well, remember we did this when Jason was on all of us for Valentine's Day. That's true. So this is, yeah, for me, thank you, for all the listeners. Thank you on behalf. It was actually so funny. We have our mom's dads and grads gift guide, you know? I did see that.

So every year, well, I mean, since we've been doing it, Todd will get me something off of it. He's like, well, it's your gift guide and I figured you wanted something off of it. I got like, I mean, it was, he's not wrong. Like, I got a really cute Aruna, like, cross-spotty. Aruna's like, you know, they make the bags like with a good purpose. And so it was great. I was very happy with it. But anyway, so we were talking about it the other day and asked Jason.

I'm like, oh, Jason, did you get anything for Hannah off of the mom, dads, and grad? And he was like, Hannah's not a grad. And I just lost it. No. No. Oh, my goodness. He was so serious. It was so funny.

Yeah. Anyway, so have you looked at it? Have you seen the guide? I have. I will say my eye went right to butcher box. Yeah. Have you tried butcher box? Not specifically butcher box.

I am into the whole grass-fed meat and kind of the health benefits, the environmental benefits, all that. And so obviously butcher box is a huge name in that industry. And so what was the, it was like free ground beef or life or whatever? So I actually, my butcher box got delivered today. I get it because it's just like nice to, I don't know, whenever I'm like making my meal plan with my AI bot of choice. I'm like, here's what's in the freezer. But when I signed up, I have, I get two New York strips in every box. I know it's actually really cool.

Yeah, that looked amazing. Yeah. Yeah, that caught my eye. I dropped the hint to Emily. Yes. You need butcher box. I mean, what man doesn't want just like meat for Father's Day, right? My church back home used to always, you know, like for moms, you go to church and they like give a flower.

On Father's Day, they would have like a little, it looks like a little fry box filled with bacon. They don't just give out to the dads. And I'm like, it's genius. That's so good. Isn't that awesome? Yeah, I'm sure all the dads appreciate that a lot. Yeah. So yeah, if you haven't checked out our mom's dads and grads gift guide, there'll be a link in our show notes.

There's also a link for we're doing a listener survey for the TPO Explains podcast. So if you have any thoughts on how Joe and I can be better, please kind of. Mostly Jason, how Jason can be better. Kindly share them. Yeah, so the link for both of those things will be where links are. Perfect. Maybe you know more where they are. Find them where the links are.

provided. Yes, they'll be in the show notes. Yes. Get the gifts for the moms and fill out that survey so we can make this even better. Yeah. All right, Kathleen, what are we talking about today? Today we're talking about redistricting. And before you fall asleep, hear me out. I think it's good. It's good to kind of know there's been a lot of headlines lately about redistricting in various states. And we, so our writing process, as you know briefly, we have like our writers and we have our advisors who come in and they read our stories and they're like, oh, from my perspective, partisan perspective, this looks good or other perspective, this looks good. And the other day, we had a redistricting story and they were going back and forth on some wording about something. And when we were trying

to pick a topic for like, what have readers asked about? What don't we understand? All the writers were like, yeah, well, I didn't understand Matt and Will's conversation on that thread. We were like, we don't understand redistricting. So we've heard it from a couple of readers too, but just what should we think when we hear redistricting in the headlines. That's what we're going to talk about. Okay. So let's start there. What is redistricting?

Why does it happen? You know, we've seen it in the news, but on the 10-year cycle, why is that happening? So you know more about it than you thought, 10-year cycle. Well, yeah. It does happen every 10 years. So first, this episode will be chock full of pop quizzes for you. Uh-oh. Yeah.

Pop quiz. How many House members were in the first Congress? The very first? Yeah, so 13 states. Let's go with 40. Okay, 65. Okay. And then from there, that was 65, like, allocated by the Constitution.

And then from there, every 10 years, you would add reps based on how many, you know, how the population had grown. So after the first census, 40 representatives got added and it kept growing until 1929 when they're like, we can't just keep growing forever. And they passed law that said there's only going to be 435 representatives. And to this day, there's 435 representatives. So the rub is kind of in 1929 that meant that every representative represented like 280,000 people. Now every representative represents like 760,000 people. Wow. Yeah.

So after every census, you have to look at the math and say, does my state need more districts based on some rules or, you know, how is the population shifted? and you do have to assess your congressional district map after every census. So that's why the 10 years. Got it. So people are moving and relocating and maybe having babies. So the population grows and changes. So every 10 years the census is taken,

we got to update and refresh the maps and redistrict to make it proportionally correct. Yep. And updated. Who is actually drawing? The lines, if that makes sense. Yeah. Well, it depends on the state. So there's, I guess, four-ish different ways that you can do it.

So state legislatures can do it, which is kind of weird, because then it's like the politicians that are benefiting from the map or the ones like drawing the lines. Like conflict of interest kind of. Right. But that's the majority of states do that. I think somewhere around 30 states do that. Then you have independent commissions. So that would be like citizens or non-politicians, which sounds great. They draw the maps.

Then there's also politician commissions, which is elected officials, which I know sounds less fair maybe on the surface, but they are bipartisan. This happens in Hawaii and New Jersey. So at least their aim is to be still fair. You have hybrid commissions. So actually, Iowa is, the way it was described online is uniquely respected. So you have like a commission that proposes a map, a nonpartisan. commission and then the legislature will vote on it. And so in Iowa, a nonpartisan agency draws the lines without looking at partisan data.

And then the legislature can only say yes or no. They can't actually amend it. So there's an effort, you know, to make it as fair as possible. But when that doesn't work, courts will step in and they will either strike down the map or tell them to try again or sometimes draw the map themselves. So somebody has to keep them straight. Yeah. Okay.

Keeping them straight. There's different states do it differently. There's different people that are involved, different committees. You know, you mentioned on principle, they still try to make it fair. Are there any standard rules that everyone has to play by? So there are, but they're kind of vague. So, okay, you have to redistrict every 10 years if the math adds up. But essentially the districts need to be equal in population.

It also, I guess importantly for this conversation, doesn't say you only have to be. have to do it every 10 years, just at minimum every 10 years. So every census, if you gain or lose seats, so if you have a different number of districts, you have to redraw. If your population shifts, you have to redraw. But this all comes down to equal protection, equal representation from the 14th Amendment and from a 1960s court case. So essentially, this made sense to me, so hopefully it helps. If my, if another district, if you live in another district, if you live in another district and your district has two times as many people as my district, then effectively your vote is worth half of my vote.

Right. So they want it to be fair to where everybody's getting equal representation, equal protection of the wall. So the rules, you have to have equal population. You have to have continuity, so it can't just have like floating islands, okay? No racial discrimination, no discrimination against protected classes. and that's it. Federal rules.

Now there are state rules. So some state rules say their wording can kind of be like, oh, it has to be compact in theory. Like it can't just be this sprawling district. You have to have respect for political boundaries. So try not to like split counties or cities, keep communities of interest together. So if it's like a college town,

don't split the district down the middle of the college town or like a farming region. And then some states do require districts to be politically competitive. but most don't. So that's kind of interesting. Gotcha. Okay. Hey, it's Ellie.

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We can go to gerrymandering. Let's go. Garymandering. Garymandering. So we've actually discussed gerrymandering before. One of our like, I actually think it was our first recorded TPO explains. So we can, we can link to that too. Check our archives.

It's funny. It's way back there. Check our character art. I think I'm wearing the same color. We're probably wearing. So when we were first, like, testing this format, we talked about gerrymandering because it was in the news then. It's in the news now. Jerrymandering is when you're drawing a political map for partisan gain.

So I'm putting the lines around somewhere to say, I want this district to be heavily Republican or Democrat. Not illegal. Let's go into it. Let's do it. Why? Because it just sounds so unfair and illegal. but it's not. So tell me more about that.

So it just the rules, I told you the rules. None of the rules say that you can't look at partisan data whenever you're drawing these lines. You can't look at racial data and let that be the reason behind the lines that you've drawn. But like Republicans are not a protected class. So you could look at that demographic. Right. So the, I guess, loophole is as long as you can claim that partisan advantage was incidental, rather than the goal, then courts have not really been able to, like, strike that down.

So gerrymandering happens a lot. I think a lot more than we realized. There was a, I mentioned this in the last episode, too, like an early 2000 study that said only 10% of districts are what you would consider competitive, which means only 10% are not gerrymandered. Wow. Isn't that crazy? Wow. Yes.

The reason why it matters more now. So let's say 20, 30 years ago, sure, maybe there was gerrymandering going. on, but people weren't as politically polarized. So even if you did have a majority of Republicans in a district, more people might vote more moderately or, you know, cross the aisle. And that just doesn't happen as much anymore. And so if you have a Republican district, like it is a safe district for that, you know, Republican representative.

Right. The different ways you can do gerrymandering as a recap, cracking, packing, hijacking, kidnapping. Now is it all ringing a bell? So you can, if you have like a big group of Democratic voters, for example, you can crack them up and not by telling jokes, and put a little bit of them in each district to dilute their vote. Or you could just say, all right, we're just going to draw the line kind of wonky and have all the Democrats in one district. That way there's just one Democratic district and the rest of them are Republican. And then a couple other ways, like if you had a Democratic incumbent and you were like, well, let's just redraw the district so that he's not

in and anymore and now he can't be the representative. And then, of course, the issue with that is feeling like your votes wasted, like if, you know, if you're a minority voter and a different district. So, yeah, I remember when you first introduced that in the previous episode we talked about it, just the, the term sounds so violent. They do. Yeah. But speaking of terms, it is important, I think, for the new listeners that haven't checked

out that episode. We did talk about were the word gerrymandering or you allude to gerrymandering. came from. So let's talk about that too. Yes. Okay. Bear with me. There's this guy. His name is Elbridge Gary, but it's spelled G-E-R-R-R-Y.

But it said Gary. Gary. All right. When he was governor of Massachusetts, he signed a redistricting bill that was gerrymandering. And a local newspaper looked at the map. We can put this up on the screen, but this is what it looks like. They added some feet to it and said it looked like a salamander. and then they called it gerrymandering.

And I don't know where along the lines, like people just started saying gerrymandering instead of gerrymandering, but not only did he like, he also didn't really want this bill to get passed. He only said yes because his party, like, peer pressured him into it. Yeah.

And so not only did he not want this bill to get past, but now he's known for it, and we don't even say his name right. So that's Elbridge Gary. Yes, just like. Founding father of gerrymandering. Poor guys. Yeah.

So yeah, that's Jerry Garimandering. Thank you. Yeah, not illegal. Mm-hmm. Not illegal. It sounds illegal, but it's not. And then, so there's no federal. Let's clarify, there's no federal ban on partisan gerrymandering.

Can't racially gerrymandering. But there are states that have it in their constitution that you can't, or in their state legislatures that have said you cannot. do partisan gerrymandering. Oh. So a few states have. Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Michigan, New York, all have state rules against it. Okay, you mentioned Florida, and a recent TPO email, newsletter got sent out, and podcast episode, where Florida was mentioned, I want to bring this to current state. Why are we seeing maps get redrawn in the middle of the decade?

It's 2026. It's not a census year. So what's going on right now? Yeah. Okay. It all started last year, the summer of 2025 with Texas. So before 2025, guess how many states had conducted voluntary mid-decade redistricting since 1970. Before 2025, since 1970, there have been 10.

Two. Oh, yeah. And now we have 13. that are in some state of redistricting before the 2026 midterms. Wow. There's no rules against it. It just hasn't been done. But then Texas kind of like broke the seal and they're like, well, we're going to do it.

And it started this domino effect of like Texas redraws their maps, which would net, I think it's five GOP seats. So then California is like, well, we're going to redraw ours and give the Democrats five seats. So it's just now there's all these different states who are. in some various, whether they've approved the map or the maps, you know, being voted on, they're in different states of getting a new congressional map. But the weird part is I think as it's projected right now, it would still be a net, like maybe 10 Democratic seats would be gained and nine Republican seats would be gained. So they're still going to offset.

Oh, gotcha. Yeah. But, I mean, the reason why it's important right now is because there's already a thin margin in Congress. And so just watching that. Every seat counts, even though it's razor thin, or because it's razor thin margins, even a net one party gets an added extra that can make the difference. Yeah, exactly. So you're saying redistricting could actually move the needle in the house. Yeah, I mean, it's weird because it could come down to like the primary then.

If you think that certain seats are protected or not, then really it comes down to, well, then who's the person, the candidate? for that party that you're putting in that seat. So then the primary becomes more important. And then, I don't know, there are people who will say that that becomes an issue because it's going to be the more polarizing candidates that are going to get all of the publicity for the primary. So then we're just electing polarizing people into these positions that are guaranteed positions. And then we have a gridlocked Congress.

So, yeah, I think it can definitely move the needle. It's important to pay attention to, especially if, like, your district is one that's getting redistricted. Yeah, it's not a perfect system. The midterms are coming up. That's why we're hearing about it a lot. So the House of Representatives, the entire house, is reelected or up for re-election every two years.

So every seat will be voted on this fall. We'll have a lot of information for you in our midterm hub coming up this fall. Great plug. Spoiler alert. Love it. Well, Kathleen, this has really helped me visualize the context of everything that's going on right now. And we're going to continue to see this happen. So the visualization, the context of it, this is really helpful. Okay, I have visuals for you. Oh, you do.

I do. So I'm just show you, have you ever looked at a map of Iowa? We can put these on the screen. I have. Look how there's so many schools, like our counties are just very proportional. Iowa has four districts. And you can see they're just like pretty, it's pretty cut and dry. Right. Those are the districts. But some of the ones that you'll hear about in the news, This is Illinois, and it gets a little bit more conflated when most of Illinois's districts are parts of Chicago. Yes. And so they're trying to make equal. And so you have to go and pull from Chicago and then pull from some outsides of Chicago.

Yes. So then we have Texas. So you can see same thing there. They're cutting up these big cities to try and get population. I mean, it kind of like, it's just, it gets very complicated. I do not envy the people who are trying to draw these maps. Same thing with Virginia and California. So my question for you, my game for you.

A game? Yes. You can play along at home. I have four pictures here. Okay. Which one do you think is not a congressional district? What? Okay.

Doodle or district? Doodle or district? No context. Just doodle or district. Doodle or district. Okay. Is B? No.

C is a doodle and you can see right here there's a little island remember no islands allowed oh yeah so should have been listening to the rules won't be on a

congressional redistricting committee anytime soon isn't that crazy these are real districts that is crazy it looks like a doodle yeah

you got me gotcha thanks for playing my game yeah thanks for the game love it all right should move on a Christian perspective Yeah. With this one, it just, I'm going to eternal perspective. I mean, again, Iowa, our districts seem very cut and dry, but this idea that lines are getting redrawn and there are people who are like, you know, almost manipulating the lines. I don't know. It just helped me to think about our hope is not in maps or elections or fair representation. We can't put our hope in those things. They're good things to want, but Christians have to remember that our citizens.

and Shepir is temporary. And so keep your eyes on God and eternity and someone with whom we do have true representation in Jesus. Wow. Wow. Amen. I love that. Wow. What a way to close.

Well, thanks, Kathleen. On a refresher for me on this topic. Yeah, for sure. Thanks, Joe. Yeah. Thanks. Well, thanks to everyone for joining us on another episode of TPO Explains. As a reminder, you can watch this episode on YouTube and Spotify.

sure to like, comment, and subscribe. We'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback. And remember, check out moms, dads, and fill out that listener survey. We'd love to hear your thoughts there. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time. Bye. Christian Community Credit Union and Adelphi have come together to bring the best

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