The movement to end gerrymandering is something we've covered on the show several times over the years. Until recently, the conversation focused on independent redistricting commissions formed as a result of grassroots action from voters who felt that gerrymandering led to elected officials who didn't represent the values of the communities they served. The issue is now decidedly more partisan thanks to efforts to redraw maps to benefit Republicans in Texas and Democrats in California.
What's a nonpartisan reformer to do in this new reality? We spoke with two people who recently won victories to create fairer maps in their states. Carol Kuniholm is the co-founder and chair of Fair Districts PA, which won a court case to redraw Pennsylvania's maps in 2021 and is pushing for the creation of an independent redistricting commission in the Keystone State. Emma Addams is co-executive director of Mormon Women for Ethical Government, which was part of a coalition that filed a complaint that led to a Utah court striking down the state's congressional map in August 2025.
Kuniholm and Addams discuss how they created the coalitions necessary to create change, the peril that comes with making redistricting a partisan issue, and why the efforts in Texas and California might not work out the way the parties expect.
Episode Transcript
Cyanne Loyle
From the McCourtney Institute of Democracy. This is Cyanne Loyle.
Candis Watts Smith
I'm Candis Watts Smith.
Jenna Spinelle
I'm Jenna Spinelle, and welcome to Democracy Works. This week we are going to revisit a topic that we've talked about several times on the show before, gerrymandering and the efforts to change the way that district maps are drawn. There's been some news about that you might remember for recent months in Texas and California, but today we are talking with two people who help lead grassroots, non partisan coalitions to change the way that maps are drawn. We'll hear from Carol Kuniholm of Fair Districts Pennsylvania, and Emma Addams from Mormon Women for Ethical Government. So given that there is all this renewed interest in gerrymandering and redistricting, I thought we'd take a look at where things are and this sort of dichotomy that's setting up between the parties on one end and this grassroots or these sort of coalition, you know, bottom up driven work that's been happening in places like Pennsylvania and Utah.
Candis Watts Smith
You know, we don't typically respond to the news, and just before we start recording, the three of us were talking about like, Oh, we're talking about gerrymandering again today. And the fact of the matter is, is that just when you didn't think that a thing could be done on an issue that you know so deeply. People surprise you, and they surprise you in both ways. And so I think, for example, the fact that the President of the United States has requested states, state, starting with Texas, to find more seats that would cushion the partisan, you know, gap in the House of Representatives after the 2026, midterms like that was like, oh, that's That's wild. And then you have California's governor saying, You know what, we will not stand for this. And we are also going to do a thing to counteract and you're like, Oh, that's a thing. And then, and then, and then. But I think one of the things on the other side that I that I was making reference to, is that even as the gerrymandering anti is increased, there are still people who find the time energy, the patience and perseverance to push against a policy or a set of policies and strategies that diminish the voices of of the of the people and and and in both cases, you know, folks are on both sides of the aisle that are against partisan gerrymandering, especially in The way that we see it. So the issue keeps coming up because people keep bringing it up in very crazy ways. But then also, there are folks that I think are great models of how we should behave as you know, democracy loving people.
Cyanne Loyle
I mean, I think that's one of the things that these kind of models of how to behave is one of the things I like most about the two presenters that we have today. I mean, gerrymandering, I don't want to say it's one of the last truly non partisan issues, but it really is truly a non partisan issue, right? You can really talk about this in terms of civic engagement and democracy in a way that it's just getting harder and harder to talk about other things. That doesn't mean we're not making it partisan in different ways. But these are two organizations that truly have a non partisan, bipartisan mandate to kind of put forward efforts in a variety of different ways that support one of the fundamental components of participatory democracy, right, which is that people get to participate, and their votes get to count as equally as possible. And kind of pushing back against gerrymandering's ability to undermine that. I mean, the other thing when I when I think of these two organizations, is, I mean, gerrymandering is not a splashy thing to mobilize around or to lobby for. It's incredibly complicated to understand. I mean, the basic components are pretty straightforward, right? It's about kind of drawing lines that make it easier or harder for certain political parties to win a seat.
Candis Watts Smith
I think what's going on now I'm. That's making gerrymandering Mandarin more splashy than ever before is that it's revealing just how power hungry political representatives are, how much people care more about their party than constituents or representative democracy. But then also on the other side, as you're saying, this is a bipartisan issue on both sides, on the Pro and the against side. And maybe, actually, maybe the thing to say is that there is a bipartisan support among elites for gerrymandering, and there is a bipartisan coalition among average citizens that see the eight factor from 1000 miles away, that there's a 20 an August 2025, You got poll that showed that three quarter but three quarters of Americans say that partisan gerrymandering is a major problem. And so, you know, there there are slight differences across partisans, but the majority of Democrats, Republicans and independents all see this as a major problem. So in some ways, it's become splashy because we live in this era of extreme party polarization, and we have political representatives that care more about their own seats and voice than representing the people that they have selected to be in their districts to vote for them,
Cyanne Loyle
And not even, I mean, you can take it even a step farther, right? So it's not even about the people in the districts that they have selected. It's also about the basic institutional components of democracy, right? It's a kind of burn it down moment, right? So, and I kind of want to amplify your point about we maybe or we are in a different place. Because I was originally thinking, as you were talking about this kind of canary in the coal mine moment like that, that the extremes to which we are seeing gerrymandering occur is a warning sign.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah. I mean, there's always, I think there's been this veneer that, yes, the people that we elect to represent us care about us and what we want. But this, I think, I don't know if it peels back the veneer entirely, but it certainly takes, you know, chips away at it that, you know, yeah, the goal is to maintain their power and stay in office and be an incumbent for as long as they can and and to your point, Candace, about the split between elites and everyday people on this issue, I think the the guests will hear from our two examples of people who are who have been fed up with this issue for a long time and are have successfully done something about it. I think the the question that remains is, you know how, how many more efforts like this can happen moving forward, given the partisanization of this issue that we've seen? So let's go to the interview and hear now from Carol, Kuniholm and Emma Adams.
Jenna Spinelle
Emma Addams and Carol Kuniholm, welcome to Democracy Works. Thanks for joining us today.
Carol Kuniholm
Thanks for having us.
Emma Addams
Thank you.
Jenna Spinelle
So I am excited to talk to both of you today about gerrymandering and redistricting at a time when it's on a lot of people's minds. It has moved, it seems, in the public consciousness, from a grassroots, non partisan effort, and I know the two of you have been involved with, to something that is more partisan in nature, right? Republicans, Democrats, everybody, kind of getting involved, and we will get to that. But first, I want to introduce our listeners a little more to you and to your organizations and the work that you have done to promote redistricting reform in your respective states. So Emma, let's start with you. You are part of Mormon women for ethical government, and are fresh off of a years long. Correct me if I'm wrong on that effort to have Utah's maps redrawn. So tell us a bit about how your organization got involved and the work that you did.
Emma Addams
Yeah. So I live in Salt Lake City, Utah, which has got one of the lowest scores for gerrymandering, or best score, depending upon how you look at it, I suppose. And when, when this, this saga started back in 2018 mweg is innate, is the way I say our organization was just kind of a little a baby organization. We were fairly new, cross partisan, grassroots, pro democracy. Our women really do come from along the political spectrum. And so when better boundaries and legal and votes. And others in Utah that started advocating for this, this independent commission, it was an obvious thing for us to pick up and work on, and our members worked on it, and they shared it in their among their in their Facebook pages, and they got out, and they got signatures. And it was something that was a really meaningful, one of our first steps, honestly, in forays into the nonpartisan democracy space, and then this process happened. It was this amazing process. The maps were drawn, you know, all in the public eye, and so participatory and everything you would want from something that is really helping build civic muscle. So when those maps were were rejected by the Utah legislature, and their own maps were put in place that set us up for our current legal battle, which we were plaintiffs in, several of the individual plaintiffs or mweg members, and together with illegal and voters and an amazing legal team, we've been able to have a big win in which the maps have been the current maps have been thrown out, and we should have have new maps by, by November 10, at the latest, is What we're looking at right now.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, that's that's great, and we'll come back to some of that in a minute. But Carol, you are with fair districts pa here in Pennsylvania, and your story is somewhat similar, somewhat different than what Emma just described. Walk us through how fair districts pa came to be and the work that your organization did to have Pennsylvania's maps redrawn? Yeah.
Carol Kuniholm
So we are a fiscal project of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, and we began in January 2016 to lend support to efforts to change our state constitution to create an independent redistricting commission. So we have been working on that since 2016 we've never gotten a bill out of committee. But we have, we've, you know, come close a few times, and we've presented information to over 1300 meetings, with over 50,000 people attending, and collected over 120,000 signatures in support of an independent commission, and we have not, you know, gotten a bill passed, but we were very active in in getting better maps this time around, in creating citizen maps and asking for a more open public process and advocating for for better maps. The league here in Pennsylvania had a lawsuit in 2020 1720, 18, which was the first successful partisan gerrymandering litigation in the country. And we went from having the worst congressional maps in the country to some of the best congressional maps. And I would say that our current congressional map is probably one of the most responsive in the country, and our current house map is much better. Our current Senate map is is not quite as good as we'd like, but certainly better than it was. So advocacy, public attention has made a difference, still hasn't won the lasting change that we'd like to see in a constitutional amendment.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, yeah. And speaking of that, that advocacy talk about, each of you how, how you talk about this issue with your your fellow citizens, both from like explaining the the wonky nature of map drawing, but also why people should care about this issue. What are, what are some of the tactics and techniques that you found successful?
Emma Addams
So I think I'll start with the success, and then work backwards, maybe a little bit. If you talk to people in Utah, and if you go to the pages of the news stories about this, and you go into the comment section, you'll find a very active, very well informed debate happening amongst the citizens of Utah about this. They're talking about the Utah constitution. They're talking about the process of the census. They understand from start to finish what this looks like, and they understand representation. And that is not because they were born that way. It's because the groups legal starting fully the legal and voter, they just have to give so much credit. I'm so glad Carol born that that's who you're associated with. Just this is a long time, many years, very determined, persistent effort by a truly cross partisan, truly nonpartisan group of women, in this case, who just had the stick with itness, frankly, to keep this in the public view and to do the hard work to help the public be well informed about it. And I don't know that there's any sort of magical formula I can give you here, other than that, a group of determined humans, in this case, women, over a period of time, who don't give up and who act with hope and know that what they're doing is what's best for representative democracy. These sorts of things happen in conversations. They happen and they read this article, then they read this article, and this is the sort of stuff that it's a long term persuasion effort, and you have to have a lot of different people involved in it, and so there's no kind of magic formula to persuade people like but I will tell you, in Utah, having that process play out was it's a persuasive mechanism in and of itself. Anyone who watched it play out got a sense of what. Looks like. Then people come together across the aisle to draw maps that honestly take the take the map drawing out of the people who are incentivized to draw them in a certain way. And I think everyone understands that intuitively, that when you have power, and you then get the chance to keep yourself in power, the impulse to do so is too much. It's too much to ask them to set that aside, so let's create this independent way to do it. And when people got to see the process and experience it and participate in it, it's it's hard to go back and take it away after that, because they've gotten a taste of what real, good participatory democracy looks like.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, yeah. And Carol, I know that's that's your dream for Pennsylvania, although it's a little tougher here, because we don't have ballot initiatives the way that that Utah does,
Carol Kuniholm
So the challenge is, we have to go through the state legislature. So we have to go through the people who draw the maps, are the people who set the legislative agenda, are the people who control the caucus finances, are the you know, so, so there's a lot of control wrapped up in just a few people, and challenging that is hard, and can we do it? We're not sure, so we continue to work on that. I would say that citizens know that it's wrong. As you said, citizens, the most recent poll I saw by NBC, a large poll just came out. 82% of Americans think that we should have independent citizen redistricting commissions. 82% think legislators should not be in the business of drawing their own district boundaries, and it makes total sense. You don't you don't let students grade their own papers. You don't get referees call their own games. You shouldn't be letting legislators choose their own voters. And people understand that getting those folks to give up that power is is really difficult,
Jenna Spinelle
And Emma, you saw that in Utah, right when the legislature kind of took away the power, and that is, sadly, part of a much bigger trend that's happened, particularly around when things are passed through ballot measures, the legislature will sometimes step in and say, yeah, actually, we don't think so. And so talk about what that like. I know you went through the courts to ultimately, you know, get new maps redrawn. But were there any efforts on mwegs part to sort of work with legislators to try to get them to see things a different way.
Emma Addams
We are all about peaceful, persistent persuasion, to use all the peace. I mean, this is our brand. This is who we are. This is, frankly, how we were kind of weighed as humans, and so we so. So I think we have multiple efforts going on all at once. So certainly you have, you have that effort of using the courts, which is a tool of democracy that you know is so important to use, and some may see it as adversarial, but we've never looked at it that way. We've looked at it as is. You use the tools at your disposal. In this case, it's the Utah constitution, and in this case, our Utah Supreme Court is was all appointed and and and confirmed by a group of Republicans. So it's harder to make that partisan argument back here week for that reason. But I think at the same time, my members in the state of Utah, we've got members all 50 states that Utah is obviously where our epicenter is, those 1000s of women are developing relationships with their legislators are talking about these issues are coming in pairs or in floods, of Republicans, Independents and Democrats,
Jenna Spinelle
But it's sort of like working with these legislators. It's like trying to get turkeys to vote for Thanksgiving dinner. It seems to me, that's kind of the battle that you're facing with trying to push this forward in Pennsylvania.
Carol Kuniholm
I guess what I would say is there are many legislators who would very much like to change things, because they know, as we know, that the current process puts far too much power in the hands of just a few gatekeepers. So just a few gatekeepers are the ones who decide everything. The challenge is how to how to make the case to them. And Emma, you mentioned your your case, your constitution gives you the right to alter and reform your government. Pennsylvania's constitution was the first to include that language, and we keep looking at that saying, you know, the League of Women Voters has been trying to alter and reform our redistricting process for 40 years. How? How do we use that, that right of altering and reforming our government here in Pennsylvania, when leaders can simply say, No, we're not going to do that. So the courts are really important and and fortunately, our state Supreme Court also also embedded in our Constitution, I believe in yours, because it was copied into many Constitution is the right to free and equal elections. And so our state supreme court said we have the right to free and equal elections. A gerrymandered map deprives us of that right, so the legislators haven't gotten the message that we have the right to alter and reform our government and we have the right to free and equal elections, but unfortunately, so far, our court has protected the right to to have better maps.
Emma Addams
Maybe I could just add to that real quick. Jenna, I think the point that. I was making it so important that there actually are a lot of people who won't speak publicly that they support it, but you're persuading them kind of in the background. And so it's a process. You get the point where they're questioning, maybe the process, they're questioning the power that their party holds, or the other party holds, and then, and then they will tell you privately, you know, the job keep going. And then so the next step would be to enable the courage to speak up publicly. And we are seeing some legislators in Utah doing that. So it's, it's, it's, again, it's a process.
Jenna Spinelle
So it feels like, you know, certainly the the two of you and the organizations that that you've worked with, and I want to put, you know, people like Katie Fahy in this camp as well, who led the charge in in Michigan, it seems like there was a there was momentum building, and perhaps still is. But are there other folks in other states that you have looked to or worked with, or would hold up as examples of, you know, successful, grassroots, nonpartisan redistricting work?
Emma Addams
I think it's important to not just look to the ones that have had success, but look to the ones that have had progress. And even I've been doing this long enough to know that sometimes we with campaigns or with efforts, we see them as this binary, win, lose, but I've seen efforts that are related to redistricting in other states that we have technically lost, we have grown a public interest in and built civic muscle as advocates and as participants, that then carries you into the next one. So, you know, maybe you fell 100% short, but the reality is, that's how that's maybe that's 47% maybe you felt 3% short, but 47% are now talking about it and thinking about it that never were before. I just, I can't think of anything good and noble and virtuous in this country that's ever been really done overnight. I think, I think sometimes, you know, especially if you're kind of new to advocacy, or it's, it's something you the the Hollywood social media version of things getting done is greatly compressed, but anything that's worth doing is worth doing over a period of time and is worth getting yourself up again after failures, and it's worth innovating around. And I would also argue that the relationships that are built among the coalitions and the members that work on this are, in and of themselves, a powerful thing, because maybe you come together to work on a ballot initiative, where you work on a legislative campaign, and then you end up, you know, getting to know one another, and you work on something else together. So there's radiating effects out, and there's leadership development, and there's empowerment that happens, that is, that is, is good. And you know, in spite of whatever, if you don't get the outcome you want. And I think sometimes we want democracy to be like this win lose thing when it's process and the how it's just as important, if not more important, than the actual outcomes,
Jenna Spinelle
Absolutely, and I love that phrase, civic muscle. It's certainly going to be needed, especially in the redistricting world. Now that the parties have gotten into the fray, I just wonder what each of you what, what your reactions were when you heard, I guess, first, about what was going on in Texas, and then sort of California's rebuttal to that.
Carol Kuniholm
It's kind of heartbreaking to be honest. It's It's very sad. And I'm an unaffiliated voter, and I fear that it's kind of like the the parties have forgotten that voters matter, and they've decided that the parties matter. And you know, the party leaders are the ones who decide what's going to happen, and voters are really very much pawns in that game. And I think the sad thing is, is when voters feel like they're pawns in the game, they just step out. And I think that civic muscle that Emma was talking about that's so important, you can, you can make voters feel like they just don't matter and they just stop voting. So when I looked at Texas, I was really intrigued, because it looks like there's possibly more Democrats than Republicans in Texas and and yet, the the turnout for Democrats is very, very low, and the turnout for Republicans in 2024 was very, very high. And my thought, as I've watched what California is doing is, wow, if I had millions of dollars, which they're going to spend millions of dollars in California overturning the Independent Redistricting map, if I had millions of dollars, I would be hiring young organizers in Texas to go door to door, to show people the maps, to talk to them about, hey, you know your voice is being taken away. You need to register. You need to vote. You need to come out. I mean, you need to you need to engage. And so to me, the answer of of you know, harm to democracy is not to step back from democracy, but it's to reengage democracy, to promote democracy, to strengthen democracy. And if you're going to invest, why invest in overturning a citizen drawn map and drawing a new one? Rather invest in in helping people understand what's at stake, that they have a role to play, and that if they play that role, they could, they could create a dummy Manager, which is, you know, a gerrymander that. That stretches too far and gets overturned. And so, so I find the whole thing very disheartening and and the challenge for voters is to say we refuse to be treated as pawns, and we're going to still lean in, and we're still going to take agency ourselves, and we're still going to insist on being heard. It's, it's, it's disheartening to watch what's taking place?
Emma Addams
Yeah, I think with it's just, it's either bad luck or good luck that the Utah win came in the middle of the battles elsewhere. Because it's really it's a different situation at a time when Texas and California are rushing to gerrymander in Utah, we're saying no to gerrymandering. And frankly, it is frustrating to watch that narrative get lost or spun more in the national press and the local the local Utah press has been extraordinary. There's been multiple reporters who have followed this have been done a really good job showing the nuance. And then I open up a news article with the national press, and who do they ask? They asked us to give a quote a Democrat and a Republican from the party, and they give a partisan spin on what's happening in Utah. Do they claim victory or they claim, you know, deceit and judicial tampering, and so that is unfortunate. So I think maybe it's a loss overall that happened in the middle of this, which is why I really appreciate opportunities like this to come on platforms and say, you know, no what we're saying in Utah is no gerrymandering. It's very, very different. It just is getting kind of swept up in in the time, you know, and it took a long time for us to get a judgment in Utah. But when you read that, you know why? Because it's very thorough. The Judge, I think, felt, my guess is, she felt the weight of what she was was having to rule on, and really took the time to write something that was quite, quite sought out. So I just will take what we got and we'll move on to the next thing. I'm glad that it's I'm glad that it's getting the attention nationally that what's happening in Utah. I wish, I wish it wasn't getting a partisan spin, because it's just it that's just not reflective of what's happening.
Jenna Spinelle
I think that, you know, some of the reason maybe people feel drawn to parties right now is because they feel like there is a threat. Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, you feel like the other party is an existential threat to the country, to your particular way of life, to the things that you stand for, and that one, I think, leads to the desire for a short term, fixed, short term solution. We just have to win, right? And that makes it, you know, much more difficult to advocate for long term, slower process changes like we've been talking about here today. So I wonder what, what you would say, or what you have said to that argument about, well, we are in, we're in a crisis right now and and you know, politics is the only way to get out of it.
Emma Addams
I refuse to be ruled by fear. And when someone is trying to use fear to I have, I would say to everyone you know, develop your antenna for when someone is trying to utilize fear to persuade you that someone is the enemy who is not, and that the urgency level is so high that you must turn against others. Like, to me, that's just fundamental human decency that has been, you know, abused in this fractured media environment in which you know, which, which those who understand psychology and understand marketing and understand how to get people to do stuff would utilize fear as their number one tactic. And it's hard not to feel that way. Sometimes it's I'm not saying that you should not I'm not being a Pollyanna. I'm not saying everything's fine. I'm very, very deeply aware of the threats that are plaguing us at this moment. We may disagree about all the different threats, but they are there there. But I just, I think it's very American and patriotic to refuse to succumb to that fear, to look that fear straight in the eye and to choose and to be very to understand and know that there are real problems, but then to choose to find the people to work alongside, who are going to be courageous alongside us, who are going to decide that I'm not going to be ruled by that and I'm going to look for solutions that aren't dependent upon rallying that part of my brain, that reptilian part of my brain that wants me to turn against each other, turn against my own family and friends, and I'm going to choose to find those people. And if you, if you have that mentality, and you start looking around, you will find an abundance, an abundant number of Americans who care, who want, who want to do things to break kind of partisan power and and who will, frankly, nourish and enrich you in the process. I always say I am not interested in being involved with anything that doesn't make people a better doesn't make people better in the process. So if it's turning you into something that makes you feel hard and everyone is a threat and it closes your heart off to relationships, then that, to me, is. Like a warning sign that I need to shift my focus, shift my shift my the group that I associate with, and and and open myself up to some new experiences with different people.
Carol Kuniholm
The challenge is that we need more leaders like you, Emma. We need people who are able to to say it's not us versus them. I think, I think there's so much effort to to divide us, to say us versus them, rural versus urban. You know, lifelong Americans against immigrants, Republican against Democrat, and and to say we are, we're all Americans, and we all thrive when we all thrive. You know, you know, I've been watching our budget impasse here in Pennsylvania. And you know, if, if our if our cities are strangled, our entire economy is strangled. We all are. We all are harmed by that. So, so how do we, how do we remind each other that that what's best for you is also what's best for me and what's best for one community is, is, is going to help all of our communities and and so how do we move in that direction? I think it's, it's really important that we remember that the loudest voice is not always the most accurate voice. And so in this partisan escalating fight, you hear people saying, well, you can't show up, you know, with a knife to a gunfight. And I think, can we number one, can we not discuss our political engagement in terms of knives and guns? I mean, I think that's just so horrifyingly toxic. But then also, to say there are many people who are, who are not, you know, who do not want to be in a fight at all. What they really want is, is political leaders who talk to everybody, who meet with everybody, who look for solutions that work for everybody. I had a recent inter interaction with a with a legislator who was who's very different from me, different part of the state, probably different background, different age, probably different part. I'm unaffiliated. I know what affiliation he was, but I'm unaffiliated. We had a really good conversation about the fact that that that issues are divided, as you know, this, this, this thing is Republican, and this thing is democratic, and what communities actually need is nuanced, nuanced solutions that have a little bit of all things you know that you can't that those conversations are currently not possible, that they're not allowed, they're not enabled, and that legislators themselves are struggling with, you know, we can't solve real problems if we can't, you know, if the solutions that we want to talk about are suddenly labeled as you know, we can't talk about that because you're this party, and So we've got to find a way past that. I think, I think the truth is most Americans are really tired of the divisiveness, really tired of the conversation about knife fights and gunfights, really saddened by the political violence that we see escalating and that we have to find an off ramp. And I do think the off ramp is some, some real important structural changes, you know, less partisan, you know, get rid of partisan redistricting, and move towards people based redistricting, you know, lower the money in in politics, open the primaries, but also change the way that we talk about each other and change the way that we talk to each other. I think that's really important.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, quickly here, before we wrap up, Carol, you mentioned the phrase dummymander a little bit ago. Can you just say more about what what that is and how it could potentially lead the the partisan gerrymandering efforts recently to backfire?
Carol Kuniholm
Yeah, so dummymandering, when you gerrymander, you're you're taking a a number of voters and spreading them across more districts than they actually would, would, would have which? Which means you're spreading them a little bit thin. A dummy Mander is when you spread you know you've already, you've already got a gerrymander which has spread your majority thin, and the dummy Manders, you're going to spread it even more thin so that you get even more districts. What that you're assuming that the voters will vote, just the way that your math is, is saying that they're going to vote, and if, if your math is off, you've spread them so thin that you could actually end up losing, losing more more districts than you're trying to gain. And that's what a dummy Mander is. And there's a lot of assumptions going on with what's happening in Texas. There's assumptions that Latino voters are going to vote the way that they did in 2024 good luck with that. I would say, you know, from what for, what we're seeing take place, you're assuming that people who came out to vote for for President Trump are going to come out and vote in a in a mid cycle election. Good luck with that. You're assuming that people aren't going to kind of look at their pocketbook and say, oh, you know, all those, all those things I was promised aren't actually happening, maybe I'll go vote something different. So there's a lot of assumptions going on in this in this redistricting battle. How that plays out is anybody's guess. I would say, go. I would rather bet every time on democracy. That's what I'd rather bet on than to then to assume that you can control the outcome to that degree. And dummy manager is quite a possibility in Texas and possibly other states. I've been seeing stats on many of our states that we assume are red or blue are actually much more purple that we know, and the reason they look red or blue is because some, some parts of the state, have just kind of said, Oh, well, you know, they're not listening very well to me. And I would say in all of our states, what we really need is a is, you know, heightened civic engagement, heightened understanding of why our votes matter, heightened encouragement of people to register and to turn out and vote and ways to help them understand why that's so important.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, that's, I think that's an excellent note to end on. We will link to fair districts, PA and MWEG in our show notes if listeners want to learn more about those organizations and also put a few others in there to non partisan reform groups that are working across the country, much like both of you are so Carol and Emma, thank you so much for your time today.
Carol Kuniholm
Thanks for having us again.
Emma Addams
Thanks a lot. Appreciate it.
Cyanne Loyle
Thanks Carol and Emma for joining us. I really enjoyed that discussion, and in large part because I think we really ended on a very optimistic note. A lot of the values that we kind of put forward on the democracy work podcast were really front and center in some of that discussion, in particular the way in which collective collectively acting really does matter and can influence policy and change. I really appreciated Carol's comment about democracy, really taking work and taking energy, because I think it we can use this as a model to kind of reinvigorate some of the work that we're doing in terms of building civic engagement, both in terms of teaching about, you know, some of the components of how government works and how we can be involved in that government, but then also in supporting those components, right of the the components that make democracy function the way it's supposed to function. So there's certainly some some negative things to pull out there, but I at least want to start us on a positive and affirming note.
Candis Watts Smith
I have to appreciate that cyan Emma. I mean, you know, both Emma and Carol are doing this amazing work. One of the things that stood out to me is that Emma represents a group of citizens whose name includes the word ethical government. And I just thought that, you know, that was really important, because you know what, what they're saying is, is that we want government that is representative, is ethical, is, you know, moving in a direction that we can, we can agree on together. I just not to, not to, not to sour the mood. But I just think that the Utah case is so wild to me because Utah has two Republican senators, four Republican House members. They hit four seats in the house. They have a Republican governor, they have Republican super majorities in both chambers of their state legislature, and then they have a proposition that was supported by over half of their voters, to have this independent commission for redistricting, and then you have state legislators who are fighting against their own constituents. I think you know, the work that Emma and Carol are doing is reinvigorating. I think maybe I don't know. It's kind of like a double edged sword that these state legislators are also reinvigorating Americans to see that this kind of idea that you represent us as like there's like a veneer that's being pulled back. But I again appreciate the hard work that they're doing, and the fact of the matter is that in Utah, they have a system that allows citizens to put forth referenda or initiatives legislation like that can kind of go around these folks who are trying to fight against their own citizens where Pennsylvania does not have that. And so in the case of Pennsylvania, the work is going to take longer, because they are having to ask the people who have been voted in by a system that works swimmingly for them now to do. Something else, but maybe perhaps to bring it back on an upswing, is that both Carol and Emma highlight the necessity of taking a long view that big change takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of people. It takes practice. It takes failure. And you know, many of the kind of best things that we've seen in our history. Women's right to vote, the end of Jim Crow, you know, so on and so forth. Took decades and so like, Would it be great if it didn't take decades for Pennsylvania's legislator to maybe do a thing that many of his constituents want, but we also can, I think, gain comfort in the idea that just because we don't see it happening right now doesn't mean that it's not going to happen, and that the room for those things to happen are being made by by by the by organizations like Carol and Emma's.
Cyanne Loyle
I think that's right. I don't, I don't know if we want to pivot, but I was Jenna. I thought you asked a really great question to Emma about kind of, when is it time to, like, fight back, and whether we want to use the like, bring a knife to a gunfight analogy, or whether or not we want to use the, you know, but this is, this is kind of what you were referring to in the beginning, Candace, this distinction between Texas and now California. And is it time, you know? Is it time to kind of put on our partisan blinders on purpose right to defend democracy through kind of using the same tactics that are being used against you sort of thing. And I was, I was surprisingly taken by Emma's response, right that that this is, what does she say? Something like, anytime that you know, someone is asking you to make a decision based on fear. It's, you know, it's probably worth taking a deep breath and kind of checking that and seeing if that's, yeah, if you if you actually want to make a decision led by fear. I thought it was a really calming. I keep making this sound too calm or passive, but maybe de escalatory. That's a better way to say it a de escalatory way of framing. I think some of many of our notions right is to kind of fight back, or push back in these ways, using the same strategies that will ultimately undermine us and bite us in the ass later.
Candis Watts Smith
So there I that that part of the conversation also stood out to me, and there are two things about that part. One has to do with the fact about how easy it is to conjure up fear and how easy it is to rely on fear when affective polarization right, when people feel like one, that their identity is wrapped up in their politics and that the other team is a threat, an enemy, an enemy. That's right. So that's one thing that that came to mind. The second thing is the use of these words that folks are using, fighting fire with fire, bringing a knife to a gunfight. I heard someone reference a cold Civil War, and words matter, and I think, you know, for me, I'm like, yeah, some forms of democracy are worth fighting for, but the enemy is not my fellow citizens, right? It's like authoritarianism or one party systems or apathy, I think, is also an enemy worth fighting for exclusion, so on and so forth. So I really did, yeah, I appreciated that notion that if someone is trying to use fear as a I uh, as a, you know, rally around the flag strategy that that should send up red flags for you to sit back and think about what this means. I mean, the thing is, is that I think that the average person knows, like, okay, maybe gerrymandering in this way could give my party the upper hand today, but given that I don't necessarily trust the parties or my representative, I might choose something different next time, and you know, like the way that the political and demographic dynamics of this country are producing such uncertainty that the rules that are used to give us an upper hand now can be later used right. Right to put us under the thumb of the opposite party tomorrow, I think people really do understand this. And so heeding that warning around the use of fear, I think, is one that should probably put on a billboard somewhere.
Cyanne Loyle
And this, I think, was was part of Carol's point too, right that despite polarization, party allegiances are maybe becoming less salient for people, right? And so, or maybe it's less clear where the cleavages are going to be next round, right? And so I think it's less clear for people exactly how it all plays out. I mean, this was the concept of dummy mandering, and I like this from a from a kind of comparative politics, strategic authoritarianism perspective or or even just strategic institutionalism. So so we see this happen all the time in other contexts where states or international organizations try to set up policies that they think are going to benefit them, and then it backfires, or they miscalculate for some reason. And so there was something about this kind of dummy mandering concept that really spoke to me, the self serving strategies that can backfire. But also in light of Emma and Carol's conversation, this idea that we may not be able to predict as clearly as we could have the outcomes of elections in the way we that. He said, gerrymandering may have made more sense 20 years ago than it does now. And so it's worth noting that we're seeing a doubling down on a strategy that actually inserts ambiguity into the process when it's supposed to actually be doing the opposite.
Candis Watts Smith
Yeah, I think the second way that dummymandering is going to backfire is through the idea that people feel like pawns in a game that has nothing to do with them, and that this whole kind of gerrymandering and responding to like changing the maps for these reasons, and not because it helps the voter signals to people where they are in the game. And right now, it sounds like voters are on the sideline, and that also sends signals to people to say, like, your vote doesn't matter. You should be disengaged. We will you know politics. You know your representatives will select their voters. The voters won't select their representatives, and that can have generational effects, for trust, for partisanship, for political behavior. So there's all these ways that these kind of so called, you know, strategies to enhance one party's, you know, representation and a legislative body can have trickle down effects that are unintended, definitely, but also that will again come back to bite them in all sorts of ways.
Cyanne Loyle
All right? Well, I want to go back to ending on a positive note and to really thank Carol and Emma for all of the hard work they're doing, but also modeling right this, this hard work, and, you know, the cross party energy that they are putting into building the networks and educating people, and again, fighting the No, I'm not waiting. I'm not gonna say fighting the fight, working hard to kind of sustain our level of democracy in in this kind of long game, right? And seeing kind of way farther down the road than other people are playing. And so it was really a pleasure to hear about all the great work they're doing.
Cyanne Loyle
I'm Cyanne from Democracy Works.
Candis Watts Smith
And I'm Candis Watts Smith, thanks for listening.