California just passed Proposition 50 — handing lawmakers temporary control of redistricting and pulling the state that once defined fair map-making into the same partisan brawl it used to condemn.

Across the country, states are quietly rewriting political boundaries mid-decade — not because populations changed, but because power did. Each redraw justifies the next, and the rulebook that was supposed to protect fairness keeps getting thinner.

Host Hillari Lombard unpacks how America’s redistricting arms race began, why the Supreme Court stepped back from policing it, and what happens when reformers decide they can’t afford to play by their own rules. She also admits something personal: she voted for Prop 50 — and she’s still not sure how she feels about it.

This episode asks a hard question: When every side keeps moving the lines to survive, how much of democracy do we lose along the way?

What to read next:

• Explainer: Understanding the mid-decade redistricting push in Texas | Harvard Kennedy School
• Proposition 50 passed in California. Here's what you missed