Gohmert of East Texas did not vote on the TPP tracts. He did not want to face his working class constituents to tell them that he is voting to destroy their jobs, thus their livelihoods. He is voting to make the district poorer. Gohmert needs to be debated over that.

This seems like a huge deal and one that will tend to benefit Democrats more than Republicans.

. . . Voters in Arizona had voted in 2000 to create an independent panel that would be responsible for redrawing districts after each census. Arizona Republicans didn't like that (obviously), and sued to have that referendum overturned. The Supreme Court's ruling merely allows the independent panel to stand. It does not, so far as I understand, require states to change their existing systems for redrawing districts, but merely allows voters in other states to opt for a more independent system. So there is much work left to be done. The headline is a bit misleading.

We both know how backwards AZ politics can be so it just seems encouraging to me that if we get organized we can make it happen in a lot more states.

to prevail where they have been set up. That is just a few states. Actually the commissions benefit Republicans in CA and help Democrats a little in Arizona.

See #3 above.

The question before the court was not whether gerrymandering was constitutional, but whether the system adopted by Arizona voters of leaving redistricting to an independent panel was. The Court ruling upheld the system adopted by Arizona voters, but the question of the constitutionality of gerrymandering, per se, was not addressed.