Texas Escalates in Redistricting Wars

A new map released by the Texas GOP seeks to wipe out five House seats now held by Democrats.

Democracy Docket reported that yesterday the GOP-controlled Texas legislature released a new map for congressional House districts. The map is notable in two important ways.

First, this is what’s known as a mid-decade redistricting. Normally, states only redraw House district lines after the national census comes out every ten years. The census sometimes requires district redrawing because some states gain and some states lose people. That means states sometimes need to change the House district boundaries to reflect a net gain or loss of House members. But yesterday, Texas moved aggressively to redraw its maps midway through the decade for no purpose other than to try and squeeze out more GOP seats in next year’s midterms.

Second, the new map threatens five seats won in 2024 by Democrats, all of whom are Black. The raw political calculus is both clear: to help protect Republicans’ narrow House majority. The GOP currently holds 25 Congressional seats to the Democrats’ 13. That is roughly two thirds of the delegation, even though the state voted for Trump 56 to 42 percent. The old map is already heavily gerrymandered to favor the GOP and was being challenged as an illegal racial gerrymander; this new map would make it far worse, likely shifting the balance to a 30 to 8 GOP advantage.

Despite outcries from the public and threats by the Democrats to walk out of the legislature (again), Governor Abbott is pressing forward, egged on by Donald Trump who had urged him to call a special session to get the map in place before the midterms.

National Democratic leaders, including the governors of blue states, are raising the alarm and vowing to counterstrike should Texas proceed with its mid-decade redistricting and brutal gerrymander. Some Democratic elections experts are even suggesting that blue states hit back even harder and try and wipe out the current GOP advantage in gerrymandering.

Let’s take a closer look at Texas’s plan and how it manages to disenfranchise so many Democrats, especially minority voters. Then we’ll review what Democrats are weighing in response and whether it would be enough to rebalance the scales.

An illegal map that Texas will try to get away with

Texas is following in the footsteps of North Carolina. In the 2022 midterms, the state’s maps were far fairer and resulted in a 7-7 split of the congressional delegation. But with a flip of two state Supreme Court seats from liberal to conservative in that same election, the GOP saw its chance and had new House maps drawn up that disfavored Democrats. In 2024, that balance of the delegation shifted to an 11-3 GOP advantage, or a net loss of four House seats for the Democrats. Had the North Carolina maps remained fair, that would have kept the GOP from winning the House majority in 2024.

Every seat matters, and the GOP will cheat to win them.

Texas’s new district lines affect what are known as “minority-majority districts.” In these districts, racial or ethnic minorities make up a majority of the voting-age population. Voting rights advocates and courts often refer to them as “opportunity districts” because they give communities a fairer chance to elect representatives of their choice, rather than see their voting power diluted by white-majority preferences.

The new Texas maps take direct aim at minority-majority districts. As the New York Times reported,

The new map would push Democrats together into one seat around Austin, forcing a veteran liberal Democrat, Representative Lloyd Doggett, to face off against a rising star on the party’s progressive left, Representative Greg Casar, over the remaining district in the heavily blue state capital.

Democracy Docket also noted,

The Houston area has been drastically redrawn, with most of the change falling on District 9, the seat held by Rep. Al Green (D), and District 18, the seat that has been open since Rep. Sylvester Turner (D) died in March. If passed, the map could go into effect immediately, throwing the competitive November election to fill the District 18 seat into chaos.”

The changes also target two districts held by Democratic Representatives Julie Johnson (District 32 in Dallas) and Marc Veasey (District 33, which spans Dallas and Fort Worth).

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries traveled to Austin on Wednesday to strategize with state Democrats about how to push back. Jeffries had earlier posted on social media, “House Republicans are a complete and total failure. That’s why they are trying to rig the Texas congressional map. Get lost.” He ratcheted up his attacks yesterday, accusing the Republicans of trying to win through cheating:

Extreme MAGA Republicans have been ordered by the cult leader to gerrymander the Texas congressional map.

These corrupt sycophants cannot win a free and fair election.

So they are trying to steal it.

Strong words aside, there may be little state Democrats in Texas ultimately can do to stop this new map from happening. In the past, Democrats walked out of the state legislature rather than accept unfair district maps, but this only delayed redistricting rather than kill it. And harsh state laws imposing high daily fines on state legislators for any intentional absences place a high burden on those seeking to resist by denying the GOP a quorum.

Democrats could also sue in federal court, but Texas lies within the Fifth Circuit, which is stacked with Trump appointees and is considered the most conservative, even radical, of the appellate courts. Nor is the Supreme Court likely to intercede. Indeed, in recent years, the Court has often been willing to allow unfair maps to remain in place while litigation proceeds, meaning time is often not on voting rights advocates’ side even if the maps are later declared illegal racial gerrymanders.

So is there anything Democrats can do? Yes. But it won’t be easy and will take a high measure of political resolve.

Blue state counterstrikes

When Texas began rattling its sabers and threatening a brutal new gerrymander, California was the first to respond. Governor Gavin Newsom blasted the planned Texas move and warned that two could play at that game. He reminded Abbott that the Golden State could, in theory, wipe out five GOP seats through its own mid-decade gerrymander. But Texas didn’t back down, and now Newsom is making good on his threat.

As the Texas Tribute reported,

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has told aides he will move forward with a plan to redraw his state’s congressional lines to install more Democrats if Texas Republicans pass their own updated map, according to a person with direct knowledge of Newsom’s thinking.

Newsom’s mapmakers are looking to target California Republican Reps. Ken Calvert, Darrell Issa, Kevin Kiley, Doug LaMalfa and David Valadao, according to someone familiar with Newsom’s redistricting efforts. The release of this information, with a targeted list of names, will no doubt ring those members’ alarms and create some internal pressure within the GOP for Texas to back down.

Newsom has been lobbying state legislators for weeks while warning of the damage the Texas gerrymander will cause. There are two apparent paths forward, but neither of them is as straightforward as Texas’s plan.

In one version, the California legislature would approve new maps and then put them to voters in a statewide ballot measure. This would require a lot of hustle as well as a final thumbs up from voters to become a reality. In another version of the plan, Newsom would move forward with the legislature changing the maps without seeking voter approval in a referendum. He’s keeping both options open for now.

The problem Newsom faces is that California, like many other blue states, has in place an independent redistricting commission, in this case enshrined by the state’s constitution. Newsom points out, however, that the commission is technically only responsible for drawing new lines every decade, so a mid-decade redraw by the voters or the legislature would not run afoul of the state constitution. That’s a novel, unproven legal theory, and Texas may be betting that California’s courts won’t let the state get away with it, even while Texas’s courts agree to look the other way.

Other blue states may also step into the fray. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared that she wouldn't “sit by while Donald Trump and Texas Republicans try to steal our nation’s future.” But the plan being floated in New York apparently would only serve as a deterrent, allowing the state to go through mid-decade redistricting only if another state did so, and only after approval by New York voters in a referendum—meaning the new maps wouldn’t be in place until 2028.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is also eyeing retaliation should Texas proceed. He told Brian Tyler Cohen on his show that “Democrats can’t live by the old rules” and emphasized, “If they force us, we’ve got to put everything on the table.” But the number of new seats he could squeeze out is limited. Illinois Democrats already pushed out two GOP seats through their own redrawn maps in 2021, giving Democrats a 14 to 3 advantage in the state. A ruthless gerrymander could reduce the number of GOP seats even further, in theory even down to zero. It would not be a total offset of Texas’s push, but it would cut into its effectiveness considerably, and unlike California there is no constitutionally established redistricting commission to push back.

Before we dismiss the possible Illinois move as a map too far, we need to understand what the red states are already doing.

Ohio has long been planning a mid-decade redistricting, with the only question being how far it would go and how many House seats Democrats could lose from their current count of five in Ohio. As CNN reported in June,

In Ohio, a quirk in state law is giving Republican state legislators another run at drawing new lines for the state’s 15 congressional districts. The goal would be to knock off two Democratic members of the House, giving the GOP a 12-3 advantage in the state’s congressional delegation. State lawmakers could go even further and target a third Democratic seat.

Gov. DeSantis of Florida has also suggested that a mid-decade redistricting might be possible in his state and that another federal census should be performed because his state, in his view, is entitled to at least one more seat. His last map, pushed through with some resistance even from his own party, allowed Republicans to pick up four more seats in 2024. The skew is already 20 to 8 in favor of the GOP, but DeSantis believes it can be even more aggressive, saying he is “seriously” considering asking the state legislature to redraw the congressional maps once more.

These all point toward a brewing nationwide battle over redistricting that will undermine democracy everywhere. This situation is admittedly a terrible one, and it’s a good example of the larger pickle that Democrats often find themselves in. How do you fight back against a party that doesn’t abide by rules and norms?

Bringing a missile to a gun fight

Democratic leaders understand that the base is quite unhappy with them. Specifically, voters are urging Democratic officials to take the gloves off and fight, rather than take the high road or strike bargains with the GOP.

But do voters want Democrats to strike back, or at least threaten to strike back, in fundamentally undemocratic ways such as extreme partisan redistricting?

On the one hand, there’s an argument that you cannot fix democracy by acting undemocratically. Once Democrats go down this path, they will have lost the moral high ground and be open to charges that they are just as bad as the Republicans.

On the other hand, many Democrats don’t believe the party should unilaterally disarm in the face of a clear threat from the GOP, and that redistricting in direct response to the Republicans is not only common sense but could deter further antidemocratic behavior by that party.

Democratic-run states such as California were the first to cede redistricting to independent commissions while the GOP-run states essentially said, “That’s nice”—then continued to run roughshod over voting rights, even by deploying blatantly illegal racial gerrymanders.

Some respected election law experts argue that it’s time to go full press. Marc Elias has urged that it is well past time to pussyfoot around. He believes Dems “need to tell Republicans that if they take five seats, we’re going to put 30 seats on the table... When people say to me ‘don’t bring a knife to a gunfight,’ I don’t even want to bring a gun to a gunfight. I want to bring missiles to the gunfight.”

Election data analysts have pointed out that 30 more Democratic seats pushed through by gerrymandering is not impossible. The large blue states could even draw district lines that turn all or nearly all of their state districts blue—a practice of “partisan gerrymandering” that the Supreme Court greenlit in Rucho v. Common Cause, ruling that while this was “incompatible with democratic principles,” it remains a “political question” outside the federal courts’ jurisdiction and power to review. The GOP-run states are certainly taking advantage of this ruling, so why shouldn’t the Democratic-run states do so as well?

The regrettable fact is this: If the blue states do not respond to the Texas and other planned red states gerrymanders, we may lose our only real chance to turn back fascism at the ballot box. It would not be because voters didn’t turn out in force for the midterms, but because the deck was stacked against them from the outset, yet Democrats failed to play every card available to them.

The best path forward in my view is to win majorities in the House and Senate and take back the White House in 2028. From there, we should engage in radical democratization, including eliminating the filibuster rule when it come to questions of civil rights. From there we pass a new Voting Rights Act that eliminates gerrymandering nationwide as a practice.

We cannot save our democracy if we don’t fight, and we cannot fight with one arm tied behind our back. It’s time for Democrats to unite around the question of responding to the GOP state gerrymanders and refuse to allow them even one more unanswered inch on the electoral battlefield.