Texas Redistricting Battle Sparks New Gerrymandering Attempts In These States
California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a news conference with Texas lawmakers at the Governor's Mansion on July 25, 2025 in Sacramento, California. (Photo by) Getty Images
Indiana: Vice President JD Vance plans to travel to Indianapolis Thursday to lobby Republican Gov. Mike Braun and GOP state legislators about redrawing the state's congressional maps, though Braun characterized any discussion about calling a special session to potentially add a new GOP seat as 'exploratory,' the IndyStar reported.
Texas: The GOP-controlled state legislature is attempting to pass a new map that would add five likely-Republican seats, though Democrats have blocked the effort, at least temporarily, by fleeing the state and preventing the legislature from establishing the quorum they need to vote.
California: Democrats in the state's congressional delegation have drafted a new map with five newly heavy-blue districts, Punchbowl reported, citing multiple unnamed lawmakers and aides, appeasing Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., who has asked the legislature to put a new map before voters in a November special election, an extra step that's necessary to usurp the independent redistricting commission.
Florida: Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has expressed interest in recent days in asking the state legislature to redraw Florida's congressional districts, bolstered by Texas Republicans' attempt to add more seats and a recent state Supreme Court decision that kept congressional district lines that favor Republicans in place: 'It's picking up steam,' Florida GOP Chair Evan Power told The Hill of the GOP's redistricting attempt, adding, 'we were probably heading there with the court decision, but Texas made it top news.'
Missouri: Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe has also expressed interest in possibly adding a GOP seat to the congressional map—which currently favors Republicans 6-2—ahead of next year's midterms, telling Politico in a statement via his spokesperson Gabby Picard 'we will always consider options.'
New York: Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul declared 'war' this week over the national partisan redistricting battle in a press conference flanked by Texas Democrats who fled the state to block GOP gerrymandering, telling reporters she is weighing 'every option to redraw our state congressional lines as soon as possible' in the wake of Texas Republicans' move, which she called an 'insurrection' to manipulate the midterm outcome.
New Jersey: Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy left open the possibility of redrawing the state congressional map to favor Democrats, telling The New Jersey Globe it's 'too early' to make a decision, but warning Democrats in the state would retaliate if Republicans unfairly add a significant number of seats in other states.
Illinois: Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, who helped some of the Texas Democrats flee their state for his, also said this week redistricting is 'on the table' in Illinois if Texas successfully adds five GOP seats.
Maryland: Democratic House Majority Leader David Moon said he would draft legislation to redraw the state's congressional lines if any other state 'cheats & draws new maps outside of the census period,' he wrote on X in June, citing Republican efforts in 'Texas, Missouri & others.'
'We are entitled to five more seats [in Texas],' Trump told CNBC Tuesday, citing his 2024 electoral victory in the state. Big Number
219-212. That's the party breakdown between Republicans and Democrats in the House of Representatives, with four vacancies, one in a seat previously held by a Republican and three previously held by Democrats.
Ohio must redraw its congressional map this year as the current map expires, and ongoing litigation in Georgia and Louisiana could also force those two states to establish new lines. Ohio, where congressional seats are split 10-5 in Republicans' favor, is likely to gain additional GOP seats under the GOP-controlled state legislature. Tangent
Republican-led efforts to gerrymander new GOP-dominant districts have forced Democrats to backtrack on their previous support for nonpartisan redistricting processes, which disproportionately take place in Democrat-controlled states. For example, independent redistricting commissions—often advocated for by Democrats—drew a significantly larger share of seats that would have otherwise been drawn by Democrats in the wake of the 2020 census, compared to those that would have been drawn by Republicans. Key Background
Redistricting traditionally happens every 10 years, after a census cycle, though leaders of both parties this year are urging state lawmakers to gerrymander new congressional districts that could tilt the scales in their favor ahead of the midterm elections in 2026. The stakes are particularly high in Texas, where adding five Republican seats could significantly improve the party's chances of maintaining control of Congress for the remainder of Trump's term, if Democrats don't retaliate to balance the scales. Further Reading
Could Democrats Turn To Gerrymandering After Texas Redistricting Fight? Here's What To Know (Forbes)
Texas Gov. Wants Democrats Who Left State Kicked Out Of Office. Can He Legally Do It? (Forbes)
Texas Redistricting Plan Could Give Republicans 5 Seats—But Democrats Are Fighting Back (Forbes)
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The Hill
13 minutes ago
- The Hill
Trump turbocharges redistricting fight
Morning Report is The Hill's a.m. newsletter. Subscribe here. In today's issue: ▪ Trump revives battle over census ▪ What gerrymandering means for voters ▪ FBI fires officials at odds with White House ▪ Israel cabinet backs Gaza City takeover plan President Trump is raising the stakes of the midterms redistricting fight with his push to revive a battle over the census. Trump on Thursday directed the Commerce Department to start work on a 'new' census. Work is already underway for the census scheduled for 2030. The president said in a Truth Social post that the next census should not count those who are in the country without authorization and use the 'results and information gained' from the 2024 presidential election. The plan would likely face significant legal hurdles, writes The Hill's Jared Gans. The Constitution's 14th Amendment says the decennial census should be conducted on the basis of the total number of people in each state. The Supreme Court effectively blocked the citizenship question from being added to the 2020 census. It was unclear Thursday whether the president was calling for a mid-decade census or changes to the next one in 2030. Still, the push adds a new dimension to the fierce redistricting battle playing out across the country, as Republicans seek to gain the upper hand ahead of next year's midterm elections. Trump's call for a new census shows he's doubling down on this strategy of adjusting the terms of engagement in the elections to come, Gans writes. 'From a messaging standpoint, it is ingenious to push the envelope on this front,' Republican strategist Ford O'Connell told The Hill. ▪ The Associated Press: Can Trump hold a census in the middle of a decade and exclude immigrants in the country illegally? Trump himself kicked off the redistricting arms race with his call for Texas Republicans to approve a new congressional map that aims to give the GOP five more seats in the state in next year's midterms. The president said earlier this week the GOP is 'entitled' to five more seats. ▪ ABC News: How gerrymandering has reshaped the political map for red and blue states. ▪ The Atlantic: How Democrats tied their own hands on redistricting. LONE STAR STANDOFF: Democrats in Congress are defending the Democratic legislators who fled the Lone Star State in an effort to block the GOP-controlled Legislature from moving ahead with redrawn maps. The group of more than 50 Texas House Democrats are scattered across various blue states, vowing to wait out the remainder of the special session. Claims by Texas Republicans that the FBI is getting involved in efforts to track down and possibly detain the Democratic state lawmakers are getting strong pushback from Democrats in Congress. Democratic members are investigating how involved the FBI is in the Texas redistricting battle, The Hill's Alexander Bolton reports, and lawmakers who have weighed in on the matter say FBI intervention would be an egregious politicization of the nation's top law enforcement agency. Responding to a claim by Texas Sen. John Cornyn (R) that the FBI will help find the lawmakers who fled the Lone Star State, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) said: 'These extremists don't give a damn about public safety.' Jeffries said in a Thursday interview with ABC News that the FBI lacks the legal authority to intervene in a state-level political dispute. 'There would be no authority for the FBI to target Democrats from the Texas Legislature in connection with an act that Democrats have taken that is authorized by the Texas Constitution,' he said, adding that the redistricting effort in Texas is 'a clear power grab because Donald Trump and House Republicans are desperate to try to hold on to their thin majority in the House of Representatives.' Cornyn made the call for FBI involvement, which Gov. Greg Abbott (R) appeared to confirm Thursday when he wrote on social media that Texas authorities and the FBI were 'tracking down' the lawmakers. 'Those who received benefits for skipping a vote face removal from office and potential bribery charges,' he wrote. 'In Texas, there are consequences for your actions.' Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) — who is challenging Cornyn for his Senate seat — on Thursday asked an Illinois court to enforce arrest warrants against the Democratic lawmakers. The warrants are only enforceable within state lines, a largely symbolic threat that ensures any members who return to Texas can be apprehended and returned to the House chamber. It remains unclear what the FBI has agreed to in terms of aiding Republicans. Experts who spoke with The Hill on Wednesday expressed skepticism that the FBI even had the jurisdiction to aid Texas Republicans in forcing Democrats to return to the state. 'I don't see why the FBI would be involved in this at all,' said Richard Painter, who served as associate counsel to the president in the White House counsel's office during former President George W. Bush's second term. ' I mean this is Texas politics and the FBI has no business trying to enforce Texas state law.' BACKFIRE? Various other states have now pushed for midcycle redistricting. Red states, including Indiana, Florida and Missouri, are looking to follow the Lone Star State's example. Blue states, including New York, New Jersey and California, are pushing to redraw their own maps, sometimes in the face of years of Democratic pushes for more equitable maps and independent redistricting commissions. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) told reporters this week that California is charging ahead with preparations for potential redistricting ahead of the midterms 'in response to the existential realities that we're now facing.' 'We're going to fight fire with fire,' Newsom said. Blue state Republicans at risk of retaliatory redistricting efforts are sounding the alarm on what they dub a Trump-directed Texas power grab. The Hill's Emily Brooks and Caroline Vakil write the Republicans worry efforts to undergo mid-decade districting could ultimately backfire in their home states. Mid-decade redistricting being considered in California alone could cancel out Republicans' wins in Texas. 'I think the whole thing is pretty disgusting,' Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.), whose reelection could be at risk if California Democrats pursue new maps, told The Hill of the redistricting battles across the country. He said constituents don't want politicians manufacturing 'a temporary gain by — any side — manipulating lines.' 3 Things to Know Today Trump ordered federal law enforcement to begin patrolling the streets of Washington, D.C., to crack down on crime. Actor Dean Cain says he's becoming an ICE agent. Cain is best known for playing Superman in the mid-1990s 'Lois & Clark' series. The Federal Aviation Administration plans to 'supercharge' hiring efforts to bring on 8,900 new air traffic controllers by 2028. But experts say that may not be enough. Leading the Day The Hill's Elizabeth Crisp spoke with Princeton University professor Samuel Wang, who leads the university's nonpartisan Gerrymandering Project that tracks and seeks to eliminate partisan mapmaking. This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length. THE HILL: What are your thoughts on the Texas redistricting fight and the tit for tat that it seems to have sparked? WANG: The Texas redistricting is just an intensification of what Texas already did with its current gerrymander, which already got an F from the Princeton Gerrymandering Project. It's probably worth three seats for Republicans, but by cutting things closer there is both downside risk (they could underperform that) or they could get the five seats that news outlets are claiming. A lot of the talk may not turn into action, since many states either have no legal path, or are already gerrymandered. The only options that will produce multiple seats are Ohio and Florida (for Republicans) and California (for Democrats). Do you think that there is a shift toward more gerrymandering? Or is it just becoming more explicit? No, it's the opposite — gerrymandering has decreased. Since its peak in 2010, gerrymandering has decreased thanks to independent commissions, state court actions, and bipartisan government. But public attention has increased massively, which is a good thing. Do you think that it is possible to have more competitive or purple/swing districts in the current climate? Yes, it is possible. Since 2012, the number of competitive swing congressional districts has nearly doubled. See [ this ] Atlantic piece. Much of what people think of as gerrymandering is just the fact that most districts are partisan, because of voters sorting themselves. Gerrymandering starts from that and makes things worse. Could things get better? Yes! Independent commissions by citizen initiative (Ohio, Illinois), court actions (Wisconsin, Utah), and bipartisan governance (Pennsylvania, Minnesota) can all chip away at the problem. Not Texas, though. Sadly, there are no laws in Texas that restrict congressional redistricting. It all depends on each state's laws. What is the direct impact to voters when the goals are to intentionally create 'red' or 'blue' districts? Gerrymandering reduces competition. Even worse than your topic (congressional redistricting) is legislative redistricting, where there is a direct effect on how people are governed. In that case, legislative gerrymanders in Texas and Illinois do not cancel out. FBI PURGE: Brian Driscoll, who briefly served as acting FBI director at the start of Trump's second term and who refused to turn over a list of agents who worked on Jan. 6 cases, is being fired. The Hill's Rebecca Beitsch reports that Driscoll has been asked to leave the bureau by today and that his removal seems to be part of a wider purge in the agency. 'Last night I was informed that tomorrow will be my last day in the FBI. I understand that you may have a lot of questions regarding why, for which I currently have no answers. No cause has been articulated at this time,' Driscoll wrote in a note to staffers that one shared on LinkedIn. 'Please know that it has been the honor of my life to serve alongside each of you. Thank you for allowing me to stand on your shoulders throughout it all. Our collective sacrifices for those we serve is, and will always be, worth it. I regret nothing. You are my heroes, and I remain in your debt,' he continued. Steve Jensen, the assistant director in charge of the Washington Field Office, reportedly also was asked to leave, along with agent Walter Giardina, who worked on a number of Trump-related cases. The FBI Agents Association said in a statement that it was concerned by reports of the firings of senior leaders and that it was reviewing legal avenues to defend agents who were only doing their jobs. 'Agents are not given the option to pick and choose their cases, and these Agents carried out their assignments with professionalism and integrity,' the agents' union said. 'Most importantly, they followed the law.' When and Where The president will hold bilateral meetings with the prime ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan. At 4:15 p.m., he will participate in a trilateral signing with both prime ministers. The House and Senate are in recess until September. Morning Report's Alexis Simendinger will return on Monday. Zoom In TOOLS OF THE TRADE: Trump rounded out the first day of his new sweeping tariff overhaul by bringing out charts to defend the state of the economy during an event in the Oval Office on Thursday afternoon. The president and conservative economist Stephen Moore mocked a recent Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report that found the economy added about 250,000 fewer jobs than previously thought in recent months. The duo displayed massive charts highlighting the economy under Trump compared to the Biden administration. 'This one chart really says it better than anything, if you look at this. This is great. But this chart is pretty amazing,' the president said while holding up a diagram Moore made showing median household income growth. The Washington Post reported that Moore and his team at the nonpartisan Committee to Unleash Prosperity created a new model, using data from monthly Census surveys, to predict national income figures with a 3 percent error rate. Their findings were the basis for the charts Trump displayed in the Oval Office. 'This is going to be a big deal for us because no one else has just figured out how to do this,' Moore told the Post. 'It's very positive for Trump.' 'He likes data, especially if it's good news,' Moore added. The effort to highlight more positive material came as Trump again claimed without evidence that BLS numbers were manipulated to make him look bad. Trump has faced criticism from some economists and others over his decision to fire the BLS commissioner who produced last week's report showing dismal job growth. Trump has defended his move to impose sweeping 'reciprocal tariffs' on most U.S. trade partners, which went into effect Thursday after repeated delays and negotiations to work on more favorable agreements. 'Tariffs are flowing into the USA at levels not thought even possible,' the president said Thursday morning. But the news didn't quite arrive in the global financial markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed Thursday with a loss of 0.5 percent, falling 224 points, as Trump's tariffs went into place, while the S&P 500 index fell by roughly 0.1 percent. 'We are trying to rebalance trade in America's favor. You know, President Trump has said, and I've said we want to bring back the high-precision manufacturing jobs,' Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in appearance on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe' on Thursday. 'We want to get rid of these big deficits that we have with countries that have created these big surpluses and gutted our manufacturing base and have been terrible for American workers.' Economist and Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, who was director of the National Economic Council during the first Trump administration, insisted this week the worst predictions about Trump's tariffs have not come to fruition. 'All the gloom and doom, tariff inflation, tariff recession, tariff catastrophe, none of that has happened, OK? And in fact, as you noted earlier, the tariff revenues are pouring in,' Kudlow said Thursday in a Fox News interview. FED UP: Meanwhile, Trump has named his new pick to join the Federal Reserve's board of governors, following Adriana Kugler 's early retirement announcement last week. Trump's new nominee is Stephen Miran, who has been a top economic adviser to the president since his return to office in January. 'It is my Great Honor to announce that I have chosen Dr. Stephen Miran, current Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, to serve in the just vacated seat on the Federal Reserve Board until January 31, 2026,' Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. 'In the meantime, we will continue to search for a permanent replacement.' Miran is a vocal critic of Fed Chair Jerome Powell, whom Trump has been openly feuding with over interest rates. Elsewhere BILATERAL TALKS: Trump is eyeing a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin as early as next week as he pushes for an end to the war in Ukraine, a potential face-to-face gathering that carries potential risks for the White House at a time when it's gotten tougher on Moscow. Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with Putin as Russia carries out strikes despite U.S. calls for a pause in the fighting. The administration on Wednesday announced tariffs on India over its purchases of Russian oil, and additional sanctions on Russia are set to take effect today. The president told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday that Putin doesn't have to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in order for Trump to sit down with the Russian leader, walking back a White House statement from earlier in the day. 'No, he would like to meet with me, and I'll do whatever I can to stop the killing,' Trump said. 'So last month, they lost 14,000 people — killed. Every week is [4,000] or 5,000 people. So I don't like long waits. I think it's a shame.' Much is still unknown about the meeting, including when, where and whether it will happen. The Hill's Brett Samuels and Laura Kelly break down five key questions. ▪ BBC: Why Trump-Putin talks are unlikely to bring a rapid end to the Ukraine war. ▪ CNN: Five ways the Russia-Ukraine war could end. ▪ CNBC: Russia and the United Arab Emirates double down on trade, testing U.S. limits. ALL OF GAZA: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday the Israeli military will begin a new offensive to occupy the entire Gaza Strip in an effort to root out Hamas. The Israeli security Cabinet approved the plan today. Earlier in the week, senior military officials pushed back against the plan, warning that expanding operations could endanger the hostages and kill more Palestinian civilians. The announcement comes 23 months into a war in which Israeli attacks have killed at least 61,000 Palestinians, a third of them children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. In an interview with Fox News, Netanyahu was asked if Israel would take control of the whole enclave. 'We intend to, in order to assure our security, remove Hamas there, enable the population to be free of Gaza, and to pass it to civilian governance that is not Hamas and not anyone advocating the destruction of Israel,' Netanyahu said. 'We don't want to keep' Gaza, he added. 'We want to have a security perimeter. We don't want to govern it. We don't want to be there as a governing body. We want to hand it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us, and giving Gazans a good life.' ▪ Axios: Senior United Nations aid officials met Wednesday with the chair of the U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. ▪ Reuters: The U.S. presented Lebanon with a proposal for disarming Hezbollah by the end of the year, along with ending Israel's military operations in the country. ▪ The Hill: The Department of Justice on Thursday upped the reward for information that leads to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Maduro was indicted in 2020 on U.S. charges of narco-terrorism for allegedly attempting to weaponize cocaine. Opinion India's 50 percent tariff is a US sanction in disguise, columnist Andy Mukherjee writes in Bloomberg. Bring back the presidential fitness test, by The Washington Post editorial board. The Closer And finally… 👏👏👏 Kudos to our Morning Report quiz winners! We were inspired by the growing interest in redistricting and how some politicians are now openly discussing efforts to maximize partisan advantages in House maps. Readers clearly are paying attention to the Texas redistricting fight and the push for more guaranteed 'blue' or 'red' seats. Here's who went 4/4: Mike Collins, Jack Barshay, Robert Bradley, Mark R. Williamson, Linda L. Field, Peter Sprofera, William Bennett, James Morris, Rick Schmidtk, Carmine Petracca, Alan Johnson, Chuck Schoenenberger, Harry Strulovici, Joseph Webster, Pam Manges, William Chittam, Pavel Peykov, William D. Moore, Lynn Gardner, John van Santen, Carmine Petracca, Stan Wasser, Joe Atchue, Steve James, Savannah Petracca and Brian Hogan. Vice President Elbridge Gerry, while serving as the Massachusetts governor in 1812, signed off on a new state Senate map that included a district in the Boston area many likened to a salamander shape. The Boston Gazette described the curiously cut district as the 'Gerry-mander,' and the term stuck (no longer needing a hyphen). Today, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates 18 districts as 'toss ups' — meaning the 417 other House districts are packed with reliably Republican voters or Democrats.
Atlantic
14 minutes ago
- Atlantic
The Man Who Could Unite Iran's Opposition
a bright line runs through Iran's domestic movement for democratic change: on one side, frank opponents of the regime, and on the other, proponents of incremental reform. One figure stands out for bridging that divide, making him one of Iran's most promising political prospects. Mostafa Tajzadeh, a former deputy interior minister, is one of Iran's best-known and most broadly popular political prisoners. Tajzadeh had already spent more than a decade behind bars, much of it in solitary confinement, when the Iranian judiciary handed him a new five-year sentence, on July 12, for charges based on statements he'd made in captivity. His release date is now set for 2032. Tajzadeh supports free elections, opposes mandatory veiling for women and other repressive policies, and backs diplomatic rapprochement with the United States. Abdollah Momeni, an activist and former political prisoner, described Tajzadeh to me as having 'a rare combination of moral courage, political honesty, and loyalty to the people. He is respected both by official reformists and a significant section of civil society, radical democracy activists, and antiauthoritarians.' Reform in Iran has meant working inside the system to improve it, and many of its practitioners therefore refuse to endorse street protests that voice criticisms of the regime as a whole. Tajzadeh is different. He lent his explicit support to the 2022–23 movement known by the slogan 'Women, Life, Freedom.' He has also called for abolishing the position of supreme leader, which would effectively end the Islamic Republic. But he's still a reformist in other ways: He opposes violently overthrowing the regime, and even ran for president in 2021 as the main candidate of the reformist camp until he was denied a place on the ballot. (Wholesale opponents of the regime often reject participating in such elections at all, on the grounds that they provide democratic window dressing for an autocratic system.) In June, Israeli air strikes pummeled Iranian targets, and Tajzadeh issued a statement from prison both condemning the bombardment and acknowledging that some Iranians were happy about it. He called for a 'peaceful transition to democracy' by means of a constituent assembly and a change in the constitution. On July 23, he called on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to either agree to free elections and 'fundamental changes' or resign. That Tajzadeh's appeal bridges Iran's fractious opposition was evident in the reaction to his most recent sentencing. Many in the opposition, including in the diaspora, spoke out against it. So did Azar Mansouri, the head of the Iranian Reformist Front, a coalition of reformist groups and political parties, who told me that she opposes Tajzadeh's imprisonment because he 'has a long history of trying to bring about change from within the system; he has never backed violence; and his activities have been mostly civic, political, and peaceful.' Alan Ekbatani, a California-based antiregime activist and former political prisoner, told me that he had 'high hopes' for Tajzadeh, 'especially if he dares to declare solidarity with those who are after fundamental transformation and separation of religion from politics,' because 'he has resisted Khamenei and has shown he is ready to pay a cost in the pursuit of his goals.' Tajzadeh served his first prison sentence from 2010 through 2016. Upon release, he organized a series of online debates on platforms such as YouTube and Clubhouse. Before tens of thousands of Iranians, Tajzadeh engaged figures as diverse as Tehran's hard-line mayor, Alireza Zakani, and Morad Veisi, a well-known supporter of Iran's former crown prince, Reza Pahlavi. He even declared his readiness to debate Pahlavi himself—a major taboo for a former regime official—shortly before he was sent back to prison, in 2022. This insistence on engaging a wide range of Iranians in conversation was what drew Saeed Barzin, a United Kingdom–based dissident, to write a two-volume book in Persian about Tajzadeh. Barzin told me that Tajzadeh is 'unique in modern Iranian history as someone who encourages adversarial political tribes to maintain a dialogue with each other. This is crucial for Iran's plural society.' Tajzadeh entered politics as a revolutionary activist in 1979 and served the regime in the 1980s in a variety of positions, mostly within the Ministry of Culture. At the time, Mohammad Khatami headed that ministry. And much like Khatami, in the 1990s, Tajzadeh began to temper his revolutionary Islamism with an openness to liberal and democratic reform. Khatami won the presidency on a reformist platform in 1997 and initially considered Tajzadeh for his chief of staff before making him deputy interior minister. This position placed Tajzadeh on the front lines of the battle over democratization that unfolded between Khatami's government and the hard-line establishment that eventually defeated it. The Khatami government sought to curb the abuses of the Iranian security establishment, secure greater freedoms of speech and association, create space for a more robust civil society, and make directly elected local councils laboratories for democratic change. Most of these initiatives met obdurate resistance from more powerful sectors of the state, and by the end of Khatami's second term, in 2005, the reform movement had lost much of its momentum. A hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, succeeded Khatami. But when his first term came to an end, Ahmadinejad faced a new reformist challenger, who revived Khatami's energy and then some: Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister, whose supporters called themselves the 'Green Wave' in 2009. Ahmadinejad quickly declared himself the winner of that election, and Mousavi claimed that the results were rigged. A street movement broke out in Mousavi's support. The regime crushed the protests and placed Mousavi under house arrest. It also banned the main reformist parties and meted out long prison sentences to the politicians associated with them, including Tajzadeh. When these men came out of prison, they mostly chose between two paths: Some left Iran to become critics in exile; others remained inside and kept their heads down, not daring to disparage Khamenei, in the hopes that they might find their way back into politics. Tajzadeh is notable for having chosen a third path. He has remained in the country but articulated a radical critique of the Islamic Republic, openly assailing Khamenei for 'violating the rights, dignity, and freedom of Iranians' and calling for the leader's position to be abolished. Whether by design or merely by following his conscience, Tajzadeh has put himself in a position to unite the agendas of Iranian dissidents inside and outside the country. 'He doesn't like to be talked about as a leader, hero, or savior,' Tajzadeh's wife, Fakhrolsadat Mohtashamipour, told me, employing a Persian mode of modesty. 'All he does is for the country and for his compatriots and against authoritarianism.' Mohtashamipour married Tajzadeh in 1980, shortly after the revolution, and she told me that theirs has always been a political partnership. 'We are still fighting for the ideals of 1979, which have now been tarnished under a dictatorship that tolerates no criticism,' she said. 'The regime is afraid of him because they know he can attract people by his words. Although keeping him in prison also shows their absolute stupidity, because he has become even more a point of reference from inside prison.' Arash Azizi: The Islamic Republic was never inevitable The notion that Iranian reformists see their project as continuous with the ideals of 1979 has helped make them a credible force inside the regime, but it has also made some younger activists uneasy. Faraj Sarkohi, a dissident writer in exile, told me that the revolutionary and Islamist pasts of people such as Tajzadeh and Mousavi could present obstacles to winning the trust of secular Iranians today. 'Tajzadeh can't be a leader for the transition,' Sarkohi said, suggesting that 'workers, women, students, and pro-democracy intellectuals' would be likelier candidates for that role. 'But he can be part of a movement for democracy and help convince some of the regime base and bring them on this path.' From another point of view, that very trajectory—from Islamist revolutionary to champion of the people's democratic aspirations—carries a particular moral weight. Mousavi, who is 83 years old and has been under house arrest since 2011, recently called for a constituent assembly—a call he also made in support of the street protests in 2022. Mousavi was Iran's prime minister in the 1980s, when he was a favorite of the regime's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Now he is too frail to serve in a major political role himself, but more than 800 prominent Iranians inside and outside the country have signed a petition in support of his call for a constituent assembly. Tajzadeh and Momeni are among those signatories (Momeni has already been summoned for questioning by the judiciary as a result). Another demand for a constituent assembly 'to be organized under the supervision of independent international institutions' has been issued by a more radical group of dissidents that includes the Nobel Peace laureate Narges Mohammadi, the human-rights activist Nasrin Sotoudeh, and more than 1,500 other Iranians. Outside Iran, the opposition can seem bitterly divided, with some parts of the diaspora embracing Pahlavi's leadership and others in disarray. But a political space appears to exist inside the country for critics who wish for a different kind of government from the Islamic Republic, and who may look to figures such as Tajzadeh for the wisdom and moral courage to make it real.
NBC News
14 minutes ago
- NBC News
Live updates: Trump to host Armenia and Azerbaijan peace treaty signing; DC sees stepped up federal law enforcement
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is vowing to amp up pressure the Democratic legislators who fled the state to block a vote on a GOP redistricting plan.
