Gerrymandering war puts US democracy under renewed strain

The National

12 hours ago

What is happening in Texas?
TEXAS Republican lawmakers are moving ahead with their plan to change congressional map boundaries that, if allowed to happen, would shift the power in Washington to their favour for years to come.
These newly drawn districts, created this month by a Texas legislative committee, aim to erode and target several Democratic districts and their sitting incumbents, while also creating five new Republican-leaning districts.
This move in the context of the looming 2026 midterm election can be seen as a pre-emptive attempt to consolidate the GOP's narrow majority in the US House of Representatives.
These redistricting measures have been defended and framed by Republican legislators as a legal and needed step to better reflect the political realities of Texas.
Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, said in an interview with Fox News: 'All of these districts that are being added are districts that were won by Trump.
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'Gerrymandering can be done, or drawing lines, can be done on the basis of political makeup, as in Republicans versus Democrats, and there's nothing illegal about that.'
This redistricting plan will be considered and voted on by the Texas House of Representatives during a 30-day-long legislative session that was called by Abbott on July 25.
In order to combat this, a group of Texas Democratic lawmakers fled the state and sought refuge in Illinois in order to break the quorum and delay the vote past the 30-day deadline.
This act has triggered major criticism from Republican officials, such as Ken Paxton, the Texas Attorney General who accused the absent Democrats of cowardice.
He also later wrote in a post on Twitter/X saying that the Democrats who fled should be: 'Found, arrested, and brought back to the Capitol immediately.'
As a punishment for breaking the quorum and leaving the state, Governor Abbott has stated that each of the lawmakers will be fined $500 a day, and has issued warrants for their arrests.
The Democratic lawmakers who fled have sought refuge in Democratic-controlled Illinois, whose billionaire governor JB Pritzker has vowed to protect them and not enforce the arrest warrant.
Pritzker, in a press conference, defended the actions of his fellow Democrats saying: 'They're here in Illinois. We're going to do everything we can to protect every single one of them.'
Gerrymandering and representation
AT the heart of this issue is the matter of gerrymandering, which is the act of drawing district boundaries, skewing election data to favour one political party over another.
Gerrymandering has long been a staple of US politics, dating all the way back to 1812 with Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, who signed a bill that created Boston-area State Senate districts so contorted that one was said to look like a salamander.
However, critics argue that modern partisan gerrymandering has become both incredibly sophisticated and dangerous to the foundations of democracy.
'In states that have been politically gerrymandered, voters lose much of their ability to hold elected officials accountable,' according to US politics professor David Niven.
'Members of Congress are likely to pay less attention to towns where they represent just a fraction of voters.'
Modern gerrymandering is able to take groups such as Black or Hispanic minority voters who typically vote for Democrats and concentrate them all into a few districts – which is called packing – giving them less voting representation.
They can also dilute their influence by 'cracking', which involves spreading a community across multiple districts, making sure the democratic voting group can't have enough votes to win over any district.
The new proposed Texan maps have been met with opposition from experts, such as Justin Levitt, a redistricting expert at Loyola Law School, who said that states generally cannot redraw districts based on race without a compelling argument that it's necessary to protect voters' ability to elect their candidates of choice.
This has raised questions of the possibility of voter suppression affecting black and hispanic voters disproportionately.
Although redrawing the district lines in states occurs once a decade (following the US census), some states such as Texas have allowed their lawmakers to alter the maps more frequently if one party controls both the governor's office and the legislature.
This has paved the way for many states to conduct their own mid-decade redistricting as a way to gain more political capital.
Federal courts have no ability to adjudicate claims of partisan gerrymandering, as found in the result of a 2019 Supreme Court ruling over a North Carolina case.
They ruled that the Constitution states no clear guidelines for when gerrymandering goes too far, and as such, the federal judiciary has no power in the matter.
John Roberts, the Chief Justice for the Supreme Court, said in the decision that while the practice of gerrymandering may be unseemly, it does not fall under their purview.
This decision has meant that the matter of fairness in redrawing district lines is up to the individual state courts.
However, many states do not have either the legal framework or the judicial willingness to combat gerrymandering that goes too far, which leaves a major gap in accountability.
A national domino effect
THIS issue over redistricting has already prompted a tit-for-tat counter-move from Democrats in California, who are now preparing for their own mid-decade redistricting plan to combat Texas.
The Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, announced on August 4 that his state legislature is working on a gerrymandering measure to be presented to voters on November 4.
This would only go ahead if Texas successfully follows through with its plan of redistricting.
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'It's cause and effect, triggered on the basis of what occurs or doesn't occur in Texas,' Newsom said in an interview with the LA Times. 'I hope they do the right thing, and if they do, then there'll be no cause for us to have to move forward.'
California holds 52 congressional seats, with the Democrats holding 43 of those. The new proposed redistricting would help bolster vulnerable seats, while increasing pressure on the state's current nine Republican representatives.
However, nothing formally can occur until lawmakers return from recess in Sacramento on August 18.
Undermining democratic norms
MOVING past the immediate political implications these gerrymandering moves have, the redistricting in Texas raised deeper questions about the future state of American democracy.
When a political party uses its control over a state government to re-draw congressional maps to shift power in elections to favour them, it leads to an erosion of public trust in the legitimacy of electoral outcomes.
Competitive gerrymandering between political parties ends with reduced competition by creating safe districts for incumbents who face little risk of losing.
This leads to a weaker level of electoral accountability, fueling political polarisation as lawmakers in safe seats will feel far more emboldened to cater to their base rather than the broader electorate.
In Texas, the changing of district lines has widely appeared as a drive to preemptively consolidate Republican seats from any potential losses in the 2026 midterms.
With the Trump administration hitting setbacks, and currently sitting at only a 41% approval rating according to an Economist Poll, the Republicans seem to be entrenching their partisan advantages now.
If they manage to pull it off, it will lead to Texas Republicans keeping hold of their power and seats, even if their support among voters declines.
This dynamic adds to the cycle in which political survival becomes less dependent on voter persuasion and more reliant on structural advantage.
Such practices, if left to continue, have the possibility of leading to an alienated citizenry who do not engage in civic matters.
Broader impact
THE stakes for these gerrymandering cases extend far beyond the shores of California or the districts of Texas – they are crucial to who controls the House in Trump's final two years in office.
With the Republicans' push to maintain complete control over the future of federal policymaking, it's not surprising to see Trump push to solidify his party's control over Congress for the remainder of his second term.
Succeeding in securing new seats in the House while removing Democratic seats at the same time could help maintain a conservative legislative agenda despite shifting national sentiment.
On the other hand, Democrats are seeing the 2026 midterms as a chance to finally gain the power to check the Trump administration's agenda.
This is the reason behind California's push to explore redistricting – not only as a response to Texas, but as part of a national strategy to defend vulnerable Democratic-held seats and challenge Republican incumbents.
The never-ending arms race of redistricting between parties to seize further power for themselves marks a departure from stable, consensus-based democratic norms and ushers in an era of increasingly fractured representation.