Lawmakers are fighting over election maps — here's how it works and why it's bigger than Texas

Independent

2 days ago

A brewing war in Texas over political boundaries that could reshape control of Congress is spilling out into other states, as Democratic lawmakers vow to ' fight fire with fire ' to combat what they see as a wave of voter suppression efforts ordered by Donald Trump.
The battle surrounds the redistricting process, in which state legislatures and other officials take a look at once-a-decade census results to redraw congressional districts to balance the changing population.
But in Texas, Republican lawmakers — under the direction of the president and Governor Greg Abbott — are taking the rare step of drawing a new map in the middle of the decade, only a few years after the last redistricting cycle, in the hopes of picking up more Republican seats in the House of Representatives in 2026.
Trump is hoping Republicans in other states do the same, as the GOP's slim majority in Congress braces for voter blowback in next year's midterm elections in response to the president's volatile second-term agenda.
Democrats — who have accused Republicans of illegally diluting the voting strength of Black and Latino voters — are planning to retaliate, triggering a race to reshape the electoral map by the time Americans cast their ballots in 2026.
What are Republicans proposing in Texas?
Republicans proposed new boundaries so that several congressional districts held by Democrats could potentially flip, while two other competitive districts have a better chance of electing Republicans.
On August 1, the Texas House redistricting committee held the only public hearing on the proposal. Republicans voted it out of committee the next morning on a party-line vote, setting up a quick vote in the full state House of Representatives, which Republicans control.
Democratic members of the state House left Texas to break a quorum, derailing Republican plans to vote on the new map during the governor's 30-day special legislative session. Texas Democrats similarly fled the state in 2021 in opposition to Abbott's package of election-related legislation that critics say is undermining voting rights.
Is gerrymandering illegal?
GOP lawmakers were explicit that the new map was designed to improve 'political performance,' an act of political or partisan gerrymandering — in which a controlling party carves out maps to 'pack' likely opponents into a few districts, or 'cracks' them across multiple districts, thereby diluting their voting power.
In other words: Gerrymandering gives politicians a chance to choose their voters, rather than the other way around.
Gene Wu, the state's Democratic caucus chair, said the GOP has put forward a 'racist, gerrymandered map' that 'seeks to use racial lines to divide hard-working communities that have spent decades building up their power and strengthening their voices.'
Abbott has done so 'in submission of Donald Trump, so Donald Trump can steal these communities' power and voice,' according to Wu.
Federal courts have generally blocked the creation of congressional districts that 'crack' or 'pack' communities of color to dilute their voting strength.
But the Supreme Court, after a series of rulings that have gradually chipped away at guardrails in the Voting Rights Act, has opened the door for states to move ahead with partisan-fuelled gerrymandering. A landmark Supreme Court decision in 2019 ruled that gerrymandering for party advantage cannot be challenged in federal court.
What about racial gerrymandering?
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act adds teeth to constitutional protections against racial barriers to the right to vote, and ensures that voting districts are drawn fairly to prevent racially discriminatory boundaries that dilute, or exclude, minority communities.
The law prohibits the 'denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color,' giving voters a key tool to file legal challenges against discriminatory maps and voting rules.
But in 2013, the Supreme Court gutted a key provision of the law by striking down federal 'preclearance' guidelines that required states with histories of racial discrimination from implementing new elections laws without first receiving federal approval.
In a 2023 case from Alabama, the Supreme Court found that congressional districts drawn by the state's Republican-led legislature had likely violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the strength of Black residents.
The high court's decision effectively ordered lawmakers to go back to the drawing board and rewrite the state's congressional district map, finding that that previous one violates the Voting Rights Act. That map 'packed' most of the state's Black residents, who make up more than a quarter of the state's population, into one single congressional district out of seven.
The Supreme Court will return to the issue of racial gerrymandering this year in a case stemming from constitutional challenges to Louisiana's congressional maps.
That decision — from a court that constitutional scholars and election law experts see as hostile to the future of the Voting Rights Act —could have profound, far-reaching impacts for race-based redistricting.
What are other states doing?
Democrats in Congress repeatedly tried, and failed, to renew the Voting Rights Act during Joe Biden's administration, which warned that Republican threats to the right to vote posed an existential threat to democracy.
That legislation proposed independent redistricting commissions — made up of equal numbers of Democrats, Republicans and independents — in an effort to end partisan and racial gerrymandering. That bill was defeated by Senate Republicans, who blocked a vote on the measure.
But, as California Governor Gavin Newsom said, 'things have changed, facts have changed, so we must change.'
His own state's redistricting efforts are in 'response to the existential realities that we're now facing,' according to Newsom.
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee has called on Democratic state legislatures to 'pursue redistricting mid-cycle,' but Democrats don't hold 'enough legislative majorities to win an all-out, state-by-state battle.'
Republican state legislatures oversee 55 Democratic congressional seats. Democratic state legislative majorities, meanwhile, oversee only 35 GOP districts.
'All options must be on the table — including Democratic state legislatures using their power to fight back and pursue redistricting mid-cycle in order to protect our democracy,' committee president Heather Williams said in a statement.
Democratic leaders in California, Illinois and New York — states that collectively have 95 seats in the House of Representatives — are laying the groundwork to redraw their states' maps in the hopes of sending more Democrats to Congress. But several states may have to rewrite laws or amend their state constitutions to move ahead on those places, adding more hurdles in a battle in which the GOP has an upper hand.
Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin said Democrats are 'bringing a knife to a knife fight, and we're going to fight fire with fire.'
Trump and Republicans are 'running scared' over fears they will lose a GOP majority in Congress and are hoping to gerrymander, 'lie, cheat, and steal their way to victory,' Martin said August 5.
'All's fair in love and war,' New York Governor Kathy Hochul said on August 4 as she signaled efforts to draw up new maps in her state 'as soon as possible.'
'This is a war. We are at war,' she added. 'And that's why the gloves are off, and I say, 'Bring it on.''