Padilla on redistricting effort: ‘If Republicans were confident on their policy agenda, they'd be eager to defend it'
'If Republicans were confident on their policy agenda, they'd be eager to defend it with the people and to defend at the ballot box next November,' Padilla said in an interview on NBC News's 'Meet the Press.'
'But they know they're in trouble,' he continued. 'And so they're trying to rig the system to hold on to power next November. That's what this redistricting move is really about.'
Texas Republicans proposed a congressional map last week designed to flip at least five Democratic seats to the GOP. The new lines, proposed at Trump's urging, would make it much harder for Democrats to seize control of the lower chamber in next year's midterm elections.
'Let's understand why Donald Trump is asking for five more Republican seats out of Texas. It's because his policies, especially his economic policies, have been so bad,' Padilla said.
The California senator said the situation will get even more dire for Republicans once the effect of their 'big, beautiful bill' kicks in and 'people start losing their health care and their health care costs go up.'
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Wall Street Journal
19 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
WSJ Opinion: Who's Going to Win the Gerrymander Wars?
Republicans started the latest round of redistricting conflict in Texas, but Democrats are promising to fight back in California and Illinois, and now Republicans are promising to escalate further in other states. What's the end game? Photo: Chris Arbisi
USA Today
20 minutes ago
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What to know about President Trump's proposed new census and 2026 elections
The population survey helps decide how many congressional seats each state gets. Here's why a new one would matter. President Donald Trump announced his intention to "immediately begin work on a new" census, raising questions about whether the plan would be constitutional and how it would affect the partisan makeup of Congress. His announcement came amidst Texas Republicans' efforts to perform an unusual mid-decade redrawing of congressional maps, which are normally drawn after the census determines the number of seats in each state's delegation at the beginning of each new decade. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the GOP-led state legislature hope to add up to five new seats for their party by redistricting, prompting proposals for Democratic states to redraw their congressional maps in retaliation. Trump's Aug. 7 social media post said a new survey should be taken "based on modern day facts and figures and, importantly, using the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024," and that people "who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS." USA TODAY has reached out to the White House for comment. Neither the U.S. Census Bureau nor the Commerce Department responded to requests for comment. "I think you would have to see, at some point, do things start moving?" said Shawn Donahue, a political science professor at the University of Buffalo. "Is it something that is more of just a press release, or is there something that the Commerce Department is going to start doing?" How often is the census taken? The U.S. Constitution calls for the census to be conducted every 10 years, and in years that end in zero, most recently in 2020. The U.S. Census Bureau, part of the Commerce Department, carries out these resource-intensive surveys and hires temporary staff to conduct outreach to count as many people as possible. The survey results are used to decide how seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are distributed to each state based on its population, a process called apportionment. Those processes usually take place in the first two years of a decade. The survey results are also used to determine how much federal funding is distributed to states, and researchers widely cite the demographic research to understand the country. Who supports conducting a mid-decade Census? Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, announced a bill in July that would require a new census to be performed, counting only U.S. citizens, and then direct states to redraw their congressional districts based on the new numbers. "Americans don't feel like they're represented in Washington," she said. Hans Von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow for the conservative Heritage Foundation, said he thinks states should redraw their congressional districts every five years, as long as data is available, but it usually isn't. He said the United States has a mobile and constantly increasing population that a survey held every 10 years doesn't capture. He also pointed to a 2022 report from the U.S. Census Bureau that found 14 states had statistically significant differences between the bureau's count and the actual population. Six states — Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas — had undercounts. He said better data quality might have led to more congressional seats in Texas and Florida. Who opposes a mid-decade census? John Bisognano, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, criticized Trump's proposal as "a comprehensive campaign to flout the U.S. Constitution in order to predetermine election outcomes so he can consolidate his power and avoid accountability to the American people." Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, told National Public Radio that following through "would defy the Constitution, federal law, and settled precedent" and her organization "won't hesitate to go back to court to protect representation for all communities." Why would Trump want to conduct a new Census? "The Republicans are so desperate at this point to forestall what's likely going to happen in 2026," said Michael P. McDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida. Democrats are widely expected to win seats in the House of Representatives in next year's congressional elections, because the party that occupies the White House usually does poorly. Trump also has low approval ratings. That blue wave could flip control of the House, in which Republicans hold a 219 to 212 majority. McDonald said if Republicans draw new congressional districts, they might be able to mitigate the number of seats they lose. For example, the Republican stronghold of Texas saw such rapid population growth when the 2020 survey came out that it gained two additional congressional seats. Republican-leaning states of Florida and Montana, Democrat-leaning Oregon and Colorado, and tightly contested North Carolina each gained one seat. The Democratic population centers of California, Illinois, and New York each lost one seat; so did Republican-leaning Ohio and West Virginia, and the swing states of Michigan and Pennsylvania. Are immigrants counted in the census? Yes. The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says Representatives shall be apportioned according to the "whole number of persons in each State." This ended the longstanding practice of counting three-fifths of enslaved people for purposes of representation. There is no language in the 14th Amendment that restricts these counts to citizens or people with legal presence in the country. During his first term, Trump attempted to add a question to the 2020 census asking if the person completing the survey was a citizen. The Supreme Court struck that down in 2019. The following year, Trump issued a memorandum saying undocumented immigrants should not be included in counts that determine congressional representation. Could Republicans gain more seats if a new census were conducted? Van Spakovsky said a mid-decade census could result in more congressional seats for Texas and Florida. Both are red states with rapidly increasing populations, and both were undercounted in the 2020 census. Texas, for example, was undercounted by almost 550,000 in 2020 and added another 2 million people by 2024. By comparison, an average of 760,000 people live in each congressional district. Within hours of Trump's statement, Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez, a Republican, said he's setting up a new redistricting committee. McDonald said the congressional maps are the fairest they've been in about 40 years, because of redistricting reform efforts across the country to prevent unfairly drawn districts. He said that the congressional maps are already drawn in a way that there are more Republican-leaning districts than Democratic-leaning ones, despite the practice of including undocumented immigrants in the count. McDonald pointed to South Florida, where he said the current lines place right-leaning Cuban Americans with high voter turnout rates in the same districts as lower-propensity, Democratic-leaning Hispanic voters. If the maps were redrawn to not include undocumented immigrants, as Trump has suggested, he said there would likely be only two congressional seats in the area. "Who's going to be on that game of musical chairs?" he asked. How would a new census affect 2026 or 2028? Reapportioning congressional seats affects two things: How many congressional seats each state has and how many electoral votes each state has, because electoral votes are equal to each state's total number of Senate and House seats. House terms last two years, and the elections take place in even years, with the next one coming in 2026. The next presidential election happens in 2028. But this doesn't mean that a new census will take place or that maps will be rejiggered by then. "It seems pretty unlikely that you could do this for 2026, just because it takes so long," said Donahue. The government also isn't allowed to speed up the process by basing its count on statistical sampling, he said, pointing to a 1999 Supreme Court decision that said people must be counted. "It's not something where you can snap your fingers and it's going to happen." Von Spakovsky suggested the U.S. Census Bureau update a form it already sends out regularly and use it to perform a mid-decade census survey. "You couldn't get it done this year, but I don't see any reason why you couldn't get it done next year," he said. Would Trump's order to do a mid-decade census go to court? "Absolutely," said Donahue. "The Constitution calls for a decennial census. It doesn't say that you can't (have more). But, I mean, it pretty much implies that you're only going to do one every 10 years." Donahue predicted that Democratic-leaning states would be most likely to challenge a mid-decade census in court. But the administration could argue that the requirement to do it every 10 years isn't a prohibition on doing it more often. "There's no legal bar in place that says you can't redistrict more than once every 10 years," von Spakovsky said. Contributing: Francesca Chambers
New York Post
20 minutes ago
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Gerrymandering is driving US politics mad — Congress, step in
The principle of one person, one vote — a defining feature of American democracy — means that every citizen has equal representation and an equal voice in our government. As our nation has grown, redistricting protects equal representation: Congressional and other legislative districts must be revised following each decennial US Census to account for population changes. Unfortunately, both Democrats and Republicans have sought to inject partisan gerrymandering into the redistricting process. Advertisement This pernicious tactic has quietly eroded the foundations of our democracy, as both parties manipulate district boundaries for political advantage and thereby polarize the electorate. As gerrymandered Democrat and Republican-held districts become uncompetitive, elected officials lose their incentive to appeal to the middle and find common ground. Instead, elected officials on both sides are forced to gravitate toward the extremes to guard against the threat of party primaries — pushing both parties further from the center and deeper into the partisan trenches, fracturing Congress and alienating everyday voters. Advertisement Through the compounding effect of partisan gerrymandering, bipartisan compromise has become increasingly rare at virtually every level of government — making it nearly impossible to solve critical issues like affordability and health care reform. As recently as 2002, 125 districts in the US House of Representatives were considered 'competitive' — that is, decided by 5% or less in presidential or congressional elections. Two decades later, this number dropped by nearly 75% after successive rounds of gerrymandering in states like Illinois, judged by many to be the most egregious in America. Advertisement In 2024, fewer than 35 House seats were decided by 5% or less, highlighting how sharply competition has declined — and underscoring the urgent need for reform. In 2014, New York voters recognized the dangers of partisan gerrymandering. They overwhelmingly adopted an amendment to the state Constitution to remove party politics from the redistricting process. Specifically, the New York state Constitution now requires congressional and state legislative district lines to respect minority rights and maintain communities of interest, and it explicitly forbids drawing districts to benefit incumbents or political parties. Advertisement To further remove politics in Washington or Albany from the redistricting process, the voters also created a bipartisan independent redistricting commission to ensure fairness and transparency as new lines are drawn. Armed with the governor's mansion and supermajority control (or close to it) over each state legislative chamber, Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Democrats attempted to bypass these safeguards after the last census, ramming through a partisan congressional redistricting plan designed to disenfranchise the state's Republican voters. But New York's highest court thwarted their nefarious scheme in 2022, resulting in the most competitive and fairly drawn congressional map in decades. The Court of Appeals' landmark decision demonstrated the importance of clearly defined constitutional standards coupled with independent judicial oversight. Outside New York, however, the US Supreme Court's 2019 ruling in Rucho v. Common Cause dealt a severe blow to those seeking to rein in partisan gerrymandering. The 5-4 decision found that federal courts lack the jurisdiction to challenge even the most outrageous cases. Advertisement While Chief Justice John Roberts' ruling recognized the harmful effects of gerrymandering, it left the issue to the states or Congress to resolve, effectively removing a crucial check on partisan abuses. Now, c Gov. Greg Abbott's expressly partisan attempt to redraw the state's congressional districts — and bolster my own party's ability to retain control of the House in the coming midterms — has ignited an unseemly tit-for-tat redistricting race between red and blue states. And despite my state's explicit ban on both partisan and mid-decade redistricting, Hochul has publicly pledged to remove these protections from the state Constitution — and dismantle New York's independent redistricting commission. As this political arms race takes aim at American democracy from all sides, Congress has a responsibility to respond to the Supreme Court's 2019 call. Advertisement We must adopt a national ban on partisan gerrymandering and strictly limit the redistricting process to a once-a-decade event following the US Census. This solution will strengthen our democracy by ensuring that competitive districts — whose representatives must appeal broadly to their constituents — exist. That will foster cooperation instead of partisanship and division in Congress. Advertisement Moreover, it will empower voters, restoring their ability to hold elected officials accountable through competitive elections. The stakes are high and the time to act is now. Let's restore competition to our elections. Our democracy deserves nothing less. Mike Lawler represents New York's Hudson Valley area in the US House of Representatives.
