a day ago
Speaker Johnson Comes Out Against Midcycle Redistricting … When Dems Do It
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has been careful to not publicly disagree with the Trump administration as it pressures Texas Republicans to engage in mid-decade redistricting to help the party potentially net five new U.S. House seats in the 2026 midterms.
Vulnerable blue state Republicans in his conference — like Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY), Andy Harris (R-MD) and Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) — have criticized the power grab that Trump is pushing in Texas. But Johnson hasn't taken a position beyond saying that issues of redistricting are best left up to individual states. Per reporting from Politico last week:
Senior House Republicans have advised some rank and file GOP members to keep their concerns to private conversations, and not air criticisms in public. Speaker Mike Johnson and other House GOP leaders have repeatedly said in public they prefer to leave redistricting decisions up to individual states. Johnson and his leadership circle have been wary of crossing the White House on the issue, and won't put any bill on the floor that would contradict Trump's push, despite private urgings from some GOP members, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
Inside the House GOP conference, Republicans are keenly aware that Trump has been fixated for months on keeping his House majority in the upcoming midterms. Many in deep-red districts are openly supportive of the effort to give Republicans an edge.
However, Johnson put out a new statement on Twitter today formally coming out against gerrymandering. That is, when Democrats do it.
'Democrats across the nation have played politics with redistricting for decades, and this is just the latest example. Republicans who are following state and federal laws will not be lectured by people who abused the system,' Johnson wrote in a statement on X Monday morning.
Obviously, to those paying attention, the reason that California Gov. Gavin Newsom is trying to work around his state's independent redistricting commission is because of the gravity of the moment. He and Democratic officials in New York and other states have been publicly considering how they might beat Republicans at their own gerrymandering game by redrawing maps to offset the impact of what's going on in Texas.
Many blue states have measures in place, like the indy commissions, to prevent against the exact kind of partisan gerrymandering that Republicans in Texas are trying to pull off mid-cycle. States like California and New York have adopted these protocols — where an independent, non-partisan panel is tasked with drawing congressional maps, based on census data, for state legislatures to vote on — in order to ensure fair representation in Washington. Texas and many other red states don't have those kinds of rules (though some have laws in place against race-based gerrymandering) because they're totally fine with partisan map drawing if it favors Republicans.
'I have instructed the NRCC to use every measure and resource possible to fight the California Democrats' illegal power grab,' Johnson added, referencing the House Republican conference's campaign fundraising arm. 'I will continue to lead efforts to defend our House Republican incumbents and grow our majority so that we can continue to deliver on our commonsense, America First agenda.'
The statement comes just a few days after new reports surfaced suggesting that his predecessor, ousted-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), was quietly coming out of retirement to help fundraise against the effort in California.
While Newsom attempts to get voters to support his plan with a special election this fall, there's a chance Californians will reject the effort. However, Texas Republicans are getting close to pulling off their power grab on behalf of the Trump administration. The Texas Dems who left the state to deny their colleagues a quorum to vote on the new maps have mostly returned. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has called for a new special session for the maps to be approved in the state House, which expects to take a vote on the plans Wednesday.
— Nicole Lafond
Freedom Caucus Chair is All For Illegal Pocket Rescissions
Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-MD) wants the White House to send over a pocket rescissions request before Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year, according to Politico.
The request Harris is referring to is a loophole Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought and his allies believe they have found in the budgeting process that, they claim, allows them to declare congressionally approved funding rescinded if a rescissions package is sent to Congress close to the end of the fiscal year when funds will expire. The move, they claim, would allow them to withhold congressionally approved funds for 45 days — just like in a regular rescissions package. And regardless of whether Congress takes action on the package or not, the administration can claim that the funding expired with the end of the fiscal year.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) — the nonpartisan legislative branch agency tasked, in part, with determining if the executive branch and the president is impounding funds in violation of the Impoundment Control Act (ICA) — recently reaffirmed that pocket rescissions are illegal. Experts have also told TPM that the so-called pocket rescissions are illegal.
Harris' push for pocket rescissions is certainly not popular among all congressional Republicans. Several Senate Republican appropriators have already indicated they are against another rescissions package for the foreseeable future, let alone pocket rescissions.
Meanwhile, Harris is also reportedly pushing for a guarantee that Congress will pass several more rescissions packages, clawing back previously approved funding, in exchange for his support for a flat-funded continuing resolution with earmarks for the next fiscal year.
— Emine Yücel
GOP Cuts Are Already Shuttering Access to Disaster Warning Systems
Public radio and TV stations are already struggling in the wake of the rescissions package that nearly all congressional Republicans approved this summer that cut funding for public broadcasting.
Stations are scrambling to keep disaster-warning systems functional, according to Politico. This was a consequence many, including some congressional Republicans, warned about during the weeks leading up to the vote on the measure.
Station managers in Alaska — serving rural communities and tribal villages — said funding has already dried up, per Politico. PBS outlets in Northern California towns that send alerts during earthquakes are facing shutdowns; stations in Oklahoma are unable to replace aging transmitters that provide warnings for emergencies.
'Our community is going to hurt,' Gretchen Gordon, general manager of KUAC in Alaska, told Politico. 'We're not going to be the same, and it won't be for lack of trying, but it's just that we just can't anymore.'
Meanwhile, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the non-profit that distributed federal funds to public media, recently announced it will be shutting down operations by Jan. 2026.
— Emine Yücel
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