President Trump demanded that Texas Republicans redraw congressional maps to preserve Republican House control, prompting Texas to redraw districts to seek a five-seat advantage from a 25-12 GOP majority. California Democrats initiated their own redistricting to counteract that advantage, and other states signaled potential participation in partisan mapmaking. Partisan gerrymandering intentionally reshapes districts to maximize a party's representation, using tactics that dilute opposition votes across many districts ('cracking') or concentrate them into few districts ('packing'). Such mapdrawing disregards geographic, cultural, or economic coherence and erodes democratic principles.
The gerrymandering apocalypse is upon us. President Donald Trump, determined to hold on to Republicans' thin House majority, kicked it off in June, when he demanded that Texas Republicans redraw the state's congressional maps. Texas boasts 38 U.S. House seats-second only to California's 52. Now state Republicans have redrawn its district lines in hopes of squeezing an additional five-seat margin from its current 25-12 GOP majority.
(Texas has one House vacancy.) Texas Republicans took the offer, approving the new maps last week over Democrats' vehement objections. In direct response, California's Democratic-controlled Legislature has begun the process of redrawing its own maps to counter the Texas GOP, hoping to pad its party's lead in the nation's largest state. Other states have indicated they too may join the gerrymandering wars-and Trump continues to demand that Republicans do so.
Although it remains to be seen which political party will ultimately win, there is one clear loser: democracy. Partisan gerrymandering-the strategy of drawing congressional district lines so as to maximize a party's legislative representation-has no basis in democratic principles. Google " Illinois District 13" (a Democratic-drawn district) or " Texas District 35 " (a Republican-drawn district), and you'll quickly see that these areas are not intended to encapsulate particular geographies, cultures, or economies.
Collection
[
|
...
]