Hundreds of people came to the Capitol on Thursday, Oct. 28 2021 to testify against the new voting maps drawn by Republican legislative leaders which advocates characterized as 'gerrymandering 2.0' | Wisconsin Examiner photo

The drama in Texas, where President Donald Trump has demanded that Republicans quickly draw new GOP districts to thwart the will of the voters and ensure his party retains control of Congress in the upcoming midterm elections, has created massive discord. 

Progressives and voting rights advocates are divided on whether California and New York should fight the Texas power grab by gerrymandering their own states, creating more safe Democratic seats, even if that means undermining fair maps and the authority of those states’ nonpartisan redistricting commissions.

In Wisconsin, which just got out from under one of the worst partisan gerrymanders in the U.S., and the impenetrable, outsized Republican majorities in the state Legislature it protected for a decade and a half, this issue hits particularly close to home.

It’s head-spinning to hear arguments for Democratic counter-gerrymandering in other states from the same people in Wisconsin who were recently crying out for fair maps. 

If Democrats are going to mount a serious challenge to the fascist takeover of our country by Trump and his minions, it’s hard to see how ceding the moral high ground and running roughshod over the principle that the will of the majority of voters should prevail is going to help. 

I get that it’s more satisfying to imagine a quick fix to the fascist takeover of every branch of government than to listen to a lot of vague talk about long-term plans to rebuild democracy. After all, election deniers and the architects of the Jan. 6 attack are now running the federal government, demanding access to voter lists across the country and deploying the FBI to arrest political opponents, including the Texas Democrats who’ve fled their state to stall the gerrymandering scheme there. 

But here in Wisconsin, where we’ve just finally beaten back the most gerrymandered map in the country, it’s depressing to imagine Democrats abandoning the high ground and scrambling to do exactly what Republicans did when they controlled all three branches of government, attempting to lock in permanent political control against the will of the people.

If we want democracy, fairness, and the rule of law, we need to champion, well, democracy, fairness and the rule of law. 

In this most extreme political moment, with every public institution and the continued existence of U.S. democracy in doubt, I understand why the long view frustrates people. The emergency is now. I understand that many voters want to see Democrats “fight fire with fire,” as Newsom put it.

But consider this: Republicans control more state legislatures (28 Republican versus 18 controlled by Democrats) and have trifecta control of all branches of government in more states (23 all-GOP states versus 15 all-Democratic). JD Vance just launched a tour of Republican states to encourage more mid-decade gerrymandering. And Trump wants to hold a new census for the purpose of redefining who can vote. Even if Democratic Govs. Gavin Newsom and Kathy Hochul succeed in gerrymandering California and New York, Democrats are not likely to win the nationwide redistricting war.

Meanwhile, democracy will be the first casualty of that war. California and New York would have to suspend the work of their nonpartisan redistricting commissions — the gold standard for fair, nonpartisan map-drawing — and take back partisan control of the process in order to carry out their threats. If they succeed, it is beyond unlikely that the politicians who pull off that short-term victory will ever cede back their power over the voting maps to the nonpartisan commissions again.

On a deeper level, the Democratic gerrymandering fantasy takes the whole movement to oppose Trump in exactly the wrong direction. Instead of building grassroots support to counter an unpopular, authoritarian leader, it rigs the system to benefit a party whose whole problem is that it has lost the broad, popular support it needs to win elections and create a better, more enlightened government. 

Instead of trying to rig the maps to ensure a Democratic House majority in the next election, Democrats need to focus on winning elections and flipping seats in areas of the rural and industrial Midwest that were once reliably blue but have turned deep red.

To do that they need to make the case that health care, education and an adequate social safety net are bedrock rights in the richest nation on earth, and that we should not be giving tax breaks to billionaires by taking food out of the mouths of hungry children. 

They need to offer something to the farmers and factory workers and disaffected voters in rural and urban areas alike that is clearly different and better than the hate, corruption, and a determination to run roughshod over democracy that Republicans offer.

In Wisconsin, voting rights groups have been working on a campaign to push through a constitutional amendment modeled on one in our neighboring state of Michigan, to make sure that our voting maps are never again drawn up by partisan legislators.

That’s the kind of grassroots fight that helped Wisconsin finally overcome Republican gerrymandering. One important aspect of the fair maps movement is the way it engaged citizens to feel like participants, not spectators, in democracy, and to find their common interests instead of focusing on the politics of division. This, not more politicians in safe seats who don’t have to listen to voters, is what we need right now. 

The battle to beat back fascism does not turn on a handful of Democrats in protected districts. It turns on an organized uprising by the majority of people in the U.S. who are willing to join together despite their differences because they are sick and tired of having their democracy stolen from them, along with their health, safety, opportunity and hope. There’s no short cut to leading that fight. 

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Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, left, and Texas Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, right, listen as Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu speaks to reporters during a press conference at the DuPage County Democratic Party headquarters on Aug. 3, 2025 in Carol Stream, Illinois. Wu was with a group of Democratic Texas lawmakers who left the state so a quorum could not be reached during a special session called to redistrict the state. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Fueled by President Donald Trump’s aims to bolster the U.S. House’s razor-thin GOP majority in the 2026 midterm elections, a rare mid-decade redistricting fight in Texas grew increasingly bitter in recent days and engulfed other states.

As Democratic legislators in the Lone Star State fled to block a new congressional map, a handful of both blue and red states eyed their own redistricting plans, lawsuits cropped up and members of Congress pledged bills to curb redistricting wars.

While Texas is the only state that has so far taken formal action to redraw its U.S. House lines, a full-blown arms race could be imminent.

Here’s a breakdown on the redistricting battle as the drama unfolds:

How did all of this interest in redistricting kick off?

Republicans in Texas drew a new congressional map at the urging of Trump that could give the GOP five crucial new congressional seats in 2026.

Midterm elections typically lead to the loss of congressional seats for a president’s party. 

Meanwhile, the GOP currently holds 219 seats in the House, while Democrats hold 212 spots, with four vacancies. That extremely narrow majority has created immense challenges for U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, as he tries to enact Trump’s sweeping agenda and cater to the president’s demands as well as factions in the GOP conference.

Though congressional districts are typically redrawn every decade following each U.S. Census, the move, particularly in Texas, is not unprecedented and is allowed.

What’s going on in Texas?

Texas Republicans unveiled a draft of the new congressional map in late July, which looks to reshape and flip major metro areas’ districts held by Democrats.

According to The Texas Tribune, the Department of Justice sent Texas’ leaders a letter in early July that said four of its districts violate the U.S. Constitution. The proposed map would dismantle those districts, per the Tribune.

More than 50 of Texas’ Democratic legislators left the state to try to block the legislature from adopting the new map, according to the Tribune.

This move has drawn the ire of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who went so far as to file a lawsuit asking to remove the Texas House Democratic Caucus chair, state Rep. Gene Wu, after Wu left the state.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also said Tuesday that he will pursue a court ruling that declares the seats vacant for the House Democrats who do not return by Friday.

Texas GOP U.S. Sen. John Cornyn has also called on the FBI “to take any appropriate steps to aid in Texas state law enforcement efforts to locate or arrest potential lawbreakers who have fled the state.” Trump on Tuesday, asked by a reporter if the FBI should “get involved,” said, “Well, they may have to.”

How is California reacting?

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been among the most vocal Democratic governors in suggesting retaliating against Texas Republicans by redrawing his populous blue state’s own lines before the 2026 elections.

State laws in California and other Democratic states make mid-decade redistricting tougher than it is in Texas.

While pro-democracy groups have praised California’s nonpartisan commission as the “gold standard” of independent redistricting, Newsom has indicated he would ask state lawmakers to temporarily scrap it to join the arms race he says Trump started in Texas.

At a Monday press conference, Newsom justified his exploration of mid-decade redistricting in the Golden State by describing Trump’s recent and historic record as anti-democratic.

“These folks don’t play by the rules,” Newsom said. “If they can’t win playing the game with the existing set of rules, they’ll change the rules. That’s what Donald Trump has done … Here is someone who tried to break this country, tried to light democracy on fire on Jan. 6. He recognizes he’s going to lose in the midterms.”

What other states are looking at potentially redistricting?

Vice President JD Vance is slated to visit Indiana Thursday in an attempt to push redistricting, according to the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

Indiana GOP Gov. Mike Braun said that as of now, no commitments have been made, when asked about redistricting efforts in the Hoosier State, per the Capital Chronicle.

Leaders of large Democratic states, in addition to California, are considering their own redistricting in response to Texas.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul wrote in an op-ed published in the Houston Chronicle Tuesday that she would “not sit on the sidelines” and watch “Republicans dismantle democracy.”

“What Texas is doing isn’t a clever strategy, it’s political arson — torching our democracy to cling to power,” Hochul wrote. “The only viable recourse is to fight fire with fire.”

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker appeared alongside Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin and a group of exiled Texas Democratic lawmakers at a news conference Tuesday. Pritzker said it was “possible” the state would pursue redistricting, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Other Democratic governors — even including Laura Kelly of ruby-red Kansas — raised the prospect during a Democratic Governors Association meeting in Wisconsin last week of pursuing mid-decade redistricting if Texas follows through.

Republican states are also considering jumping in the fray.

Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin, a Republican, told a news radio station last week that it was “likely” lawmakers would convene in a special session to redraw district lines after pressure from Trump.

And Rep. Don Bacon, a Republican who holds the most competitive of Nebraska’s three U.S. House seats but plans to step down, told the Nebraska Examiner that Republicans in the state were having conversations about potential redistricting.

What downside do some see?

An arms race to shorten the cycle for redrawing congressional lines could come at a cost for efforts to overhaul the redistricting process.

Common Cause, a national pro-democracy group that advocates for election reforms including nonpartisan redistricting, urged Democrats not to respond to Texas.

A redistricting arms race would only result in “rigged elections across America,” Emily Eby French, the policy director for Common Cause Texas, said on a press call last week. It was wrong for Republicans to put “a thumb on the scale” through redistricting, she said, but also wrong for Democrats to do the same.

“The real solution is for Democrats to help us lift the Republican thumb off of the Texas scale and every other scale in America until we reach free and fair elections for everyone.”

Are party leaders egging this on?

Trump, whose urging appeared to prompt Texas Republicans to action, has consistently pushed lawmakers in that state to reinforce the GOP advantage there.

Tuesday, he said on CNBC that Republicans were “entitled” to five more House seats in Texas.

Martin, the DNC chair, responded in Illinois.

“No party is entitled to any district,” he said. “We have to go out and earn the votes.”

Still, Martin advised Democrats in blue states to do the opposite by responding in kind to Texas Republicans.

In an interview with States Newsroom last week, Martin suggested Democratic states drop any commitment to nonpartisan redistricting in response to Texas.

“We’re not here to tie one of our hands behind our back,” he said. “We can’t be the only party that’s playing by the rules.”

How is Congress reacting?

At least two GOP House lawmakers — representing blue states looking at retaliatory redistricting efforts against Trump — are taking it upon themselves to introduce bills in Congress that bar these initiatives.

GOP Rep. Kevin Kiley of California introduced a bill in the House this week that would ban mid-decade redistricting across the country.

Kiley said Newsom “is trying to subvert the will of voters and do lasting damage to democracy in California,” in a statement earlier this week.

“Fortunately, Congress has the ability to protect California voters using its authority under the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution,” he said. “This will also stop a damaging redistricting war from breaking out across the country.”

Rep. Mike Lawler, a New York Republican, also said he plans to introduce legislation to prohibit “partisan gerrymandering and mid-decade redistricting.”

The New York Republican told CNN on Tuesday that “this is fundamentally why Congress is broken,” adding that “you do not have competitive districts and so, most members are focused on primaries and not actually engaging in a general election.”