The Battle for the House: Redistricting Maps the Road to Power

In a sign of Democrats’ stiffening redistricting resolve, former President Barack Obama has backed Newsom’s bid to redraw the California map, saying it was a necessary step to stave off the GOP’s Texas move.

“I think that approach is a smart, measured approach,” Obama said Tuesday during a fundraiser for the Democratic Party’s main redistricting arm.

The incumbent president’s party usually loses congressional seats in the midterm election. On a national level, the partisan makeup of existing districts puts Democrats within three seats of a majority.

Trump is going beyond Texas as he tries to ensure Republicans maintain their House majority. He’s pushed Republican leaders in states such as Indiana and Missouri to pursue redistricting. Ohio Republicans were already reviewing their map before Texas moved. Democrats, meanwhile, are mulling reopening Maryland’s and New York’s maps.

However, more Democratic-run states have commission systems like California’s or other redistricting limits than Republican ones do, leaving the GOP with a freer hand to swiftly redraw maps. New York, for example, can’t draw new maps until 2028, and even then, only with voter approval.

Texas Republicans openly said they were acting in their party’s interest. State Rep. Todd Hunter, who wrote the legislation creating the new map, noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed politicians to redraw districts for nakedly partisan purposes.

Because the Supreme Court has blessed purely partisan gerrymandering, the only way opponents can stop the new Texas map would be by arguing it violates the Voting Rights Act requirement to keep minority communities together so they can select representatives of their choice.