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Tag: Redistricting

  • ‘It just wouldn’t be fair:’ Maryland’s only Republican congressman responds to governor’s redistricting threat – WTOP News

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    The only Republican member of Congress in Maryland, Andy Harris, spoke out Tuesday after Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore said he was looking closely at redistricting options in the state and potentially joining a nationwide battle over partisan redistricting.

    Maryland Rep. Andy Harris sits down with WTOP’s Nick Iannelli to discuss the potential threat of redistricting

    The only Republican member of Congress in Maryland, Andy Harris, spoke out Tuesday after Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore said he was looking closely at redistricting options in the state, potentially joining a nationwide battle over partisan redistricting.

    If Moore followed through with that, Harris could be drawn out of his district.

    “It disenfranchises huge amounts of the Maryland population. It just wouldn’t be fair,” Harris said in an interview with WTOP.

    Some Democratic governors have vowed to consider redrawing congressional maps in retaliation against Texas Republicans, who are moving forward with rewriting their congressional lines to give the GOP more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

    In an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation, Moore said “all options are on the table.”

    “For the governor, it would be a stunning reversal from his position,” Harris said. “If you want to go and listen to his inaugural address, he talked about, ‘If they’re good ideas, you work across the aisle.’”

    Harris said the move “is the most un-bipartisan thing you could do.”

    “The most partisan thing you could do is gerrymander a state that has had two Republican governors out of the last four, into a state that can’t send a Republican to Congress,” Harris said.

    He pointed to 2022, when a judge threw out a congressional map drawn by Maryland’s General Assembly, finding that it unfairly favored Democrats.

    Harris said he was already weighing his legal options.

    “We will take this to court, it will go as high as necessary, and in the end, a judge could draw a map that actually has two or three Republican congressmen,” Harris said. “I’d caution the Democrats, be careful what you wish for.”

    The redistricting fight is just one of many disputes involving Maryland and the Trump administration.

    Another came when President Trump recently threatened to send in National Guard members to Baltimore to “quickly clean up” crime.

    Harris said he could support the idea of putting National Guard members in Baltimore.

    “There are many areas of the city where you can’t go in or you’re afraid to go in because crime is just not controlled,” Harris said. “If it takes National Guard troops to clean it up, to stop the drug dealing, to stop the homicides, to stop the carjackings, then I would welcome that.”

    “It’s easily justified, and I think the people of Baltimore would benefit from it,” he added.

    As part of the growing bitterness between Trump and Moore, the president also threatened to possibly withhold federal funding for the project to rebuild the collapsed Key Bridge in Baltimore.

    Harris again sided with the Trump administration.

    “I think the funding for the Key Bridge might have to be reinvestigated, because it’s a little unusual that we allowed 100% payment by the federal government,” Harris said. “Normally, it’s a lower amount.”

    Though he acknowledged that a different cost-sharing plan could cost Maryland around $200 million.

    “If Wes Moore has enough money to spend tens of millions of dollars suing the Trump administration, then maybe Maryland should pick up more of the tab on the Key Bridge,” Harris said. “If the Trump administration rethinks about allowing 100% payment for the Key Bridge, that’s fine with me.”

    The Key Bridge reconstruction project is expected to cost about $2 billion and take about four years to complete.

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    Nick Iannelli

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  • Redistricting battles intensify California, Texas and now Indiana

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    The feud over redistricting continues across the country with new developments in Indiana, California and Texas. Multiple media outlets are reporting that Indiana state lawmakers are in Washington, D.C., Tuesday to meet with President Donald Trump, who has been pushing for more Republican seats in Congress. This comes after Vice President J.D. Vance met privately with Indiana Gov. Mike Braun earlier this month. For any redrawing of the congressional map in Indiana, Braun would have to call a special session to start the process, but lawmakers have the power to draw new maps. Republicans in the U.S. House outnumber Democrats in Indiana, limiting the chances they can pull off an additional seat.Things are also heating up in California. On Monday, Trump threatened to sue California over its plan to allow voters to decide whether to redistrict before next year’s election. Gov. Gavin Newsom posted on social media responding to the president with two words: “Bring it.” Newsom approved a special election that will take place in November for residents to vote on a redrawn congressional map. Republican lawmakers in California filed a lawsuit Monday aiming to remove Newsom’s redistricting plan from the November ballot. If the congressional map is approved, it could help Democrats win five more seats in the House next year.In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott is planning to sign into law a new congressional map that includes five more districts, favoring Republicans. Trump has pushed for the map to help the GOP maintain its slim majority in Congress in 2026. The timing of this is noteworthy because Republicans normally lose seats in the House during the midterms. Democrats are expected to challenge the new Texas map in court.Keep scrolling for the latest from the Washington News Bureau:

    WASHINGTON —

    The feud over redistricting continues across the country with new developments in Indiana, California and Texas.

    Multiple media outlets are reporting that Indiana state lawmakers are in Washington, D.C., Tuesday to meet with President Donald Trump, who has been pushing for more Republican seats in Congress. This comes after Vice President J.D. Vance met privately with Indiana Gov. Mike Braun earlier this month.

    For any redrawing of the congressional map in Indiana, Braun would have to call a special session to start the process, but lawmakers have the power to draw new maps.

    Republicans in the U.S. House outnumber Democrats in Indiana, limiting the chances they can pull off an additional seat.

    Things are also heating up in California. On Monday, Trump threatened to sue California over its plan to allow voters to decide whether to redistrict before next year’s election. Gov. Gavin Newsom posted on social media responding to the president with two words: “Bring it.”

    Newsom approved a special election that will take place in November for residents to vote on a redrawn congressional map. Republican lawmakers in California filed a lawsuit Monday aiming to remove Newsom’s redistricting plan from the November ballot.

    If the congressional map is approved, it could help Democrats win five more seats in the House next year.

    In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott is planning to sign into law a new congressional map that includes five more districts, favoring Republicans.

    Trump has pushed for the map to help the GOP maintain its slim majority in Congress in 2026. The timing of this is noteworthy because Republicans normally lose seats in the House during the midterms.

    Democrats are expected to challenge the new Texas map in court.

    Keep scrolling for the latest from the Washington News Bureau:

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  • Polling memo reveals risk for Indiana Republicans as they weigh redistricting

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    A majority of Indiana voters oppose mid-decade redistricting in their state, a new poll shows, as White House officials host Hoosier Republicans in Washington Tuesday amid President Donald Trump’s redistricting pressure campaign.

    The survey from left-leaning firm Change Research — which was commissioned by Count US IN, an Indiana-based nonprofit focused on increasing voter turnout and was obtained by POLITICO — shows several vulnerabilities for Republicans as Trump’s push to protect the GOP’s House majority sparks a nationwide redistricting arms race.

    Fifty-two percent of registered voters in Indiana — which Trump won by 19 points last year — said they are against Republicans revising their maps, with 43 percent “strongly” opposing the effort.

    That opposition rises to 60 percent after voters are informed of arguments for and against redistricting. The memo summarizing the survey breaks down some responses by party affiliation, but not all. The poll of 1,662 registered voters was conducted online between Aug. 18 to 21 and has a margin of sampling error of 2.6 percent.

    The unfavorable views of redistricting come as some four dozen of Indiana’s GOP lawmakers visit the White House on Tuesday for what’s being billed as a state leadership conference to coach legislators on how to sell the president’s agenda back home. The lawmakers are slated to meet with the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, per a person familiar with the planning. The group is expected to include Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston, whose daughter, Liz Huston, is one of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s assistants.

    The visit was put on the books before Vice President JD Vance and administration officials traveled to Indiana to prod Gov. Mike Braun and top state lawmakers into redistricting. But it falls against the backdrop of the White House ratcheting up pressure on red states to redistrict.

    Meanwhile, the Indiana poll gives Democrats some potential messaging guidance as they race to counter Texas’ new map and the potential for more GOP pickups across Indiana, Missouri, Ohio and Florida — even thought Republicans hold a supermajority in Indiana’s Legislature. GOP lawmakers outnumber Democrats there four-to-one in the Senate, and hold 70 seats in the House to Democrats’ 30.

    Nearly two-thirds of the survey respondents said gerrymandering should be illegal. And a full two-thirds expressed opposition to Washington politicians meddling in their state’s politics. While Indiana is considered ruby-red, registered independents make up a larger share of the electorate than Republicans or Democrats.

    Meanwhile, an overwhelming 81 percent of respondents agreed with a Democratic argument in the survey that redistricting “should be conducted in a balanced way to ensure fairness and that our communities are not disenfranchised for political gain” — versus the Republican argument provided to respondents that because Indiana is a mostly Republican state, “the majority should be able to draw our districts in a way that benefits Republicans whenever they want.” That included 68 percent of Republicans, and more than 90 percent of independents and Democrats.

    And 45 percent of respondents said they’d be “somewhat” or “much” less likely to vote for their state representative for reelection if they elect to pass a redrawn congressional map.

    That’s higher among Democrats — a whopping 88 percent — versus 55 percent of independents and just 12 percent of Republicans. Conversely, 40 percent of GOP respondents said they were somewhat or much more likely to vote for someone who voted for redistricting, while 34 percent said it would not change their vote and 14 percent were unsure.

    The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The potential for backlash comes as Trump’s push drives a rift among Indiana’s Republican officials. Some, like the state’s lieutenant governor, Micah Beckwith, have embraced Trump’s effort. All nine of Indiana’s GOP members of Congress have backed it. But several Republican state lawmakers have openly opposed it, with one hard-right representative panning it as “politically optically horrible.” Former Republican Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said a mid-decade redistricting effort would “just be wrong.”

    Meanwhile, Braun, the state’s current governor, has remained noncommittal on calling a special legislative session to consider a new map.

    The White House isn’t letting up on its pressure campaign. Along with outreach from top administration officials, Trump’s political operation and MAGA influencers like Charlie Kirk have threatened to support primary challenges of GOP state lawmakers who don’t fall in line.

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  • Judge rules Utah’s congressional map must be redrawn for the 2026 elections

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    SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Legislature will need to rapidly redraw the state’s congressional boundaries after a judge ruled Monday that the Republican-controlled body circumvented safeguards put in place by voters to ensure districts aren’t drawn to favor any party.

    The current map, adopted in 2021, divides Salt Lake County — Utah’s population center and a Democratic stronghold — among the state’s four congressional districts, all of which have since elected Republicans by wide margins.

    District Court Judge Dianna Gibson made few judgments on the content of the map but declared it unlawful because lawmakers had weakened and ignored an independent commission established by voters to prevent partisan gerrymandering.

    “The nature of the violation lies in the Legislature’s refusal to respect the people’s exercise of their constitutional lawmaking power and to honor the people’s right to reform their government,” Gibson said in the ruling.

    New maps will need to be drawn quickly, before candidates start filing in early January for the 2026 midterm elections. The ruling gives lawmakers a deadline of Sept. 24 and allows voting rights groups involved in the legal challenge to submit alternate proposals to the court.

    But appeals expected from Republican officials could help them run out the clock to possibly delay adopting new maps until 2028.

    The ruling creates uncertainty in a state that was thought to be a clean sweep for the GOP as the party is preparing to defend its slim majority in the U.S. House. Nationally, Democrats need to net three seats next year to take control of the chamber. The sitting president’s party tends to lose seats in the midterms, as was the case for President Donald Trump in 2018.

    Trump has urged several Republican-led states to add winnable seats for the GOP. In Texas, a plan awaiting Gov. Greg Abbott’s approval includes five new districts that would favor Republicans. Ohio Republicans already were scheduled to revise their maps to make them more partisan, and Indiana, Florida and Missouri may choose to make changes. Some Democrat-led states say they may enter the redistricting arms race, but so far only California has taken action to offset GOP gains in Texas.

    The U.S. Supreme Court is unlikely to intervene, and the Utah Supreme Court may be hesitant to entertain an appeal of Monday’s ruling after it had sent the case back to Gibson for her to decide.

    The nation’s high court in 2019 ruled that claims of partisan gerrymandering for congressional and legislative districts are outside the purview of federal courts and should be decided by states.

    David Reymann, an attorney for the voting rights advocates who challenged the map, called the ruling a “watershed moment” for the voices of Utah voters.

    “The Legislature in this state is not king,” Reymann told reporters Monday evening.

    Leaders from the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee applauded the ruling as a victory for democracy.

    Republican Gov. Spencer Cox said he disagrees with the decision but holds respect for Utah’s judiciary. Meanwhile, the state’s GOP Chairman, Robert Axson, dismissed the ruling as “judicial activism.”

    Utah’s Republican legislative leaders, Senate President Stuart Adams and House Speaker Mike Schultz, said in a joint statement that they are disappointed by the ruling and are carefully considering their next steps.

    In 2018, voters narrowly approved a ballot initiative that created an independent redistricting commission to draw boundaries for Utah’s legislative and congressional districts, which the Legislature was required to consider. Lawmakers repealed the initiative in 2020 and replaced it with a law that transformed the commission into an advisory board that they could choose to ignore.

    The following year, lawmakers disregarded a congressional map proposal from the commission and drew one of their own that carved up Salt Lake County among four reliably Republican districts.

    Voting rights advocates sued, arguing the map drawn by lawmakers constituted partisan gerrymandering that favored Republicans. They also said the Legislature violated the rights of voters when it repealed and replaced the 2018 initiative.

    The case made its way to the Utah Supreme Court, which ruled that the Legislature cannot change laws approved through ballot initiatives except to reinforce them, or to advance a compelling government interest. The five-member panel sent the case back to Gibson in the lower court to decide whether lawmakers would have to redraw boundaries set as part of a redistricting process that happens every 10 years.

    The ruling Monday reinstates the voter-approved redistricting standards that lawmakers had overturned.

    Utah was one of four states where voters approved measures designed to reduce partisan gerrymandering in 2018. As in Utah, Missouri’s Republican-led Legislature quickly sought to repeal key provisions. Missouri voters approved the Legislature’s revisions in 2020, before the original plan was ever used. Independent commissions approved by Colorado and Michigan voters remained in place and were used after the 2020 census.

    The redistricting measures aren’t the only instances where state lawmakers have altered voter-approved measures.

    Earlier this year, Missouri lawmakers repealed a paid sick leave law passed by voters and referred a proposed repeal of an abortion rights amendment to the ballot. In South Dakota, voters approved a public campaign finance system, tightened lobbying laws and created an ethics commission in 2016. Lawmakers repealed and replaced the measure the next year with a narrower government watchdog board and looser limits on lobbyist gifts to public officials.

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    Associated Press writer David Lieb contributed from Jefferson City, Missouri.

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  • California Republicans file petition to stop special election on Newsom’s redistricting plan

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    California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s redistricting plan is facing another bout of legal pushback, as state Republicans filed an emergency petition asking the California Supreme Court to block a November special election on the proposal.

    Named Proposition 50, the redistricting measure, signed into law last week, would overhaul California’s congressional map to make five GOP-held districts more favorable to Democrats. The move is being framed by Newsom and state Democrats as a direct response to Texas Republicans redrawing their own maps — under pressure from President Trump — to create five extra GOP-leaning districts.

    But opponents argue that California’s plan violates the state constitution and undermines an independent redistricting commission created by ballot initiative in the mid-2000s.

    The 432-page petition, filed by the Dhillon Law Group and backed by Republican lawmakers, accuses Democrats of skipping a 30-day public review period for legislation, in addition to stripping voters and the independent citizens’ redistricting commission of their power. It also challenges the legality of redrawing maps mid-decade. And it argues the measure violates a rule requiring ballot questions in California to only be about a single subject, because it includes a provision that redraws the congressional map and a provision that calls on Congress to require every state to use a redistricting commission. 

    Republican state Sen. Tony Strickland is vowing to fight the plan in court.

    “As long as I have breath in my body, I am going to fight every step of the way,” Strickland said. “Every loophole they do, every constitutional measure they break, we’re going to challenge them in court.”

    CBS Sacramento reached out to Newsom’s office for comment. Hannah Milgrom, a spokesperson for the Yes on 50 campaign, said, “Trump’s toadies already got destroyed once in court. Now, they are trying again – to protect Trump’s power grab and prevent the voters from having their say on Prop 50. They will lose.”

    A group of Republican lawmakers filed a similar emergency petition before the legislature passed the plan. The California Supreme Court already declined to intervene then, but now Republicans are asking the court to reconsider before ballots are finalized.

    If approved by voters in November, the new map would be used for the next three election cycles and could help Democrats reclaim control of the U.S. House in 2026.

    Newsom and other state Democrats insist the plan is still ultimately in voters’ hands, unlike in Texas, where Republicans redrew lines without a public vote. They argue it’s a necessary countermeasure to what they call a broader national strategy by Mr. Trump to tilt congressional maps in the GOP’s favor.

    Republicans hold a razor-thin House majority, and could lose control of the chamber if Democrats flip just three seats in next year’s midterm elections — which typically favor the party that doesn’t control the White House.

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  • California Republicans sue to block Congressional redistricting plan

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    By Brad Brooks

    (Reuters) -California Republicans filed on Monday their second legal challenge against Governor Gavin Newsom’s redistricting plan, which aims to give Democrats five more Congressional seats amid a nationwide scramble for advantage in 2026 elections.

    The lawsuit filed by Republican lawmakers argues that the redistricting plan goes against the California constitution and requirements that political maps be drawn by an independent redistricting body.

    “This is an issue about good governance in the state of California,” said Corrin Rankin, chairwoman of the California Republican Party, at a press conference announcing the legal action. “Californians deserve to have the right to choose our legislators.”

    The effort by Newsom and Democrats in California’s legislature to rework the state’s Congressional maps was passed last week. It came in response to Texas Republicans pushing through new Congressional maps in that state that could give the GOP five more seats in Congress, as urged by President Donald Trump.

    Trump is asking several Republican-led states to redraw their Congressional maps ahead of next year’s midterm elections in an effort to retain control of the House.

    California Republicans had already filed one lawsuit to stop Newsom’s redistricting plan, but it was rejected by the state’s supreme court last week.

    On Monday, lawmakers filed an emergency petition before the top court against the California legislature and California Secretary of State Shirley Weber.

    “The Constitution’s guardrails on redistricting are essential to ensuring that Californians are spared from the political influence and inherent turbulence of perpetual map-drawing in the hands of the Legislature,” the lawsuit read.

    Weber’s office declined to comment.

    Hannah Milgrom, a spokeswoman for Newsom, said in a written statement that the Republican legal challenge would fail.

    “Trump’s toadies already got destroyed once in court. Now, they are trying again – to protect Trump’s power grab and prevent the voters from having their say … They will lose,” she said.

    Trump told reporters in Washington on Monday that his administration could challenge California’s redistricting with its own lawsuit. Newsom on X said, “bring it.”

    The Texas redistricting plan that passed the Senate early on Saturday is also the target of legal action.

    A group of 13 Texas residents filed a lawsuit against their Governor Greg Abbott over the weekend, arguing the redistricting plan was racially discriminatory.

    (Reporting by Brad Brooks in Colorado; editing by Donna Bryson and Nia Williams)

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  • Redistricting Map May Not Be the Success Story Republicans Think It Is

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    Texas Republicans celebrated a victory last week as the House and Senate approved new congressional districts amid criticism that the lines are racially gerrymandered. But the success of the redistricting effort hinges heavily on whether previous GOP voters will stay true to their party in 2026.

    House Bill 4, introduced by Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, was approved August 20 in an 88-52 vote. During an eight-hour discussion in Austin, Hunter stood firm in his position that although mid-decade redistricting is unusual, it’s not illegal, nor is drawing new boundaries in an effort to gain more GOP congressional seats, which was his intent when he introduced the legislation.

    The Senate adopted the new map along party lines in an 18-11 vote early Saturday morning. Sen. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston, was planning a filibuster but Republicans blocked it in a rare procedural motion that ended the debate.

    “The One Big Beautiful Map has passed the Senate and is on its way to my desk, where it will be swiftly signed into law,” Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement. “I promised we would get this done, and delivered on that promise.”

    University of Houston law professor David Froomkin agreed that a state is entitled under existing federal law to engage in “extreme partisan gerrymandering for partisan advantage,” but it doesn’t appear that’s what’s happening, he said.

    “If the state were in fact doing that, the map would be perfectly legal, but I think there’s strong reason to think that’s not in fact what the state has done,” he said. “They’re invoking that logic, but likely disingenuously. The premise underlying this redistricting plan was that there was a racial problem with the prior map that needed to be corrected.”

    “That’s the position that the Department of Justice took in demanding that the state of Texas engage in this redistricting effort,” he added. “It’s a rationale that the governor accepted as the original justification for a mid-decade redistricting. Republicans backed off of that logic once it became clear that it would pose a legal obstacle to the new map. A court will have to determine whether the new rhetoric that the map is motivated by politics not race is the true motive.”

    The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 2017 Cooper v. Harris case that the North Carolina General Assembly “used race too heavily” in redrawing two Congressional districts following the 2010 Census.

    In modern-day Texas, Republicans originally theorized that the state’s prior congressional maps, approved after the 2020 Census, were racially gerrymandered and in order to resolve that problem, it was necessary to engage in race-conscious redistricting, Froomkin said.

    Democrats were quick to point out that at the time the maps were approved in 2021, Republicans testified under oath that they were “race blind.”

    The 2021 map is being challenged in federal court, with civil rights groups alleging they violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The U.S. Department of Justice was originally among the plaintiffs in that case and withdrew when Donald Trump became president.

    “In fact, the state and the Department of Justice were incorrect to think that the prior map was a racial gerrymander,” Froomkin said, adding that he believes the map approved last week is a racial gerrymander. “To be clear, I also think they’ve violated section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which is a separate issue but one that no doubt will be litigated.”

    “It’s not just a power grab, it’s an attack on free society,” he added. “What Texas and other states are doing with these gerrymanders is trying to insulate an authoritarian government from democratic accountability.”

    Texas Democrats — bolstered by constituents who oppose the map and party officials including former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — avoided voting on the map for about two weeks, fleeing the state to break quorum. A few Democratic legislators, including Rep. Jolanda Jones, D-Houston, didn’t come back. Those who did voted against the map and vowed to challenge it in court.

    The new Texas map is poised to add five GOP seats in 2026 primaries, an effort to retain President Trump’s narrow majority in Congress. California Gov. Gavin Newsom promptly launched a redistricting effort in his state to add more blue seats and counter the effort in Texas. Under California law, this still has to be approved by voters in November.

    The districts planned for a flip from blue to red are District 9 (held by Rep. Al Green of Houston), District 28 (held by Rep. Henry Cuellar of Laredo), District 32 (held by Rep. Julie Johnson of Farmers Branch), District 34 (held by Rep. Vicente Gonzalez of McAllen), and District 35 (held by Rep. Greg Cesar of Austin). At least six other districts were redrawn to improve GOP performance. Almost all of Texas’ 38 districts were altered.

    “Four of the five new districts are majority-minority Hispanic,” Hunter said before last week’s vote in the House. “Each of these newly-drawn districts now trend Republican in political performance. While there’s no guarantee in electorate success, Republicans will now have an opportunity to potentially win these districts.”

    click to enlarge

    The Texas House of Representatives approved new congressional districts on August 20, with Democrats vowing to challenge the map in court.

    Texas Legislative Council

    But the new map doesn’t guarantee Republican victories in the 2026 midterms, Froomkin said.

    “The new map is premised on a guess about the voting behavior of Latino Texans, and that guess might turn out to be wrong,” he said. “The maps will go into effect. The question is, will the people put up with it? We can already see a backlash taking place. The Trump administration is horrifically unpopular. Guesses about how people are going to vote in 2026 based on the 2024 numbers may be misleading.”

    Members of the Texas Majority PAC, which advertises that it is dedicated to electing a Democrat to statewide office, gathered for a Zoom call last week to analyze redistricting data. Katherine Fischer, director of the PAC, said Republicans will almost certainly flip Districts 9 and 32.

    “We think it is possible, though challenging, to hold CD 35,” she said. “We think it is very possible to hold CD 28 and CD 34. Those are the Valley and South Texas ones. We believe that CD 15, which is currently a Republican district, will be the most competitive it’s been since 2020 redistricting and is a potential flip for Democrats.”

    The strategy behind the new map is based on the assumption that Trump’s 2024 numbers are an accurate metric to determine how competitive the districts are, Fischer said, adding that she thinks the Republicans overplayed their hand.

    “[Governor] Abbott was tasked with finding five new seats for Trump, but there are too many Democrats in Texas to gerrymander them away completely,” she said. “The data tells us that Texas Democrats can compete to hold most of these seats, and may have new flip opportunities. We intend to fight for every single seat.”

    Former Texas Sen. Wendy Davis joined the call and said the maps reveal the likelihood that the GOP’s “voter suppression efforts” will backfire. “Communities that Republicans hoped to suppress are energized, and Democrats are ready to turn that energy into real, competitive elections,” she said.

    Froomkin said once Governor Abbott signs the bill into law, the maps will be used for the 2026 midterm elections. No member of Congress loses their seat immediately but some, if not all, of the five Democrats in the seats slated for flips will not seek re-election in their now heavily Republican districts.

    Rep. Al Green has said he could run in Congressional District 18, where a special election is planned in November to fill the seat vacated by Rep. Sylvester Turner’s death earlier this year. Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee, Rep. Jolanda Jones, and former Houston City Councilwoman Amanda Edwards are among more than 20 candidates who have filed for the CD 18 seat. Former candidates Corisha Rogers and Rain Eatmon dropped out of the race last week, saying they would endorse Menefee.

    Referencing the fact that the 2021 map is still under review in federal court, Froomkin said such cases take a long time to adjudicate.

    “They involve the presentation of a lot of factual information that takes time to gather,” he said. “I expect that Voting Rights Act challenges to the new map, similarly, will take a lot of time to adjudicate.”

    While the plaintiffs won’t necessarily be just the Democratic lawmakers who fought fiercely against the legislation at the Capitol last week, many of those legislators are likely to be involved and are attorneys who appear prepared to gather technical information about the decomposition of districts and the voting behavior of those who live there.

    Once the new map is approved, the case against the 2021 version doesn’t necessarily become moot just because it’s no longer in effect, Frromkin explained.

    “It could be the case that a court would grant preliminary relief to plaintiffs challenging the new map and say that map can’t immediately go into effect, in which case the old maps, at least for the time being, would still be in effect,” he said.

    Republicans Double Down

    Prior to the passage of the bill, some GOP lawmakers appeared to be frustrated with their party leaders. Governor Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Attorney General Ken Paxton, and Speaker of the House Dustin Burrows threatened to remove quorum-breaking Democrats from their seats, assess hefty fines, and arrest them. Not much of that has happened, leading some GOP legislators and watchdogs to believe that the party was rolling over for the Dems.

    Letters were issued Friday afternoon notifying Texas House Democrats who fled the state that they’d have to pay about $9,000 each in fines for “impeding the action of the House.”

    Shortly after the Speaker’s opening remarks early last week, the quorum breakers were asked to sign permission slips so a DPS trooper could tail them until the Legislature reconvened a couple of days later. Rep. Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth, refused and spent two nights in the House of Representatives. At least six other lawmakers joined her on the second night.

    When Collier went into a House bathroom for a Zoom call with Newsom and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, during the August 20 floor debate, authorities accused her of committing a felony.

    Froomkin, the law professor, said Abbott and other Republicans have made some threats, particularly that of criminal prosecution, that they weren’t authorized to make. And when the July 7 letter came from Trump’s Department of Justice strongly suggesting that Texas redraw its map, Abbott didn’t have to do it, Froomkin said.

    “The governor clearly made a number of threats that were beyond his legal power,” he said. “It seems like those threats were effective. The Democrats returned sooner than a lot of people expected they would, and I think that is likely attributable to the governor’s threats of criminal prosecution, which I found shocking. The suggestion that state officials would use their official powers to persecute members of the opposition simply for taking positions on legislative matters is extremely unusual and disturbing.”

    “It seems like we’re entering a new era in politics in which incumbents try to use every ounce of their power in order to try to maintain their power,” he added. “There’s no doubt that the goal of the new map is straightforwardly to dilute and diminish the political power of communities of color, and it is part of a broader plan to do that on the national stage.”

    But most Republican lawmakers have doubled down on the decision to redistrict, lauding the measure as a historic victory for the right and sharing their endorsements from Trump and Abbott.

    Reps. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, and Cody Vasut, R-Angleton, announced a celebratory dinner toasting the passage of the maps last week, and Cain promptly filed the day after the House vote to run for the newly drawn Congressional District 9.

    Burrows said when the House convened on August 18 that his responsibility now that a quorum was established was to maintain an atmosphere of decorum and respect until “the job is finished.”

    “No one here needs a reminder that the last few weeks have been contentious,” he said, referencing the walkout of at least 50 Democrats in early August. “From this point forward, the rules of engagement are clear. Debate is welcome but personal attacks and name-calling will not be tolerated.”

    Name-calling ensued almost immediately, primarily accusations from Democrats that the bill was racist and that some of its authors and supporters were too.

    Hunter emphasized that the law allows redistricting for political performance. He repeatedly explained that the map was developed by Butler Snow LLP law firm at his direction and became frustrated with several Democratic legislators who questioned him about the process, saying they were permitted to interrupt and talk over him.

    “I’m standing with Republican members,” he said. “What’s wrong with Republicans standing up and stepping up and being honest, which you don’t like? The Supreme Court says we can do political and partisan redistricting. We will not agree on this issue. We will push forward.”

    Rep. Katrina Pierson, R-Rockwall, also took issue with the accusations.

    “You call my voters racist, you call my party racist, but yet we’re expected to follow the rules,” she said. “Well, that double standard ends today. I have traveled all over this country for the better part of a decade and I can tell you that more and more minority voters are voting their values, not their skin color. And many of them are moving to Texas to escape the blue states because their values have been successfully gerrymandered into suppression.”

    click to enlarge

    Rep. Katrina Pierson, R-Rockwall, said the new redistricting map is not racist but reflects the will of the people and the majority party.

    Screenshot

    Pierson further pointed out that Trump won Hispanic voters in Texas. “I get it, you don’t like that,” she said. “In 2024, Democrats lost. President Trump won big. You’re losing at the ballot box but you will not silence the majority in the state of Texas. You can throw your tantrum. You can leave, you can run, and you can ignore the will of the rest of the voters, but it’s honestly time to pick a new narrative. The racist rhetoric is old. News flash: Democrats do not own minorities in Texas.”

    Many Democratic lawmakers allege the redistricting effort involves “packing and cracking,” or widening the GOP advantage by unconstitutionally compressing people of color into some districts while spreading them throughout others to reduce their ability to elect their preferred candidates.

    It’s hard to predict what will happen in a legal battle because the U.S. Supreme Court has “sent some signals that the future of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is uncertain,” Froomkin said.

    “There are two cases before the Supreme Court that put the future of the Voting Rights Act in question,” he said. “In one of them, the court is planning to rule in a few months on the constitutionality of section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and a number of experts expect that this court will be hostile to section 2. That will of course dramatically shake up the redistricting process, particularly in southern states like Texas.”

    “In the absence of the Voting Rights Act, southern states would be able to completely gerrymander maps so as to deny minority communities any political representation, as they largely did before 1965,” he added.

    The actions of the federal government in micromanaging state legislatures is unprecedented, the law professor added. “That is another really surprising development,” he said. “The Republican Party used to, at least rhetorically, be a party that embraced federalism. Today, a Republican administration is trying to aggrandize federal power at the expense of states, including by coercing states to participate in the federal executive’s agenda.”

    What’s Next for Special Session No. 2

    Sixty-nine bills were read into the record on August 18 and referred to committees. More followed throughout the week, ranging from THC regulation to STAAR test elimination. Most were aimed at improving emergency preparedness and enhancing youth camp safety standards, a response to the deadly July 4 Hill Country floods. Several have already passed at least one chamber.
    Public hearings were held last week before the Select Committee on Flooding and Disaster Preparedness, at which several parents testified about the loss of their children at Camp Mystic during the Hill Country floods.

    Democratic lawmakers criticized Republicans for not putting flood victims ahead of redistricting. Republicans said they could have passed bills sooner if the Democrats hadn’t fled the state.

    Following the House passage of the redistricting bill, Abbott announced the addition of three more items to the special session agenda: Legislation imposing punishment for legislators who are willfully absent during a session; authorizing the purchase of Ivermectin over the counter; and proposing a groundwater study of East Texas aquifers by the Texas Water Development Board.

    Burrows has said he hopes to finish the second special session by addressing all 22 items on the governor’s agenda before Labor Day weekend.

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  • Sonoma County Republicans talk redistricting, 2026 governor’s race at annual convention

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    The Sonoma County Republican Party held their annual convention Saturday, with the upcoming special election on redistricting and picking the party’s nominee for governor among top priorities.

    Hundreds of people gathered to connect and listen California GOP leaders, including two gubernatorial candidates.

    Republican Chair Debbie LeBoy has been looking forward to the convention since she got the job.

    “I’m grateful for the word getting out,” said LeBoy.

    LeBoy became chair in January, she says the convention is only in its 5th year but it’s roots go deeper.

    “We had one of our members a couple of years ago find an article that showed Republicans came together in Sonoma County, about a thousand of them, and we went well we can start this up again,” explained LeBoy.

    In the last few years, she’s seen it grow, this year they had almost 400 people exchanging ideas and hope for the future.

    “We just want to do good policy that works for everybody,” LeBoy said. “We don’t want the partisanship.”

    They bring in candidates to speak to constituents, the headliners were two of the men running for the Republican nomination for governor.

    Chad Bianco is the sheriff of Riverside County but says he’s been all over speaking with voters.

    “I’ve already talked to people who are saying ‘we’re not Republican, we’re Democrats,’ and they’re supporting me, and they know that I have to win,” said Bianco. “We’re at a point in California where people are starving for a leader they can trust.”

    Sheriff Chad Bianco of Riverside County, a candidate for the 2026 Republican nomination for California governor, speaks at the Sonoma County Republican Party Convention in Santa Rosa on Aug. 23, 2025.

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    The event’s theme is “Restore the Golden State,” a topic that has become an even bigger effort for the party since Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democrats started pushing for redistricting in California amid redistricting efforts in Texas and other states.

    Voters will decide on the plan in a special election this November. Under the new plan, much of Sonoma County will be added to the 1st congressional district, transforming a district where people voted for President Donald Trump over Kamala Harris by 25 points, into a Harris +12 point district.

    “It’s an absolute joke,” said Bianco. “They are absolutely out of touch with Californians. They couldn’t care less about Californians. They care about their own personal and political agenda and they are not listening to anything going on in California.”

    Steve Hilton was the other headliner. A former Fox News personality, Hilton is a British-American political commentator and also thinks more redistricting is a bad idea.

    “If you actually look at the way it’s done the districts we’re already heavily gerrymandered in California there’s probably an extra 10-12 seats that should be in Republican hands if we had fair representation when you look at the house seats,” said Hilton.

    He feels confident things will be different after next election.

    “I’m 100% certain that California’s going to vote for change next November,” said Hilton. “There’s a massive majority for change. We can’t go on like this. We have the highest everything: highest gas prices, highest electricity bills, highest housing costs. It’s really tough to live here.”

    LeBoy echoed the need to turn the page.

    “Let’s just do some good policy that has less taxes, and of course they’re going to take taxes, but use our money wisely,” LeBoy detailed. “We’re looking for some simple solutions, some commonsense solutions. You’ve got homeless, you’ve got crime, high taxes. We just have to work on those and fix it for everybody regardless of party.”

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  • Texas Republicans take victory lap after redistricting vote, Democrats vow to fight back

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    Texas Republicans took a victory lap after an early morning vote Saturday that sought to give their party an edge during the 2026 midterms. Democrats in Texas plan to challenge the legality of the new congressional map, saying it dilutes the power of minorities. Willie James Inman has the details.

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  • Texas Gov. Abbott vows to approve GOP-leaning congressional voting map

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    AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Saturday promised to quickly sign off on a new, Republican-leaning congressional voting map gerrymandered to help the GOP maintain its slim majority in Congress.

    “One Big Beautiful Map has passed the Senate and is on its way to my desk, where it will be swiftly signed into law,” Abbott said in a statement.

    Texas lawmakers approved the final plans just hours before, inflaming an already tense battle unfolding among states as governors from both parties pledge to redraw maps with the goal of giving their political candidates a leg up in the 2026 midterm elections.

    In California, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has approved a special election to take place in November for residents to vote on a redrawn congressional map designed to help Democrats win five more House seats next year.

    Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has pushed other Republican-controlled states, including Indiana and Missouri, to also revise their maps to add more winnable GOP seats. Ohio Republicans were also already scheduled to revise their maps to make them more partisan.

    In Texas, the map includes five new districts that would favor Republicans.

    The effort by Trump and Texas’ Republican-majority Legislature prompted state Democrats to hold a two-week walkout and kicked off a wave of redistricting efforts across the country.

    Democrats had prepared for a final show of resistance, with plans to push the Senate vote into the early morning hours in a last-ditch attempt to delay passage. Yet Republicans blocked those efforts by citing a rule violation.

    “What we have seen in this redistricting process has been maneuvers and mechanisms to shut down people’s voices,” said state Sen. Carol Alvarado, leader of the Senate Democratic caucus, on social media after the new map was finalized by the GOP-controlled Senate.

    Democrats had already delayed the bill’s passage during hours of debate, pressing Republican Sen. Phil King, the measure’s sponsor, on the proposal’s legality, with many alleging that the redrawn districts violate the Voting Rights Act by diluting voters’ influence based on race.

    King vehemently denied that accusation, saying, “I had two goals in mind: That all maps would be legal and would be better for Republican congressional candidates in Texas.”

    “There is extreme risk the Republican majority will be lost” in the House if the map does not pass, King said.

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

    The Texas redraw is already reshaping the 2026 race, with Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett, the dean of the state’s congressional delegation, announcing Thursday that he will not seek reelection to his Austin-based seat if the new map takes effect. Under the proposed map, Doggett’s district would overlap with that of another Democratic incumbent, Rep. Greg Casar.

    Redistricting typically occurs once a decade, immediately after a census. While some states have their own limitations, there is no national impediment to a state trying to redraw districts in the middle of the decade.

    The U.S. Supreme Court in 2019 ruled that the Constitution does not prohibit partisan gerrymandering to increase a party’s clout, only gerrymandering that’s explicitly done by race.

    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, cannot draw new maps until 2028, and even then only with voter approval.

    Republicans and some Democrats championed a 2008 ballot measure that established California’s nonpartisan redistricting commission, along with a 2010 one that extended its role to drawing congressional maps.

    Both sides have shown concern over what the redistricting war could lead to.

    California Assemblyman James Gallagher, the Republican minority leader, said Trump was “wrong” to push for new Republican seats elsewhere. But he warned that Newsom’s approach, which the governor has dubbed “fight fire with fire,” is dangerous.

    “You move forward fighting fire with fire, and what happens?” Gallagher asked. “You burn it all down.”

    ___

    Cappelletti reported from Washington and Golden from Seattle. Associated Press writer Kimberlee Kruesi contributed to this report from Providence, Rhode Island.

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  • Texas redistricting fight shakes up battle lines for both parties in key US Senate race

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    HOUSTON — Just as Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Colin Allred was holding a town hall near the Mexican border as part of an “unrig Texas” campaign tour, the state’s Democratic fundraising powerhouse Beto O’Rourke rallied support in Austin for lawmakers who left the state to delay a redistricting plan led by President Donald Trump. The next morning, one of those wayward lawmakers, James Talarico, stood in the pulpit at former President Barack Obama’s old church in Chicago to say he and his fellow legislators had simply taken a leap of faith.

    All three Democrats are either declared or potential contenders for the Senate seat on the ballot in next year’s midterm elections. In what would typically be a quiet period in Texas politics, Republicans have roiled the state’s 2026 Senate campaign with their rush to redraw congressional maps to give Trump more allies in Congress. The turmoil impacts contenders in both parties and gives Democrats fresh hope that they can capture a long-elusive seat, where an upset would dramatically improve their chances of regaining Senate control in Washington.

    For Democrats, the GOP power play offers a new way to stand out as fighters against Trump and his Make America Great Again movement.

    For Republicans, including incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, it’s a Trump loyalty test. Cornyn publicly called for involving the FBI in rounding up the defiant Democrats. His main primary challenger, state Attorney General Ken Paxton, used his current office to ask state courts to remove departed lawmakers from office and to jail O’Rourke for raising funds to support the Democratic legislators. The clash has also been a welcome distraction from recent questions about Paxton’s private life.

    Trump, meanwhile, had his eyes on the U.S. House when he openly prodded Texas Republicans this summer to give him five more GOP seats in a state he won handily last year. He hoped to avoid losing a slim House majority, as he did during his first term in 2018.

    Democrats nationwide condemned the effort to alter the playing field, in part because it comes before the typical 10-year timeline for redrawing congressional districts based on census results.

    Texas Democrats walked out for two weeks, denying Republicans the quorum they needed. They ended the walkout this week, but only after California Gov. Gavin Newsom countered with a redistricting push in his state, a Democratic stronghold.

    “We’ve got to stand up to them. These people are thugs,” O’Rourke said in an interview with The Associated Press. “Giving in or seeking compromise, or trying to make concessions in the hopes that they’ll stop pursuing you, that stuff clearly does not work. The only thing that works is fighting.”

    O’Rourke, a former congressman and onetime presidential candidate who has run and lost against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, said he has not decided whether he will launch a senatorial bid.

    Paxton has assumed the role as the Left’s chief antagonist, a good look during a primary campaign aimed at drawing the most devout Republicans. He asked courts to expel the lawmakers who walked out, brought lawsuits to declare their seats vacant and sought to jail O’Rourke, arguably the state’s most well-known Democrat, accusing him of illegally raising money to help defray costs for the Democratic lawmakers who left.

    A judge granted a temporary restraining order, ordering O’Rourke to cease and handing Paxton a victory.

    “We are pursuing every legal remedy at our disposal to hold these rogue legislators accountable,” Paxton said in a statement. “Texas deserves representatives who do their jobs instead of running away at the behest of their billionaire handlers.”

    Cornyn used his federal role to ask the FBI to help bring Democratic lawmakers who fled the state back to Texas.

    After first criticizing Paxton for being on vacation in Europe when the redistricting drama began, Cornyn used the moment to question Paxton’s tactics.

    “It seems like both are doing what each of them can do, given their own public office,” said Roy Bailey, a wealthy Republican donor from Dallas.

    Cornyn’s own polling shows him trailing Paxton. Cornyn’s campaign and groups that support him, including a pro-Cornyn super PAC and the Washington-based Senate Leadership Fund, have spent more than $7.5 million in advertising since July, mainly criticizing Paxton.

    Republicans affiliated with the Senate majority in Washington, including the Senate Leadership Fund, have argued that if Paxton wins the Republican Senate primary, it would cost the party at least $100 million more to win the open seat in Texas. Although the map of states with Senate elections next year favors Republicans, the party can afford to lose no more than four seats and still hold the majority.

    O’Rourke has rallied around the state and raised money to support the dozens of Texas House Democrats who left the state earlier this month.

    “At a time that so many who have the power to fight are instead bending the knee to Donald Trump,” he said, “the country really needed to see someone stand and fight.”

    The redistricting drama has also inspired Allred, a former congressman and voting rights attorney who launched his bid for the Democratic nomination last month, to travel for a series of town halls on redistricting.

    Allred told The Associated Press the fight is energizing organizers and voters. He said a pastor in a Black church in Dallas compared the situation to a bully only being able to take it so far before victims start fighting back.

    “If this had passed as quickly as it looked like it was going to, I think many folks wouldn’t have known what was happening,” Allred said after a Houston town hall. “There certainly wouldn’t have been the national attention on what’s happening here in Texas, but that attention has built and built, and the awareness has also built and built, and so this means to me that ultimately there also will be a backlash against these folks who are trying to rig the elections.”

    The clash in Texas has elevated the profile of Talarico, a 36-year-old legislator from Austin. He was among those who packed their bags and headed to Chicago. Talarico has appeared on network television and last month was interviewed by conservative podcaster Joe Rogan.

    Talarico’s social media following has expanded to more than 1 million on Instagram and TikTok. He has said he is considering a Senate run but hasn’t decided yet. O’Rourke had high praise for Talarico but said the young lawmaker’s plans wouldn’t affect his decision.

    “I think this is one of those moments where Democratic voters are looking at who’s fighting and who’s folding. And that to me is the primary dividing line in our party right now,” Talarico told the AP. “It’s not really progressive versus moderates. It’s fighters versus folders.”

    In his sermon Sunday at Obama’s old church in Chicago, Talarico referred to himself as one of the “Texas outlaws” who walked out, prompting loud cheers and applause.

    “This is not just a political struggle,” he told them. “It’s a spiritual struggle.”

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    Texas, California advance maps in redistricting race; SpaceX launches unpiloted X-37B rocket plane on classified space force mission.

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  • Interactive: How California is reshaping its congressional districts

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    The Democrats, led by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, are hitting back at the Texas Republican lawmakers with a proposed redistricting map of California. The Proposed Congressional Map aims to add five Democratic seats in the upcoming elections.Redistricting, which typically happens every decade as the census updates, has created a new battleground between the Democrats and Republican-led states. President Donald Trump first prompted Republican district representatives in the GOP stronghold of Texas to redraw congressional lines to give the party an advantage in the upcoming elections. What followed was a two-week standoff in which Democratic Texas House representatives fled the state to stall the vote.Texas’ new congressional maps were eventually passed in an 88-52 vote, creating five new Republican-leaning seats.California’s Democratic leaders Thursday moved forward with an effort to change the congressional district maps. California currently has 52 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives; 43 of these seats went to the Democrats, while nine went to the Republicans in the 2024 election.The five California Republicans targeted by the redistricting plan include Reps. Doug LaMalfa in District 1, Kevin Kiley in District 3, David Valadao in District 22, Ken Calvert in District 41 and Darrell Issa in District 48.Each of these five districts is shown in the maps below. See if you can guess how these districts will be redrawn by trying our puzzle game below.

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. —

    The Democrats, led by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, are hitting back at the Texas Republican lawmakers with a proposed redistricting map of California. The Proposed Congressional Map aims to add five Democratic seats in the upcoming elections.

    Redistricting, which typically happens every decade as the census updates, has created a new battleground between the Democrats and Republican-led states.

    President Donald Trump first prompted Republican district representatives in the GOP stronghold of Texas to redraw congressional lines to give the party an advantage in the upcoming elections.

    What followed was a two-week standoff in which Democratic Texas House representatives fled the state to stall the vote.

    Texas’ new congressional maps were eventually passed in an 88-52 vote, creating five new Republican-leaning seats.

    California’s Democratic leaders Thursday moved forward with an effort to change the congressional district maps.

    California currently has 52 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives; 43 of these seats went to the Democrats, while nine went to the Republicans in the 2024 election.

    The five California Republicans targeted by the redistricting plan include Reps. Doug LaMalfa in District 1, Kevin Kiley in District 3, David Valadao in District 22, Ken Calvert in District 41 and Darrell Issa in District 48.

    Each of these five districts is shown in the maps below. See if you can guess how these districts will be redrawn by trying our puzzle game below.

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  • Texas Senate set to vote on GOP redistricting plan that sparked weeks-long House standoff

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    The Texas Senate began its session Friday morning debating a controversial GOP redistricting bill that triggered a weeks-long House standoff.

    The Republican-backed proposal, which passed the House in an 88-52 party-line vote on Wednesday, aims to redraw the state’s congressional map and produce five new GOP-leaning districts.

    The Texas Senate Committee on Redistricting advanced the bill Thursday with a vote along party lines.

    It’s unclear whether the Democrats in the Texas Senate will try to delay the vote by breaking quorum themselves. When a similar redistricting bill passed the Senate during the first special session, all but two Democrats walked out of the chamber in protest. If all 11 Democrats are absent, Republicans would be one senator shy of a quorum.

    Once approved by the Republican majority in the full Senate, the bill will head to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk for his signature. 

    Democrats have vowed to challenge the legality of the new map in court, arguing it undermines fair representation and dilutes minority voting power.

    California launches counter-redistricting plan

    The Texas redistricting plan has sparked a nationwide fight over political boundaries.

    Earlier this year, President Trump asked Abbott to call a special session so lawmakers could create additional Republican districts, the New York Times reported. The unusual mid-decade redistricting was meant to help the GOP retain its narrow majority in the House of Representatives after the 2026 midterm elections. 

    The president’s party almost always loses seats in Congress in the midterms, according to historical data. Democrats gained 41 House seats and the majority in 2018, Mr. Trump’s first term, and Republicans picked up 9 seats to claim the majority in 2022, during President Biden’s term.

    Texas House Democrats fled the state for two weeks do deny a mandatory quorum in the House, killing the the first special session and visiting blue states to drum up support. They returned earlier this week, allowing the votes to proceed.

    During that time, California Gov. Gavin Newsom joined the fight, introducing a new congressional map to flip five of California’s seats from Republican to Democratic. Voters will need to approve the plan in a special election called for the fall.

    Newsom said the move was necessary to “fight fire with fire” and prevent what he called a Trump-backed attempt to rig the 2026 midterm elections.

    Steven Rosenbaum

    Steven Rosenbaum is a digital producer for CBS Texas. A versatile journalist, Steven writes, edits and produces content for the CBS Texas digital platforms.

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  • CA redistricting special election approved; Proposed congressional maps no longer hinge on Texas

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    It’s official. California voters this fall will be asked to approve Democratic-drawn congressional maps, after the Legislature approved a bill Thursday calling for a special election in the fall. Earlier Thursday, California’s Democratic leaders moved forward with an effort to change the congressional district maps so that they heavily favor Democrats, regardless of what Texas or other Republican states do. (Video below: Gov. Newsom, Democratic lawmakers answer questions about the redistricting special election.)The effort that was promoted by California Democrats as a way to counteract efforts in Texas to send more Republicans to Congress will no longer rely on the action in the Lone Star state or others that allegedly spurred redistricting efforts, according to legislative documents KCRA 3 obtained Thursday. Democratic state lawmakers in the California Assembly made changes to the legislation known as ACA 8 on Thursday morning, minutes before they began debating and voting on the proposed ballot measure that would present the new maps to voters in a special statewide election this fall.(Video below: Gov. Newsom speaks with legislative leaders at a bill signing.)The changes clarifying that the maps do not rely on Texas or other states were put in a separate bill that lawmakers are prepared to approve on Monday. Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democratic leaders have repeatedly insisted that California would have no need to enact new Congressional maps if Texas and other GOP states cease redistricting efforts. It has been part of a bitter fight between states over which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives halfway through President Donald Trump’s term.But now the legislation, known as the Election Rigging Response Act in California, has all references to any red state’s redistricting efforts stricken out of the language. That special election would ask voters to allow the new, politically drawn maps heavily favoring Democrats to take effect 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections. It could be a legal gamble in the state, where voters in 2008 and 2010 took the power away from politicians to draw Congressional districts and gave it to an independent, citizens-led redistricting commission. (VIDEO BELOW: How did we get here?)The change comes a day after the Texas House approved new Congressional maps that attempt to remove five Democrats from its representation and replace them with Republicans. The maps are now halfway through that state’s process. The Republican-controlled state Senate was scheduled to vote on a map Thursday night. “Yesterday, Texas moved forward with their Trump power grab so this notion of “conditioning” is no longer applicable — it is self-evident that California will need to move forward in response to what Texas has done,” Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said in a statement.The governor’s office noted California’s change is also meant to simplify the question that is presented to voters this fall. Republican states will no longer be mentioned in the ballot measure, which will ask voters to simultaneously approve the new politically drawn congressional maps and support independent redistricting nationwide. The act of redrawing district lines to specifically favor a political party is known as gerrymandering, a once taboo practice to openly admit to that is now being boasted by both Democrats and Republicans.California Democrats began publicly advocating for redistricting after President Donald Trump called on Texas to send five additional Republicans to the U.S. House of Representatives. Trump made the request because midterm elections could typically lead to shifts in power.California lawmakers approved legislation Thursday that will establish the Nov. 4 special election. The Assembly approved ACA 8 with 57 ayes and 20 nos, with Democrat Alex Lee abstaining from the vote. Democrat Dawn Addis was absent on Thursday.The state Senate then voted to approve ACA 8 on a 30-8 vote. The ballot measure is expected to be known as Proposition 50. The cost of a special election is not yet public, but it is expected to cost at least $200 million, which is around what it cost for the 2021 election that attempted to recall Newsom from office. Newsom signed two pieces of legislation later Thursday that outline the logistics for the special election and provide resources and money for it. See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. —

    It’s official.

    California voters this fall will be asked to approve Democratic-drawn congressional maps, after the Legislature approved a bill Thursday calling for a special election in the fall.

    Earlier Thursday, California’s Democratic leaders moved forward with an effort to change the congressional district maps so that they heavily favor Democrats, regardless of what Texas or other Republican states do.

    (Video below: Gov. Newsom, Democratic lawmakers answer questions about the redistricting special election.)

    This content is imported from YouTube.
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    This content is imported from Twitter.
    You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

    The effort that was promoted by California Democrats as a way to counteract efforts in Texas to send more Republicans to Congress will no longer rely on the action in the Lone Star state or others that allegedly spurred redistricting efforts, according to legislative documents KCRA 3 obtained Thursday.

    Democratic state lawmakers in the California Assembly made changes to the legislation known as ACA 8 on Thursday morning, minutes before they began debating and voting on the proposed ballot measure that would present the new maps to voters in a special statewide election this fall.

    (Video below: Gov. Newsom speaks with legislative leaders at a bill signing.)

    This content is imported from YouTube.
    You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

    The changes clarifying that the maps do not rely on Texas or other states were put in a separate bill that lawmakers are prepared to approve on Monday.

    This content is imported from Twitter.
    You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democratic leaders have repeatedly insisted that California would have no need to enact new Congressional maps if Texas and other GOP states cease redistricting efforts. It has been part of a bitter fight between states over which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives halfway through President Donald Trump’s term.

    But now the legislation, known as the Election Rigging Response Act in California, has all references to any red state’s redistricting efforts stricken out of the language.

    That special election would ask voters to allow the new, politically drawn maps heavily favoring Democrats to take effect 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections. It could be a legal gamble in the state, where voters in 2008 and 2010 took the power away from politicians to draw Congressional districts and gave it to an independent, citizens-led redistricting commission.

    (VIDEO BELOW: How did we get here?)

    The change comes a day after the Texas House approved new Congressional maps that attempt to remove five Democrats from its representation and replace them with Republicans. The maps are now halfway through that state’s process. The Republican-controlled state Senate was scheduled to vote on a map Thursday night.

    “Yesterday, Texas moved forward with their Trump power grab so this notion of “conditioning” is no longer applicable — it is self-evident that California will need to move forward in response to what Texas has done,” Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said in a statement.

    The governor’s office noted California’s change is also meant to simplify the question that is presented to voters this fall. Republican states will no longer be mentioned in the ballot measure, which will ask voters to simultaneously approve the new politically drawn congressional maps and support independent redistricting nationwide.

    The act of redrawing district lines to specifically favor a political party is known as gerrymandering, a once taboo practice to openly admit to that is now being boasted by both Democrats and Republicans.

    California Democrats began publicly advocating for redistricting after President Donald Trump called on Texas to send five additional Republicans to the U.S. House of Representatives. Trump made the request because midterm elections could typically lead to shifts in power.

    California lawmakers approved legislation Thursday that will establish the Nov. 4 special election.

    The Assembly approved ACA 8 with 57 ayes and 20 nos, with Democrat Alex Lee abstaining from the vote. Democrat Dawn Addis was absent on Thursday.

    The state Senate then voted to approve ACA 8 on a 30-8 vote.

    This content is imported from Twitter.
    You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

    The ballot measure is expected to be known as Proposition 50.

    The cost of a special election is not yet public, but it is expected to cost at least $200 million, which is around what it cost for the 2021 election that attempted to recall Newsom from office.

    Newsom signed two pieces of legislation later Thursday that outline the logistics for the special election and provide resources and money for it.

    See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

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  • Republicans voted against independent redistricting in 2021

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    California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom seeks to counter Texas Republicans’ congressional redistricting efforts by temporarily abandoning the Golden State’s nonpartisan congressional district-drawing process in favor of maps that would increase Democratic representation.

    On Aug. 20, the Texas House passed a new congressional map that would give Republicans five more seats; it was expected to pass the Senate and go to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk within days. Californians will vote Nov. 4 whether to sign off on Newsom’s plan, a proposal that could add five new Democratic congressional seats in time for the 2026 midterm elections.

    Although Newsom’s actions have drawn both pushback and support, the governor told left-leaning political podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen that Democrats stand by nonpartisan redistricting processes.  

    “We’re also announcing as a consequence of this effort, a commitment to national independent redistricting,” Newsom said during Cohen’s Aug. 17 podcast episode. “That’s on the ballot as well. We believe it’s the right thing to do. In fact, the Democratic Party believes it’s the right thing to do. Democrats have voted for national independent redistricting. Republicans have not.”

    States dictate their own processes for drawing electoral districts, which often falls to state legislatures. In some states, independent commissions perform the job — an effort to make the political map drawing process less partisan. 

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    But we wondered about Newsom’s statement that Republicans categorically “have not” supported independent redistricting. Newsom spokesperson Brandon Richards told us Newsom referred to H.R. 1, a 2021 congressional measure also known as the “For the People Act” that sought to require that all states establish independent redistricting commissions.

    It passed the House with all Democrats but one supporting it, and all Republicans voting against it, with two absences. It did not advance in the Senate. 

    But that single bill does not tell the full story of Republicans’ voting history on independent redistricting.

    Republicans opposed other parts of H.R. 1

    The 884-page For the People Act would have required that each state have a nonpartisan state agency to appoint two Republicans, two Democrats and two  from neither party to a commission that would decide how congressional district lines are drawn. It would have banned drawing a map with “the intent or the effect of unduly favoring or disfavoring any political party,” a practice commonly known as gerrymandering.

    The bill included many other proposals addressing voter access, election integrity and security, campaign finance and ethics. It also would have required:

    • Additional disclosures of campaign-related fundraising and spending.

    • Adopting voting by paper ballots, early and no-excuse mail voting.

    • Expanding voter registration options, such as online, same-day and automatic voter registration.

    PolitiFact previously fact-checked around 20 claims about the bill, with some from Republican lawmakers. 

    In some cases, state Republicans supported independent redistricting commissions

    Newsom specified a congressional vote on national redistricting, but we found at least four states where Republicans joined Democratic state lawmakers in efforts to establish nonpartisan redistricting commissions.

    Independent commissions control redistricting in California and seven other states — Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, Montana, New York and Washington, according to the website All About Redistricting, managed by University of Colorado law professor Doug Spencer.

    Three states — Hawaii, New Jersey and Virginia — assign redistricting to commissions that include elected officials or their appointees. Redistricting in the majority of the rest of the states is controlled by state legislatures. Some states have commissions that serve in advisory or backup roles.

    Eight of the states with congressional redistricting commissions established them through ballot measures initiated by state legislature votes, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures and Ballotpedia. Colorado (2018), Hawaii (1992), Idaho (1994), Montana (1984), New York (2015), New Jersey (1966), Virginia (2020), Washington (1983) did so through legislative referral. The three others created them through citizens’ initiatives.

    “At the state level, Democrats have been vocal proponents of independent commissions while Republicans have generally opposed them,” David Niven, University of Cincinnati American politics professor, said. 

    In Arizona, for example, Republicans opposed Proposition 106 in 2000, which established the state’s independent redistricting commission. They said the power to draw districts will be given to “unelected, unaccountable lawyers.”

    But we found  exceptions. Independent commissions in Idaho and New York were created with bipartisan support. 

    In 2018, Niven said, Democratic and Republican legislators in Colorado sponsored the measure to get the question on the ballot.

    And PolitiFact previously fact-checked Illinois’ Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker when he said Illinois Republicans “didn’t do anything” to establish an independent commission. We rated that Mostly False after finding that Republican lawmakers in the General Assembly filed two proposals in 2021 for creating an independent redistricting commission. 

    Our ruling

    Newsom said, “Democrats have voted for national independent redistricting. Republicans have not.” 

    In 2021, all but two absent Republican lawmakers voted against H.R. 1, which would have required all states to establish independent redistricting commissions. But the redistricting provisions were one part of the 884-page bill, and Republicans said they opposed it for various reasons, not just because of the redistricting provision.

    State Republicans have at times supported measures to give independent commissions the duty to draw state-level congressional districts. We found examples in Colorado, Idaho, Illinois and New York.

    Newsom’s statement was about national redistricting, and it needs more clarification and context. We rate it Mostly True.

    CORRECTION, Aug. 22, 2025: This story has been updated to note that two Republicans were absent from the 2021 vote on H.R. 1 and that the measure called for a two non-Republican or non-Democrat representatives to serve on nonpartisan state redistricting agencies in each state. The Senate held a procedural vote on the bill, but it didn’t advance. 

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  • California lawmakers voting on Newsom-backed redistricting plan today — after Texas GOP advances new maps

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    California’s contentious new congressional maps, championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, easily advanced in the state Assembly on Thursday, setting up for final passage in the Senate before landing on Newsom’s desk. 

    The new map would shift five of California’s Republican U.S. House seats to be more favorable to Democrats in the 2026 midterm elections. 

    The measure passed the Assembly on Thursday with 57 legislators voting in favor and 20 against, and now heads to the state Senate. If the measure is successful, Californians would then vote on a constitutional amendment for the new boundaries during a special election on Nov. 4.

    That election is likely to be expensive and unpredictable given how quickly the effort has come together and how little time there is between the legislature’s actions and voters starting to have their say. 

    California’s legislative votes are happening just one day after Texas state representatives passed a GOP-backed congressional map on Wednesday at the request of President Trump, following a weekslong standoff in which Democratic lawmakers left Texas to delay a vote. These new Texas maps could help secure five additional GOP-leaning seats during the upcoming midterm elections. Republicans in the state have been adamant the Texas changes are fair, while Texas Democrats have already signaled the maps will be challenged in court. 

    Shortly after the Texas House passed the maps, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom posted “It’s on” on social media. When Texas first launched its redistricting effort, Newsom had vowed to redraw the Golden State’s congressional districts to counter the Lone Star State’s plan and neutralize any potential GOP gains. 

    Newsom — who is widely seen as a possible 2028 presidential contender — sarcastically congratulated Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott on X, saying, “you will now go down in history as one of Donald Trump’s most loyal lapdogs. Shredding our nation’s founding principles. What a legacy.”

    Although California Republicans have denounced the redistricting plan as a “tit-for-tat strategy,” the state’s Democrats on Thursday touted that the effort is different from Texas since it will be ultimately approved by the state’s voters.

    “In California, we will do whatever it takes to ensure that voters, not Donald Trump, will decide the direction of this country,” said Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas. “This is a proud moment in the history of this assembly. Californians, we believe in freedom. We will not let our political system be hijacked by authoritarianism, and today, we give every Californian the power to say no. To say no to Donald Trump’s power grab and yes to our people, to our state and to our democracy.”

    Although Newsom and California Democrats had previously insisted redistricting would only move forward if GOP-led states such as Texas, Florida, Indiana or others continued with their maps, that language was struck from Thursday’s measure shortly before the Assembly voted on it.

    President Trump late Wednesday congratulated Texas Republicans for advancing the new maps, writing on social media that “Everything Passed, on our way to FIVE more Congressional seats and saving your Rights, your Freedoms, and your Country, itself.” He also encouraged GOP-led Indiana and Florida to take on redistricting. 

    The relatively rare mid-decade redistricting gambit comes as both parties prepare to face off in 2026 and has major implications nationwide. Republicans have a narrow majority at the moment, and Democrats winning back three seats in the 2026 midterms could be enough to flip control of the chamber if the lines used in the 2024 election were still in place. Redistricting in red states could change that dynamic significantly however, and with it the impact of the final two years on Mr. Trump’s second term in office. 

    Texas and California are the two biggest redistricting battlegrounds, but Mr. Trump has pushed similar efforts in GOP-led Indiana and Florida, and New York Democrats have floated redrawing their House map. The Republican-led state of Missouri could also try and redraw a Democratic district in the coming weeks, and new maps are also expected in Ohio, where a redraw brought about by state law could impact some of the red state’s Democratic members of Congress. 

    Earlier this week, former President Barack Obama acknowledged that he was not a fan of partisan gerrymandering but he backed Newsom’s redistricting plan anyway at a fundraiser in Martha’s Vineyard and on social media, calling it a “smart, measured approach.”

    Less than 24 hours before  California’s scheduled vote, Newsom joined a press call with Democratic party leaders, urging support for his state’s redistricting effort. 

    “This is about taking back our country,” Newsom told reporters. “This is about the Democratic Party now punching back forcefully and very intentionally.

    A draft congressional map unveiled by California Democrats late last week would heavily impact five of the state’s nine Republican U.S. House members. It would redraw Reps. Doug LaMalfa and Kevin Kiley’s Northern California districts, tweak Rep. David Valadao’s district in the Central Valley and rearrange parts of densely populated Southern California, impacting Reps. Ken Calvert and Darrell Issa. And some more competitive Democrat-held districts could be tilted further from the GOP.

    There’s no guarantee that Democrats will win in all five newly recast districts.

    Democrats hold large majorities in both chambers of California’s state legislature. But some legal hurdles still lie ahead, and Republicans in the state have pushed back against the redistricting plans.

    Unlike Texas, California has an independent redistricting commission that was created by voters earlier this century. To overhaul the current congressional map, a constitutional amendment would need to be passed by a two-thirds vote in California’s Assembly and Senate and be approved by voters in the fast-moving fall election. 

    On Wednesday, the California Supreme Court denied a GOP attempt to stop the mid-cycle redistricting. California Republicans had legally challenged Democrats’ efforts, claiming the state’s constitution gives Californians the right to review new legislation for 30 days. But Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero said they “failed to meet their burden of establishing a basis for relief at this time.”

    The GOP legislators who filed the legal challenge told CBS News the ruling is “not the end of this fight,” vowing to keep fighting the redistricting plan in the courts.

    In a phone interview with CBS News on Wednesday, California Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones, a Republican, condemned Newsom’s redistricting efforts. 

    “This whole process is illegal from the beginning and violates the current California Constitution,” Jones said. “The voters spoke with a loud voice in 2008 and 2010 that they were taking this process out of the politicians’ hands and putting the responsibility into an independent commission.” 

    Democrats faced a flurry of questions from Republican lawmakers during hearings this week on the alleged lack of transparency in the drafting of these maps and the financial implications of the Nov. 4 special election. 

    “If we’re talking about the cost of a special election versus the cost of our democracy or the cost that Californians are already paying to subsidize this corrupt administration, those costs seem well worth paying at this moment,” said Democratic state Assemblyman Isaac G. Bryan. 

    Democratic lawmakers and Newsom have repeatedly emphasized that these redistricting efforts would not get rid of the independent commission and that the new maps he’s hoping to put in place will be the lines used through the 2030 election. The commission would go back to drawing the state’s congressional maps after the 2030 census, according to Newsom, who says this is only being done as a response to Mr. Trump and Texas’ redistricting. 

    That notion was rejected by Jones, who said: “Growing up, I was taught two wrongs don’t make a right, so no, it is not justified.” 

    Anne Bryson

    contributed to this report.

    Nidia Cavazos

    Nidia Cavazos is a 2024 campaign reporter for CBS News.

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  • California to take on Newsom-backed redistricting plan today

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    California’s contentious new congressional maps, championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, easily advanced in the state Assembly on Thursday, setting up for final passage in the Senate before landing on Newsom’s desk.

    The new map would shift five of California’s Republican U.S. House seats to be more favorable to Democrats in the 2026 midterm elections.

    The measure passed the Assembly on Thursday with 57 legislators voting in favor and 20 against, and now heads to the state Senate. If the measure is successful, Californians would then vote on a constitutional amendment for the new boundaries during a special election on Nov. 4.

    That election is likely to be expensive and unpredictable given how quickly the effort has come together and how little time there is between the legislature’s actions and voters starting to have their say.

    California’s legislative votes are happening just one day after Texas state representatives passed a GOP-backed congressional map on Wednesday at the request of President Trump, following a weekslong standoff in which Democratic lawmakers left Texas to delay a vote. These new Texas maps could help secure five additional GOP-leaning seats during the upcoming midterm elections. Republicans in the state have been adamant the Texas changes are fair, while Texas Democrats have already signaled the maps will be challenged in court.

    Shortly after the Texas House passed the maps, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom posted “It’s on” on social media. When Texas first launched its redistricting effort, Newsom had vowed to redraw the Golden State’s congressional districts to counter the Lone Star State’s plan and neutralize any potential GOP gains.

    Newsom — who is widely seen as a possible 2028 presidential contender — sarcastically congratulated Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott on X, saying, “you will now go down in history as one of Donald Trump’s most loyal lapdogs. Shredding our nation’s founding principles. What a legacy.”

    Although California Republicans have denounced the redistricting plan as a “tit-for-tat strategy,” the state’s Democrats on Thursday touted that the effort is different from Texas since it will be ultimately approved by the state’s voters.

    “In California, we will do whatever it takes to ensure that voters, not Donald Trump, will decide the direction of this country,” said Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas. “This is a proud moment in the history of this assembly. Californians, we believe in freedom. We will not let our political system be hijacked by authoritarianism, and today, we give every Californian the power to say no. To say no to Donald Trump’s power grab and yes to our people, to our state and to our democracy.”

    Although Newsom and California Democrats had previously insisted redistricting would only move forward if GOP-led states such as Texas, Florida, Indiana or others continued with their maps, that language was struck from Thursday’s measure shortly before the Assembly voted on it.

    President Trump late Wednesday congratulated Texas Republicans for advancing the new maps, writing on social media that “Everything Passed, on our way to FIVE more Congressional seats and saving your Rights, your Freedoms, and your Country, itself.” He also encouraged GOP-led Indiana and Florida to take on redistricting.

    The relatively rare mid-decade redistricting gambit comes as both parties prepare to face off in 2026 and has major implications nationwide. Republicans have a narrow majority at the moment, and Democrats winning back three seats in the 2026 midterms could be enough to flip control of the chamber if the lines used in the 2024 election were still in place. Redistricting in red states could change that dynamic significantly however, and with it the impact of the final two years on Mr. Trump’s second term in office.

    Texas and California are the two biggest redistricting battlegrounds, but Mr. Trump has pushed similar efforts in GOP-led Indiana and Florida, and New York Democrats have floated redrawing their House map. The Republican-led state of Missouri could also try and redraw a Democratic district in the coming weeks, and new maps are also expected in Ohio, where a redraw brought about by state law could impact some of the red state’s Democratic members of Congress.

    Earlier this week, former President Barack Obama acknowledged that he was not a fan of partisan gerrymandering but he backed Newsom’s redistricting plan anyway at a fundraiser in Martha’s Vineyard and on social media, calling it a “smart, measured approach.”

    Less than 24 hours before  California’s scheduled vote, Newsom joined a press call with Democratic party leaders, urging support for his state’s redistricting effort.

    “This is about taking back our country,” Newsom told reporters. “This is about the Democratic Party now punching back forcefully and very intentionally.

    A draft congressional map unveiled by California Democrats late last week would heavily impact five of the state’s nine Republican U.S. House members. It would redraw Reps. Doug LaMalfa and Kevin Kiley’s Northern California districts, tweak Rep. David Valadao’s district in the Central Valley and rearrange parts of densely populated Southern California, impacting Reps. Ken Calvert and Darrell Issa. And some more competitive Democrat-held districts could be tilted further from the GOP.

    There’s no guarantee that Democrats will win in all five newly recast districts.

    Democrats hold large majorities in both chambers of California’s state legislature. But some legal hurdles still lie ahead, and Republicans in the state have pushed back against the redistricting plans.

    Unlike Texas, California has an independent redistricting commission that was created by voters earlier this century. To overhaul the current congressional map, a constitutional amendment would need to be passed by a two-thirds vote in California’s Assembly and Senate and be approved by voters in the fast-moving fall election.

    On Wednesday, the California Supreme Court denied a GOP attempt to stop the mid-cycle redistricting. California Republicans had legally challenged Democrats’ efforts, claiming the state’s constitution gives Californians the right to review new legislation for 30 days. But Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero said they “failed to meet their burden of establishing a basis for relief at this time.”

    The GOP legislators who filed the legal challenge told CBS News the ruling is “not the end of this fight,” vowing to keep fighting the redistricting plan in the courts.

    In a phone interview with CBS News on Wednesday, California Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones, a Republican, condemned Newsom’s redistricting efforts.

    “This whole process is illegal from the beginning and violates the current California Constitution,” Jones said. “The voters spoke with a loud voice in 2008 and 2010 that they were taking this process out of the politicians’ hands and putting the responsibility into an independent commission.”

    Democrats faced a flurry of questions from Republican lawmakers during hearings this week on the alleged lack of transparency in the drafting of these maps and the financial implications of the Nov. 4 special election.

    “If we’re talking about the cost of a special election versus the cost of our democracy or the cost that Californians are already paying to subsidize this corrupt administration, those costs seem well worth paying at this moment,” said Democratic state Assemblyman Isaac G. Bryan.

    Democratic lawmakers and Newsom have repeatedly emphasized that these redistricting efforts would not get rid of the independent commission and that the new maps he’s hoping to put in place will be the lines used through the 2030 election. The commission would go back to drawing the state’s congressional maps after the 2030 census, according to Newsom, who says this is only being done as a response to Mr. Trump and Texas’ redistricting.

    That notion was rejected by Jones, who said: “Growing up, I was taught two wrongs don’t make a right, so no, it is not justified.”

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  • Texas House Passes Congressional Redistricting Bill After Absconding Dems Return

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    After House Democrats absconded for more than two weeks in opposition to a Congressional redistricting bill, the Texas House on Wednesday passed the bill by a vote of 88-52.

    It was passed after roughly eight hours of debate during which the majority of Democrats called Republicans racist.

    State Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, filed HB 4, the redistricting bill, which was added to the call for the first and second legislative special sessions. He also authored the redistricting bill the legislature passed in 2021 that remains in litigation.

    “I’ve heard a lot of comments, and I will tell you I don’t take them personally,” Hunter said. “These are tough issues. I feel like sometimes that I’m a pinata with no candy, just being hit. But I respect all of you.” Speaking to Democrats who fled the state, he said, “you left for 17 to 19 days and most of the comments I’ve heard could have been handled, discussed or mutually resolved in this House within that time. You chose to leave … that’s your choice. We chose to stay. That was our choice.”

    State Rep. Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth, like her colleagues, said the redistricting plan was racist. Collier on Monday refused to comply with House rules she voted for, not leaving the chamber, The Center Square reported. On Wednesday, she asked Hunter if he was aware that during the time of slavery, Blacks fled, or that during Nazi rule, Jews fled. “They fled their oppressor,” she said, accusing House Republicans of being oppressors, saying they “don’t reflect the diversity of Texas.”

    She also complained that House Democrats weren’t involved in the redistricting process, to which Hunter replied they were gone for 17 days and chose not to be a part of the process.

    “When you are oppressed, you flee the oppressors,” she said.

    In response, state Rep. Katrina Pierson, R-Rockwall, said, “Chairman Hunter may not have taken the personal attacks and disrespect personally, but I did. The opposition gets to stand here and grandstand and say pretty much anything that they want, and we’re expected to stand here and just take it.

    “You call my voters racist. You call my party racist, but yet we’re expected to follow the rules. Well, that double standard ends today.”

    “More minority voters are voting their values, not their skin color,” she continued. “Many of them are moving to Texas to escape blue states because their values have been successfully gerrymandered into suppression. I’ve heard the accusations that this mid-decade redistricting is going to silence voters, and that it misrepresents the population of Texas. The facts don’t match the rhetoric.”

    She said that under current congressional maps, Texas has zero Black CVAP (citizen voting age population) districts. Under the new map, there are two. She also replied to Collier’s claim, saying that Blacks fled during slavery to Republican states.

    “I have heard repeatedly that these maps are gerrymandered, but that doesn’t fit the narrative either. That’s just spin because in many parts of the state, the map eliminates gerrymandering; they emphasize compactness in whole counties and whole cities. Political performance isn’t just legal, it is fair. It reflects the voters of the state of Texas,” she said.

    She also pointed out that President Donald Trump won Hispanic voters in Texas in the last election. “President Trump flipped 11 out of 18 counties on the Texas-Mexico border. He doubled his support from 2020. Political performance is the driver” behind the redistricting. “You lost,” she told Democrats. “Get over it.”

    After the vote, House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, thanked members who carried the bill, also saying the new map is constitutional and legal.

    “These past few weeks have not been easy, but the House members who showed up for work every day have shown a dedication to their constituents that will not be forgotten,” he said. 

    Syndicated with permission from The Center Square.

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    Bethany Blankley – The Center Square

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  • Q&A: Can Trump hold a census in the middle of a decade and exclude immigrants in the US illegally?

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    President Donald Trump on Thursday instructed the Commerce Department to have the Census Bureau start work on a new census that would exclude immigrants who are in the United States illegally from the head count which determines political power and federal spending.

    The census will be based on “modern day facts and figures and, importantly, using the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024,” the Republican president said on his social media platform.

    Experts said it was unclear what exactly Trump was calling for, whether it was changes to the 2030 census or a mid-decade census, and, if so, whether it would be used for a mid-decade apportionment, which is the process of divvying up congressional seats among the states based on the population count.

    Here’s some answers to questions Thursday’s post raises:

    Can Trump do this?

    It would be extremely difficult to conduct a mid-decade census, if not impossible, according to experts.

    Any changes in conducting a U.S. census would require alterations to the Census Act and approval from Congress, which has oversight responsibilities, and there likely would be a fierce fight.

    The federal law governing the census permits a mid-decade head count for things like distributing federal funding, but it can’t be used for apportionment or redistricting and must be done in a year ending in 5. Additionally, the 14th Amendment says that “the whole number of persons in each state” are to be counted for the numbers used for apportionment, and the Census Bureau has interpreted that to mean anybody residing in the United States regardless of legal status. Federal courts have repeatedly supported that interpretation, though the Supreme Court has blocked recent efforts to change that on procedural rather than legal grounds.

    “He cannot unilaterally order a new census. The census is governed by law, not to mention the Constitution,” said Terri Ann Lowenthal, a former congressional staffer who consults on census issues.

    Then there is the question of logistics. The once-a-decade census is the biggest non-military undertaking by the federal government, utilizing a temporary workforce of hundreds of thousands of census takers. It can take as much as 10 years of planning.

    “This isn’t something that you can do overnight,” said New York Law professor Jeffrey Wice, a census and redistricting expert. “To get all the pieces put together, it would be such a tremendous challenge, if not impossible.”

    Has this ever been done before?

    A mid-decade census has never been conducted before.

    In the 1970s, there was interest in developing data from the middle of the decade for more accurate and continuous information about American life, and a mid-decade census was considered. But the funding from Congress never came through, said Margo Anderson, a professor emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who has written extensively on the history of the census.

    Decades later, those wishes for continuous data would develop into the American Community Survey, the annual survey of American life based on responses from 3.5 million households.

    In his first term, President Donald Trump, a Republican, unsuccessfully tried to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census form and signed orders which would have excluded people in the U.S. illegally from the apportionment figures and mandate the collection of citizenship data through administrative records.

    The attempt was blocked by the Supreme Court, and both orders were rescinded when Democratic President Joe Biden arrived at the White House in January 2021, before the 2020 census figures were released by Census Bureau.

    Any attempt at a repeat would guarantee legal challenges.

    “The census isn’t just a head count. It is meant to reflect America as it is – not as some would prefer it to be — and determines how critical resources are allocated,” ACLU Voting Rights project director Sophia Lin Lakin said in a statement. “Nobody should be erased from it. We won’t hesitate to go back to court to protect representation for all communities.”

    What is a census used for?

    Besides being used to divvy up congressional seats among the states and redraw political districts, the numbers derived from the once-a-decade census are used to guide the distribution of $2.8 trillion in annual government spending.

    The federal funding is distributed to state and local governments, nonprofits, businesses and households, paying for health care, education, school lunch programs, child care, food assistance programs and highway construction, among other things.

    Why is Trump doing this?

    A Republican redistricting expert had written that using citizen voting-age population instead of the total population for the purpose of redrawing congressional and legislative districts could be advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites.

    Critics believe the writings of Republican redistricting expert Tom Hofeller inspired the first Trump administration’s attempt at restricting the apportionment count and guided legislation introduced this year by Republican lawmakers to add a citizenship question to the 2030 census questionnaire. Trump has been open about his intent to increase the number of Republican seats in Congress and maintain the GOP majority in next year’s midterm elections.

    Even though redistricting typically occurs once every 10 years following the census, Trump is pressuring Republicans in Texas to redistrict again, claiming they are “entitled” to five additional Republican seats. Trump’s team is also engaged in similar redistricting discussions in other GOP-controlled states, including Missouri and Indiana.

    Some critics see the effort as part of Trump’s wider effort to control the federal statistical system, which has been considered the world’s gold standard.

    Last Friday, Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEntarfer, after standard revisions to the monthly jobs report showed that employers added 258,000 fewer jobs than previously reported in May and June. The revisions suggested that hiring has severely weakened under Trump, undermining his claims of an economic boom.

    “Trump is basically destroying the federal statistical system,” Anderson said. “He wants numbers that support his political accomplishments, such as he sees them.”

    ___

    Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social

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