Congress

The national make-or-break issue of the year’: Redistricting fight gets reset after Trump’s Supreme Court win

Published

8 months ago

December 5, 2025

INDIANAPOLIS — Republicans scored a major win in the redistricting fight when the Supreme Court reinstated Texas’ newly drawn congressional map on Thursday. But President Donald Trump and his allies are staring down a brewing rebellion in the Indiana Statehouse that could derail their momentum.

The high court decided in an apparent 6-3 vote to block a lower court ruling that deemed the Texas map a likely illegal race-based gerrymander. In doing so, the court’s conservative majority helped Republicans avert a nightmare scenario in which Trump’s redistricting push ultimately cost the party seats leading into the 2026 midterms.

The focus now shifts to Indianapolis, where the president’s allies are heaping pressure on GOP holdouts in the state Senate who are resisting Trump’s demands to draw new lines there that could net Republicans additional congressional seats.

In the state Capitol, as members of the state House debated final passage of a map supporters argue would all but guarantee an entirely Republican congressional delegation — from the current 7-2 split favoring the GOP — Turning Point USA held a sparsely attended rally to pressure Indiana Senate Republicans to do the same, over chants of “9-0.”

“This is now the national make-or-break issue of the year,” said Brett Galaszewski of Turning Point Action, adding that Indiana “is the center of the political universe.” Gov. Mike Braun and Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith both addressed the crowd as they faced cheers, boos and shouts of “cheaters” from counterprotesters.

Earlier Friday, Turning Point Action announced that it, along with Trump-aligned super PACs, would spend in excess of eight figures to primary Indiana Republicans through 2028 if they opposed the new map. And Club for Growth President David McIntosh issued a “FINAL WARNING” to Indiana Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, writing, “failure to get this done means you and any other opposition will be defeated and removed from office in your next election.”

All of it was designed to amp up pressure on reluctant Indiana Senate Republicans, who are expected to convene Monday to consider the new map. It’s unclear whether pro-redistricting allies have flipped any senators since they stalemated 19-19last month on a vote that was a close proxy for gerrymandering. The map passed the state House easily on Friday.

The fight over the new lines across the country is expected to carry into the new year.

For now, Republicans have an edge across the six states that have seen a redraw. The GOP has nine more favorable seats across four states — Texas, Ohio, Missouri and North Carolina — while Democrats have five more blue-leaning seats in California, and an additional court-ordered likely pickup in Utah.

The fight over the new lines across the country is expected to carry into the new year. Privately, Democrats were not shocked by the Texas ruling, long assuming the conservative Supreme Court was going to allow the Texas map to stand. With the Texas maps in place, Democrats involved in the nationwide battle anticipate they’ll ultimately start the midterm cycle down a handful of seats, but the exact number isn’t clear.

Republicans see another key pickup opportunity in Florida, where party redistricting proponents think they could extract another three to five seats ahead of the midterm elections.

But while the state Legislature officially kicked off the mid-decade battle in the state on Thursday, Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida House lawmaker in charge of redistricting are at odds over how quickly to do it. And the state’s prospective redraw faces another roadblock: Florida’s anti-gerrymandering standards, which hold that a new district cannot be drawn for partisan gain.

Democrats, meanwhile, are homing in on Virginia. Five of the state’s 11 House seats are held by Republicans, who were trounced in a November election that bestowed on Virginia a Democratic governor, attorney general and a big Statehouse majority. Democrats there already kicked off a surprise redraw process right before the election. Now, Virginia House of Delegates Speaker Don Scott is teasing a major redraw early next year.

“10-1 is not out of the realm to be able to draw the maps in a succinct and community-based way,” he said this week. “We’re gonna take a look at it. We have to.”

In Missouri, Democrats are looking to challenge a map the GOP-controlled Legislature passed in September, leaving the state with just one blue district. They face a Thursday deadline to submit over 100,000 signatures that could trigger a referendum and temporarily block the new lines from being implemented, along with a complicated web of legal battles around the referendum process.

The Department of Justice, meanwhile, is going ahead with its lawsuit to challenge California’s new congressional map, even after Attorney General Pam Bondi celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision to greenlight Texas’ newly gerrymandered House map.

But the high court’s blessing of Texas’ Republican-friendly redrawn map came with a few Easter eggs that suggested how some of the other percolating redistricting battles are likely to play out. Most notably, three of the court’s conservative justices — Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch — concluded that California’s redrawn districts were “indisputably” crafted for partisan advantage.

It’s unclear precisely how the justices’ decision will influence the broader national clash over mid-decade redistricting for 2026. Had the justices struck down Texas’ map, it may have increased pressure on other GOP-led states like Indiana and Florida to redraw their own boundaries to help give the party a better chance at retaining the House. On the other hand, the ruling’s clear blessing of mid-decade redistricting for partisan gain could ensure that it becomes a routine weapon in the arsenal of political warfare.

But conservative justices’ signaling on California’s map bodes poorly for the Trump administration, with the DOJ and California Gov. Gavin Newsom trading barbs following the decision.

“So you gonna drop your lawsuit against us right, Pam?” Newsom’s office asked on X Thursday night.

“Not a chance, Gavin — we will stop your DEI districts for 2026,” the Justice Department wrote back.

Adam Wren reported from Indianapolis, and Gregory Svirnovskiy and Kyle Cheney reported from Washington. Andrew Howard contributed to this report.

Congress

Trump needles Cornyn as Blanche remains blocked

Published

3 hours ago

July 31, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump goaded John Cornyn on social media Friday morning, accusing the Texas senator of withholding his vote on Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination in retaliation for Trump’s central role in his political demise.

Cornyn, who lost his May primary to Texas’ scandal-ridden attorney general, the Trump-endorsed Ken Paxton, has threatened to block Blanche’s nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee until the White House promises to permanently shelve its $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” in writing — something Trump appears unwilling to do.

“John Cornyn never had a problem with the so called “Fund,” which will not benefit me, but rather the great American Patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed by the Crooked Joe Biden Administration, until after I decided to Endorse and Support his Republican Primary opponent in Texas, who easily won the Nomination for the United States Senate,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Several Republicans bristled at the fund, which could have been deployed to compensate Americans who faced charges after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and which gives the president and his family audit immunity over taxes. At his July confirmation hearing, Blanche said that the fund, part of a settlement the president reached with the IRS, was defunct. But the administration has been “reluctant to change” the text of the settlement, Cornyn told reporters Thursday.

Trump signaled his continued support for the Jan 6 rioters on Friday.

“I will always feel that these victims of government abuse should be paid back for what they were forced to endure, their lives have been ruined!” he wrote. “Millions of people agree with me, as was proven in my landslide Presidential win, where this was a major subject of debate, and so did John Cornyn, until he lost his Election to an opponent that I Endorsed.”

On Thursday, the president suggested that he could punt a Senate vote on Blanche until after Cornyn — and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) — leaves the chamber at the end of the year. Cornyn, however, suggested on social media that there are other Republican senators with concerns about the fund.

“After the midterms, who knows who’s going to be the next United States senator from North Carolina or Texas?” Cornyn told reporters.

Congress

Capitol agenda: The Senate’s fly-out agenda takes shape

Published

5 hours ago

July 31, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Republicans are prepping a jam-packed — if somewhat optimistic — agenda for their final week before summer recess.

Majority Leader John Thune wants to move stopgap funding through Dec. 11, bipartisan Russia sanctions legislation and a bloc of nominees — perhaps including attorney general pick Todd Blanche.

He’s also under pressure from President Donald Trump, administration officials and many of his GOP colleagues to adopt a budget resolution — the first step in unlocking another party-line spending bill.

Leaders are prioritizing the stopgap, though. Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) expects continuing resolution text to be unveiled later today, she told reporters Thursday, and an initial vote is expected Monday evening.

Still TBD: Collins wants to use the funding patch to block the Trump administration from putting political appointees in charge of approving grants — a demand Democratic senators are also making.

The decision is in Thune’s hands. He acknowledged a “handful of issues” are still under consideration with the CR, and said he’s “hoping both sides can come together and figure” them out.

As for the sanctions bill, leaders of both parties are still trying to work out a deal to fast-track the legislation amid concerns from some Democrats and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) that it gives Trump too much tariff power.

In addition to the nominees package, Thune also hasn’t ruled out an initial vote on the landmark cryptocurrency bill both parties have spent months negotiating or teeing up a bipartisan college sports overhaul now in final stages of talks.

But the big question is whether Republicans can take a major step toward another reconciliation bill by advancing a budget resolution.

Thune met Thursday with Budget Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who said he was “optimistic in terms of how things are kind of coming together.”

Republicans anticipate giving a number of Senate committees instructions for the bill, setting up a lengthy and politically painful process ahead of adoption despite pushes for urgency from the White House.

Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, was the latest official to head to Capitol Hill to try and light a fire under top Republicans. But GOP senators don’t necessarily see the urgency.

“The hard part is the president wants to be able to move fast, like an executive can move, and we’re a legislative branch,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.). “It doesn’t move that fast.”

What else we’re watching:

— BLANCHE TEETERING: Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general isn’t dead yet. But it’s certainly on life support. The acting AG met with Cornyn and Tillis Thursday at NRSC headquarters, and one person familiar with the discussion said the group was “working collaboratively now.” But it would now be difficult to confirm him before August recess under Senate rules.

— FARM BILL TEXT: Senate Agriculture Chair John Boozman said his farm bill legislative text — originally expected Thursday — could come Friday or Saturday. The bill, which is expected to include language allowing year-round E15 sales and a potential compromise on postponing GOP-led cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is set to be marked up Thursday.

Jordain Carney and Grace Yarrow contributed to this report.

Congress

Former MLB star Mark Teixeira to hit campaign trail with GOP leaders

Published

8 hours ago

July 31, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House GOP leaders are planning to bring former MLB star Mark Teixeira, one of their top candidate recruits this cycle, out on the trail in battleground districts over the summer recess sprint.

Majority Leader Steve Scalise will host a fundraiser with Teixeira in New York City on Aug. 20 with Speaker Mike Johnson as a special guest, according to three people with direct knowledge of the event, granted anonymity to discuss plans that have not yet been made public.

It’s part of a New York swing where Teixeira and Johnson will also hit nearby stops in GOP Rep. Mike Lawler’s 17th Congressional District and for Mike LiPetri, who is trying to unseat Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi in New York’s 3rd Congressional District.

Teixeira is running to replace GOP Rep. Chip Roy in Texas’ 21st Congressional District. He won a World Series title with the Yankees in 2009 and also played for the Texas Rangers, Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Angels before retiring from professional baseball in 2016 after 14 seasons.

Because Teixeira has little chance of losing in the deep-red seat, Republican leaders are hoping to harness his star power to boost their candidates in the most competitive races. They’re planning for Teixeira to help campaign in a wider swath of battleground districts in August and through November, including likely stops in Pennsylvania and Georgia.