{"id":12549,"date":"2025-08-23T18:02:50","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T18:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/redistricting-wars-poised-to-explode-as-california-and-texas-make-their-moves\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T18:02:50","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T18:02:50","slug":"redistricting-wars-poised-to-explode-as-california-and-texas-make-their-moves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/redistricting-wars-poised-to-explode-as-california-and-texas-make-their-moves\/","title":{"rendered":"Redistricting wars poised to \u2018explode\u2019 as California and Texas make their moves"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The redistricting war is officially on.<\/p>\n

After weeks of bluster from dueling governors and state lawmakers, California and Texas raced forward with parallel action this week to draw new congressional maps, setting into motion a national redistricting fight that could upend the midterms and determine control of the House.<\/p>\n

Texas Republicans on Saturday passed a new map<\/a> that will help the GOP flip as many as five House seats<\/a> \u2014 a partisan play at the hand of President Donald Trump. On Thursday, California Democratic lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom preemptively agreed to send a retaliatory ballot measure<\/a> to voters \u2014 the first step in potentially offsetting Texas\u2019 maneuver<\/a> by creating new Democratic-leaning seats.<\/p>\n

The nation\u2019s two largest states had fired the opening salvo in what is likely to become an intense and protracted redistricting campaign by both parties to grasp power in Washington. Now other red and blue state governors face pressure to follow their lead and aggressively gerrymander their congressional maps.<\/p>\n

Republicans hold a clear advantage in the arms race: The GOP is poised to move forward with redistricting in Florida, Ohio, Missouri and Indiana, which could yield at least half a dozen more seats. Democrats, meanwhile, have struggled to get gerrymandering efforts moving in blue states beyond California, though leaders in New York, Illinois and Maryland say they are weighing options.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, these other states need to step up,\u201d said Rep. Robert Garcia, a Democrat from Long Beach, Calif. \u201cI know it\u2019s hard, I know it\u2019s complicated \u2026 But, if you\u2019re a blue state governor, the time is now to step up and get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Democratic<\/p>\n

As the map battles continue, at stake is a national shift away from the norm of once-a-decade, Census-aligned redistricting and toward a more polarized landscape in which both parties redraw political maps at will to shift the balance of power. The escalation has major implications for Trump’s post-midterm agenda and the political prospects of several prominent Democrats, including Newsom and his likely presidential run in 2028.<\/p>\n

Democrats in the California Legislature framed their vote Thursday in that national context, casting it as a fight to save American democracy<\/a> from Trump\u2019s \u201celection rigging\u201d \u2014 even as they voted nearly unanimously to toss aside lines drawn by the state\u2019s independent commission and put forward a partisan map. The ends, they argued, justified the means.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want this fight and we didn’t choose this fight, but with our democracy on the line, we cannot and will not run away from this fight,\u201d said Assemblymember Marc Berman, a Democrat from Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n

The vote sets off a Nov. 4 special election for Californians, and both parties are gearing up for an all-out campaign sprint. Democrats estimate they will have to raise up to $100 million to mount an advertising blitz across the state\u2019s large and expensive media markets to convince voters, whom early polling shows are skeptical.<\/p>\n

Republicans, who have a thin minority in the California statehouse, unsuccessfully tried to derail the vote with a host of procedural maneuvers. They argued California Democrats betrayed voters’ trust by adopting a map drawn behind closed doors, sidestepping the state\u2019s voter-created redistricting commission. A GOP-backed legal attempt to thwart Democrats\u2019 map was also dismissed by the California Supreme Court on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, a Republican from San Diego, called the vote a \u201cpolitical stunt.\u201d When Democrats said he couldn’t use props during his floor speech, he retorted, \u201cThen, why have you become props to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s presidential campaign?\u201d<\/p>\n

Texas Democrats, a minority in their state House, have pulled their own stunts. House members prolonged passage of the map by leaving the state for two weeks in protest, denying Republicans the quorum needed to conduct official business. When they returned<\/a>, Rep. Nicole Collier refused to sign a permission slip ordered by GOP leadership allowing law enforcement to supervise her movements and instead staged a sit-in on the House floor.<\/p>\n

Unlike California Democrats\u2019 map, which requires voter approval to take effect, the Republicans in the Texas Legislature were able to approve their map without going to voters or mounting a statewide campaign. Both parties have vowed to fight the maps in court, disputes that could ultimately lead to the U.S. Supreme Court. A lawsuit in Texas was filed just hours after the map was approved by the legislature early Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fight is far from over,\u201d Texas Rep. Gene Wu, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said on the floor after the map passed the House on Wednesday. \u201cOur best shot is in the courts. This part of the fight is over, but it is merely the first chapter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Texas<\/p>\n

In Texas, Democrats argue the GOP\u2019s map illegally dilutes the voting power<\/a> of Hispanic and Black voters. In California, where the state\u2019s map preserves minority-opportunity districts, Republicans say the map illegally sidelines the state\u2019s independent redistricting commission.<\/p>\n

But in the redistricting wars, voting rights and other legal considerations are taking a backseat<\/a> to purely partisan interests.<\/p>\n

Efforts are underway to carve out more GOP seats in Indiana, Ohio, Missouri and Florida \u2014 and Trump\u2019s political operation is pressuring individual state lawmakers to act<\/a>. On Thursday, Trump declared on X<\/a> that Republicans in Missouri \u2014 where the GOP could pick up one more seat by splitting a district in Kansas City \u2014 are \u201cIN!\u201d to call a special session to redistrict.<\/p>\n

The legal hurdles for Democrats in other deep-blue states could prove more formidable, hampering their party\u2019s quest to retake the House in the 2026 midterms.<\/p>\n

In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to disband a quasi-independent commission in charge of drawing House map. But the panel, created by a voter-approved constitutional amendment, cannot be erased until 2027 at the earliest.<\/p>\n

\"It\u2019s<\/p>\n

And while the New York governor has talked tough<\/a> about redistricting, she acknowledged to reporters her hands are tied by the state\u2019s lengthy constitutional amendment process. Any changes must be approved by two separately elected sessions of the Legislature before going to voters in a referendum.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, everyone says, \u2018Why don’t you do what Gavin Newsom does?\u2019 Gavin Newsom has a very different situation, because if I could, I would,\u201d Hochul told reporters this week. \u201cBut I have to have the Constitution changed, and also the voters approved that change, before I can do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Albany Democrats are under pressure to act faster anyway.<\/p>\n

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat, has talked several times in recent weeks with Hochul about their options and this week urged her and other top New York Democrats to expand the state\u2019s voting rights law \u2014 which enables legal challenges to local legislative districts \u2014 to include congressional seats.<\/p>\n

That would open the door to a legal challenge to the existing house lines, a maneuver designed to force a mid-decade redistricting if the map is thrown out. But two New York Democratic officials, granted anonymity to speak frankly, said that would be a long shot given the complexities of the strategy. One of them said there are \u201cno clear options\u201d for what New York can do ahead of the midterms.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s leaving Democrats to scour the map for potential redistricting pick-up opportunities outside California.<\/p>\n

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has spoken boldly about the importance for Democrats to not let Texas go unmatched, and the state hosted many of the Democrats who left the Texas state House. But Illinois has been known for its aggressive Democratic gerrymanders, and it currently has just three Republican seats it can target.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also unclear Illinois Democrats have the political will to take on redrawing the congressional map \u2014 most of the redistricting talk this week has been on a whole other set of maps. Former Barack Obama chief of staff Bill Daley, a Chicago Democrat, and Ray LaHood, a Peoria Republican who served as Obama\u2019s transportation secretary, rolled out a \u201cFair Maps Illinois\u201d proposal this week that would end the process of state lawmakers drawing their own districts.<\/p>\n

In Maryland \u2014 one of Democrats\u2019 few options to wage a response to the GOP \u2014 House Majority Leader David Moon is pushing legislation to open its redistricting process. Gov. Wes Moore has said that \u201call options are on the table,\u201d but has not laid out any specifics.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not our first choice to fight back against this, and I think it’s everybody’s preference that we stand down and everyone steps back from the brink here,\u201d Moon said in an interview. \u201cBut I think the common sentiment you’re seeing from everyone is that we have to be prepared in the event that this thing does explode.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shia Kapos and Jeremy B. White contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The redistricting war is officially on. After weeks of bluster from dueling governors and state lawmakers, California and Texas raced forward with parallel action this week to draw new congressional maps, setting into motion a national redistricting fight that could upend the midterms and determine control of the House. Texas Republicans on Saturday passed a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}