\n<\/p>\n
\n\tTop Democrats are laying out the stakes of a national congressional redistricting fight, after Texas obeyed Donald Trump\u2019s order to adopt a new, wildly gerrymandered congressional map in advance of the 2026 midterm elections. On a conference call organized by party chair Ken Martin, Democratic leaders justified their plan to respond to Texas\u2019 provocation with an equally brazen redistricting effort in California \u2014 to \u201cfight fire with fire,\u201d as Governor Gavin Newsom put it.<\/p>\n
The fight is over creating partisan advantage in advance of the next year\u2019s midterms, which will likely be a referendum on President Trump\u2019s deeply unpopular policies, ranging from high tariffs to massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.<\/p>\n
\n\tRepublicans in the Texas legislature voted on Wednesday to redraw the state\u2019s congressional district map to maximize the party\u2019s delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives. The geographic boundaries of such districts are typically re-drawn at the turn of the decade, following the Census. Texas\u2019 sudden move was prompted by Trump, who has said he feels he\u2019s \u201centitled\u201d to more GOP House seats from the Lone Star State.<\/p>\n
California currently uses a non-partisan commission to draw its congressional districts. The model earns praise by advocates of good governance, but reflects a high-minded idealism that is out of place in our era of shattered norms. Newsom is now accelerating a plan that would offer voters a different path forward: Adopt highly partisan maps in explicit response to Texas. If voters agree, the new maps would be in play for the midterm elections, and are projected to help Democrats pick up about five seats, the same number Republicans are projected to gain in Texas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tTexas and California might cancel each other out, but other states \u2014 both red and blue \u2014 are now weighing sudden, partisan redistricting efforts, and risk sparking a gerrymandering arms race that could dramatically warp America\u2019s representative democracy. \u201cGame on,\u201d New York Governor Kathy Hochul wrote in response to Texas Republicans passing the new map. Trump\u2019s allies are meanwhile pressuring red states like Indiana to redraw their congressional maps in the party\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe stakes are high. Republicans currently enjoy a razor thin margin in the House. If Democrats can take over the body in 2026, they would be able to not only block GOP legislation, but restore a measure of accountability to Washington by mounting investigations and issuing subpoenas.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Wednesday conference call featured Newsom, Martin, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker \u2014 still riding high after his record-breaking filibuster \u2014 and Texas State Rep. Nicole Collier. Collier is one of the state representatives who fled Texas in an attempt to deny the legislature a quorum to pass the new Texas maps. Texas Democrats skirted arrest warrants by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, and succeeded in foiling one special session, but they were unable to sustain their protest to counter a second. Since returning to the state, Collier has been under de facto house arrest inside the state Capitol for refusing to consent to a police escort. She spoke on the call from inside a noisy bathroom at the statehouse.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n
\n\tThe Democratic Party organized the call for reporters, and Martin set the frame. \u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of talk out there about wanting Democrats to fight harder,\u201d he said. Martin pointed to the redistricting battle as proof of the party\u2019s spine: \u201cRepublicans wanted a showdown. We\u2019re going to give them a showdown.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe party chair argued that redistricting was an act of desperation. \u201cThe Republicans know they can\u2019t win on their merits,\u201d Martin said. \u201cThey have a historically unpopular president. They voted to kick more than 17 million Americans off their health insurance. They gave the biggest tax handout to the ultra rich in history.\u201d Martin said the GOP was \u201ctrying to cheat\u201d and \u201cready to steal,\u201d but insisted that Democrats would not \u201croll over\u201d while Republicans \u201ctry to rig the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n
\n\tCollier used her time to explain what\u2019s been happening in Texas, painting the Republican power grab as not just wrong but racist \u2014 designed to dilute the voting power of minority districts in ways she believes are unconstitutional: \u201cThese are the most segregated maps that have been presented in Texas since the 1960s.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tCollier praised Newsom as well as Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker for their willingness to take the fight to the national level. \u201cWe\u2019re ready to meet Trump where he is \u2014 which is on a dirt road,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd we\u2019re ready to get down and dirty.\u201d At one disturbing point in the call, unseen state authorities forced Collier to cut her appearance short, \u201cI have to leave,\u201d she said. \u201cThey told me it\u2019s a felony to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tWatching this unfold, Booker denounced the infringement on Collier\u2019s speech as \u201cfreaking outrageous,\u201d adding: \u201cRepresentative Collier in the bathroom has more dignity than Donald Trump in the Oval Office.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tThe New Jersey senator emphasized that in an ideal world, Democrats would champion non-partisan districts for all voters. But he insisted the current stakes require throwing elbows, like in a basketball game where the refs aren\u2019t calling fouls. \u201cWe see Donald Trump trying to pervert the rules of the system in order to make sure that he preserves his political power,\u201d Booker said, adding, \u201cIf we don\u2019t fight here, we will continue to see their efforts to erode our democracy for their own benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tNewsom has taken center stage as a Democratic counterweight to Trump, including by trolling Trump and his MAGA minions on social media. He first laid out Trump\u2019s many provocations \u2014 from deploying the National Guard in American cities; to demanding a cut of corporate deals for the U.S. government; to bullying universities and media companies \u2014 as a threat to democracy. \u201cNothing about this is normal,\u201d he said of Trump\u2019s attempts to \u201clight democracy on fire.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tHe insisted California was fighting for the \u201crule of law, not the rule of Don.\u201d And he accused Republicans of \u201ctrying to rig this [2026] election before one vote is even cast.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tNewsom argued that the maps he\u2019s proposed would be \u201ctemporary\u201d and talked up the \u201ctransparency\u201d of presenting state voters with a choice to approve his strategy, insisting it was the best path to \u201caddress the emergency that is this moment in time.\u201d But he insisted: \u201cIt\u2019s not about whether we play hardball anymore. It\u2019s about how we play hardball.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n
\n\tNot long after the conclusion of the call, California\u2019s redistricting proposal received backing from the biggest heavyweight in the Democratic Party: former President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n
In a social media post on X, Obama gave a (somewhat professorial) endorsement of Newsom\u2019s plan, which is worth quoting in full, for its nuance:<\/p>\n
Over the long term, we shouldn\u2019t have political gerrymandering in America, just a fair fight between Republicans and Democrats based on who\u2019s got better ideas. But since Texas is taking direction from a partisan White House and gerrymandering in the middle of a decade to try and maintain the House despite their unpopular policies, I have tremendous respect for how Governor Newsom has approached this. He\u2019s put forward a smart, measured approach in California, designed to address a very particular problem at a very particular moment in time.<\/em><\/p>\n \n\tFor his part, Trump praised Texas Republicans who passed the newly gerrymandered map in Austin on Wednesday, writing on Truth Social that it marks a \u201cBig WIN for the Great State of Texas!!!\u201d Trump touted \u201cFIVE more Congressional seats\u201d while pointing to other GOP-led states that may soon redraw their own maps, including \u201cFlorida, Indiana, and others.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Top Democrats are laying out the stakes of a national congressional redistricting fight, after Texas obeyed Donald Trump\u2019s order to adopt a new, wildly gerrymandered congressional map in advance of the 2026 midterm elections. On a conference call organized by party chair Ken Martin, Democratic leaders justified their plan to respond to Texas\u2019 provocation with<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[9812,120,8847,8093,3832,261],"class_list":{"0":"post-17533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-dems","9":"tag-national","10":"tag-promise","11":"tag-redistricting","12":"tag-showdown","13":"tag-war"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}