The Democratic Governors get into the game:
A number of high-profile Democratic governors are ready to fight — ardently throwing support behind their colleagues who have said they will draw new Congressional maps to favor Democrats before the 2026 midterm elections in order to directly counter Texas Republicans’ moves to do the same for their party.
Texas GOP lawmakers just this week released their first draft of the state’s new congressional map that could flip three to five Democratic seats in next year’s midterms.
On Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom promptly responded, saying he’d spoken with state legislators and members of Congress about holding a special statewide election on Nov. 4 for Californians to vote on new congressional maps — ones that would likely favor Democrats.
Convening later in the week for a summer policy retreat on the shores of Madison, Wisconsin, a number of leading Democratic governors have backed Newsom and any other blue state leaders who are taking an offensive position on redistricting.
The Democrats each did so reluctantly, calling Texas Republicans’ efforts “unconstitutional” and “un-American” with hopes that the courts intervene before any new maps steered by either party are implemented. In the meantime, they said it’s time to fight against the Trump-championed GOP redistricting, especially now that other Republican-led states, including Missouri, might follow suit.
“That is so un-American, and it’s a constant threat to our democracy,” Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said about Republican proposals. “So I’m really pissed, frankly, and we are going to do whatever we can do to stop this from happening.”
Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas, the Chair of the Democratic Governors Association, explicitly got behind Newsom, Kathy Hochul of New York, JB Pritzker of Illinois and any other governors who are weighing counteraction through special elections, special sessions or additional means of redrawing congressional maps.
“I have never believed in unilateral disarmament, and so while I may not want to participate in certain activities, if I have to, in order to level the playing field, I would support my Democratic colleagues who decide to answer in kind,” Kelly said in an interview. “If the other side is going to pursue this, regardless of the obvious unconstitutionality of it, then I don’t think we have any other choice but to go there. You just don’t go to the front lines without your bullets,” Kelly said.
Kelly said her strong “preference” would still be for courts to intervene. “In fact, it might actually work to our benefit, you know, to play like this. Okay, we’ll play this game too, and we all go to court.”
It’s good to see this happening but I’m not sure they have enough legislative power in the states to outgun the Republicans if they get every red state to eliminate their Democratic seats. We’ll have to see how that pans out.
But I think that what Kelly says at the end could be the ultimate strategy. If both parties are doing this it will be impossible for the Supreme Court to give the Republicans the advantage, at least until they agree to hear the whole case.
Gerrymandering is legal unless it discriminates on the basis of race. All that is very much up in the air right now and Republicans are arguing that the only discrimination that exists in the world at the moment is toward white people and Jews. I’m honestly not sure what the courts are going to do with this but at least the Democrats aren’t going to be sitting ducks.
Still, this does raise one of my biggest fears about the 2026 election if the Democrats happen to win: a court intervention after the fact, invalidating it on some specious grounds. It’s pretty much what they did in 2000. Don’t think this Court would be any less willing.