Democrats face dwindling options to move forward with redistricting after the Supreme Court handed Republicans a major victory this week allowing them to use a redrawn map in Texas next year.
While Virginia Democrats are signaling they’ll move forward with redrawing their congressional lines, Democrats in other states have expressed opposition, posing a challenge for those in the party who want to net as many additional seats as possible before the midterms.
The disagreements underscore the challenges the party faces in responding to Republicans, who are trying to move forward with new maps in other states like Indiana and Florida.
“Two wrongs don’t make a right. Never have, and they never…
Democrats face dwindling options to move forward with redistricting after the Supreme Court handed Republicans a major victory this week allowing them to use a redrawn map in Texas next year.
While Virginia Democrats are signaling they’ll move forward with redrawing their congressional lines, Democrats in other states have expressed opposition, posing a challenge for those in the party who want to net as many additional seats as possible before the midterms.
The disagreements underscore the challenges the party faces in responding to Republicans, who are trying to move forward with new maps in other states like Indiana and Florida.
“Two wrongs don’t make a right. Never have, and they never will,” said Illinois state Sen. Willie Preston (D), who serves as the Senate chair of the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus and has been an opponent of redistricting in the Prairie State.
While Preston said he would consider a new map that didn’t dilute the power of Black voters, he added that ultimately he didn’t think “there’s an appetite at large” for redistricting in the state.
“I don’t think that this can be laid squarely at the seat of those like myself who believe that Black representation is important and that it is threatened by…a mid-decade redistricting,” added Preston, who’s running for the state’s 2nd Congressional District.
The Supreme Court handed a key victory to Republicans Thursday, allowing Texas to leave in place a set of newly passed congressional lines that would add up to five pickup opportunities for the GOP in time for the midterms.
A panel of federal judges last month blocked the House map from being able to go into effect for next year. After Texas Republicans appealed, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito issued a temporary stay on the ruling and allowed the maps to temporarily be put back into place as the high court weighed a final decision.
Even before the Supreme Court handed down its ruling on Thursday, Virginia Democrats were already teasing their redistricting plans.
“10-1 is not out of realm to be able to draw the maps in a succinct, community-based way, but we’re going to take a look at it,” Virginia House of Delegates Speaker Don Scott (D) told University of Virginia Center for Politics director Larry Sabato on Wednesday.
Another Virginia Democrat teased on X that the party would respond in kind following the high court’s ruling.
“I got something waiting for Texas…” Virginia Senate President Pro Tempore L. Louise Lucas (D) wrote. “I will give a follow back to every person who I see tweet 10-1 tonight,” she quipped in another post.
But other Democratic leaders remain unmoved after the high court’s decision. Preston, the Illinois state senator, maintained that Democrats were unlikely to gain any additional seats in his state.
“I think there are other areas our party can look at,” he added, noting New York, Maryland and Virginia.
There’s also a logistical hurdle in Illinois: The candidate filing deadline there was Nov. 3.
Still, other Illinois Democrats say redistricting has not been entirely ruled out, with Jon Maxson, a spokesperson for Illinois House Speaker Emanuel Chris Welch (D), telling The Hill in an email that “all options remain on the table in Illinois.”
In Maryland, Gov. Wes Moore (D) has signaled he wants to move forward with redistricting, but he faces stiff opposition from Senate President Bill Ferguson (D). The state previously tried to pass an aggressive Democrat-favored 8-0 map after the U.S. Census in 2020, but a court struck it down as a partisan gerrymander in 2022.
Ferguson in a letter to Senate colleagues in October said the legal risks from mid-cycle redistricting were “too high” and the “downside risk to Democrats is catastrophic,” according to a copy obtained by Maryland Matters.
Despite the divisions within the party, Democrats can point to a number of recent wins in the redistricting battle. First, California voters passed Proposition 50, a measure backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) that gave the green light to a new map that could net the party five additional seats. Then, a Utah judge rejected a GOP-favored map in favor of one that would create a Democratic-leaning district in the deep-red state.
And despite the Texas ruling, some experts believe Republicans might not pick up that many seats through their redistricting push.
“Keep in mind that even with the TX map upheld by SCOTUS, Republicans still on track for a very minimal overall gain from redistricting, with FL/IN/LA/VA the biggest remaining question marks,” wrote Dave Wasserman of the nonpartisan election handicapper Cook Political Report on X.
Republicans, meanwhile, have been forced to grapple with their own disagreements over the issue. The Indiana House GOP passed a new map on Friday that would make all nine congressional districts red-leaning. However, the map faces an uncertain future in the state legislature’s upper chamber, where some Republicans have thrown cold water on the effort.
Still, some Democrats are nervous about what the redistricting battle will mean for their party and the country as a whole. And Democrats are bracing for the possibility of an even bigger setback next year, when the Supreme Court will decide the fate of the Voting Rights Act and Louisiana’s congressional map, potentially limiting the use of race in redistricting.
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It’s unclear when a decision might be made in the that case. If it’s issued earlier enough, it could allow a swath of Republican states in the South to redraw their congressional lines ahead of the 2026 — a seismic blow to the Democrats.
Asked about Preston’s comments opposing redistricting in Illinois, John Bisognano, the president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, suggested lawmakers needed to be clear-eyed about what he sees as the threats posed by the GOP’s redistricting push.
“I think everybody needs to realize that we’re at an existential moment in this country and truly appreciate and evaluate the need for our democracy to retain its representative nature,” said Bisognano, “and not fall into a mold that’s trying to be cast by Donald Trump to create a U.S. House of Representatives that is singularly responsible to one party.”
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