As Republicans weaponize redistricting to entrench power, Democrats face a moral and strategic crossroads.
George Washington’s family seal bore the motto Exilus acta probat, borrowed from Ovid, which translates as, “The outcome is the test of the act.” Some see Machiavelli’s advice in The Prince as a later variation: “In the actions of all men, especially of princes, where there is no court to appeal to, one looks to the end,” for “the means will always be judged honorable, and will be praised by everyone.”
Adages like these come to mind as more than 50 brave Texas Democrats have invoked the quorum break, fleeing to Democratic strongholds around the country to block a cynical move by Republican state legislators to obediently carry out President Trump’s plan to rig the 2026 and 2028 elections by radically gerrymandering Texas’ congressional map. One Texas Democrat, Rep. Ann Johnson, defended the exodus by explaining plainly that the “quorum break is a tool that the founding fathers of Texas put in place for when a minority party knows that the majority party has gone off the rails and is doing something against the interests and will of the voters.”
Texas Republicans currently hold 25 out of 38 congressional seats. By transforming a special legislative session, originally called to provide disaster relief, into a rare mid-decade redistricting opportunity, they hope the new map will increase their total to 30—all in constituencies that Trump won last November by at least 10 points. The new map would, among other things, redistrict the Rio Grande Valley and combine two districts in the state capital of Austin currently held by Democrats. In northern Texas, it would expand a district currently held by U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson (D-Texas) to include rural Republican strongholds. It would also redraw four Houston-area seats, including one held by outspoken Democrat: Rep. Al Green.
Republicans currently occupy 219 out of 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives—a razor thin margin of only one vote. If Texas succeeds in doing Trump’s bidding, other Republican-controlled states will likely fall into line, frustrating the Democrats’ strategy of taking back Congress in the 2026 midterms and winning the White House in 2028.
Trump certainly doesn’t care what it takes to win. Let’s not forget that on Jan. 2, 2021, he thought nothing of telling Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” in order to overturn the state’s election results in the 2020 presidential election—not to mention the fact that Trump has enthusiastically embraced the imperial decree attributed to French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”
Gov. Greg Abbott and the Republican leadership in Texas are now moving swiftly to alter the district maps in order to deliver to the GOP the five congressional seats that Trump has demanded. Abbott has threatened to charge the Democrats with felonies and expel them from office. But even if he can’t legally do that, the Democrats can’t stay away from the Lone Star State forever.
In a bold response, the Democratic governors of several blue states are threatening to fight fire with fire; they intend to redraw the congressional maps in their own states to counterbalance what Trump is demanding Republicans do.
“Their fight is our fight!” declared Illinois Governor JB Pritzker (D), as he welcomed several of Texas Democrats to Chicago, vowing to protect them from Republican retribution.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) announced, “We are at war,” and she vowed to explore “with our leaders every option to redraw our state congressional lines as soon as possible,” noting that state legislative leaders were “on board.” She said Democrats are “working on a legislative process, reviewing our legal strategies, and we’ll do everything in our power to stop this brazen assault.”
It won’t be easy. New York uses a redistricting commission to draw its maps, subject to the legislature’s approval. Any amendments to the state constitution must be passed in two consecutive sessions before going before voters, meaning New York Democrats wouldn’t be able to change their maps in time for the 2026 cycle. As an alternative, they say they are looking at litigation strategies.
Meanwhile, responding to the maneuvers in Texas, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) declared, “Well, two can play that game.” Unlike Texas, where the state legislature reapportions congressional districts, under the California Constitution, a 14-member California Citizens Redistricting Commission, is responsible for congressional redistricting. In December 2021, the commission voted 14-0 to approve the existing congressional districts, in which Democrats hold 43 of the state’s 52 U.S. House seats.
Newsom told Pod Save America, “I’m talking to members of my legislature. Whatever our alternatives, we could do a special session. I could call for one today if I chose to. We could then put something on the ballot, and I could call a special election. We can change the constitution with the consent of the voters, and I think we would win that. I think people understand what’s at stake in California.”
In California, the legislature can place a constitutional amendment on the ballot, which could be adopted by a simple majority of voters. Doing that requires a two-thirds vote in both the Assembly and the Senate, and Democrats control 75 percent of the seats in both. But Assembly Member Alex Lee (D), chairperson of the California Legislative Progressive Caucus, is not yet on board, saying, “Trying to save democracy by destroying democracy is dangerous and foolish. By legitimizing the race to the bottom of gerrymandering, Democrats will ultimately lose.”
Gov. Newsom disagrees. He questions whether you have to “play fair in a world that is wholly unfair.”
A constitutional amendment cannot appear on the California ballot until the first statewide election that occurs at least 131 days after the legislature’s approval, but the Democratic-controlled legislature can waive that requirement. Indeed, in 2020, the legislature approved five constitutional amendments after the deadline had passed.
Aside from the constitutional amendment process, drafting an amendment to give the legislature power over congressional redistricting could follow several different approaches. Voters could repeal Proposition 20 (2010), which transferred congressional redistricting from the legislature to the redistricting commission.
Another approach would be to create a carve-out, allowing the legislature to control redistricting for a set period before returning that power to the commission. These various proposals could be made more palatable to voters if they are contingent on Texas (or Florida) actually adopting highly partisan gerrymandering or if they include provisions of interest to people who might otherwise vote against the proposal, such as a voter identification requirement.
In light of Trump’s wholesale dismantlement of American institutions like the Department of Education, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Voice of America; his ongoing violation of the due process rights of non-citizens; his imposition of new illegal consumer sales taxes he ignorantly calls “tariffs;” his demolishing of decades of work to enhance diversity, equity and inclusion; his firing of thousands of federal employees and the heads of independent administrative agencies without cause; his attacks on the academic freedom of universities and the free speech rights of student protestors; his coercion of law firms to provide millions of dollars of free legal services to advance his pet causes; and much, much more, tepid responses from Democrats are wholly inadequate.
On April 4, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his historic “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” speech. Explaining why he could no longer confine himself to the domestic struggle for civil rights but was compelled to denounce the War in Vietnam, he declared that a “time comes when silence is betrayal.” Instead of being “mesmerized by uncertainty” and “the apathy of conformist thought,” there are pivotal moments when the “mandates of conscience and the reading of history,” call for “a new spirit” to arise taking us “beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.”
Posing an existential threat to democracy, Trump and his Republican allies have cast a darkness that is all around us. It would be a betrayal of what is just and right for Democrats to remain silent in the face of Trump’s crass manipulation to rig the democratic system by which Americans elect their representatives. Democratic lawmakers cannot be mesmerized by the uncertainty over whether they are adopting Republican tactics or be lulled into an apathy of conformity believing that they should placidly remain above the partisan fray.
Democracy defenders need to believe that the outcome of saving democracy “is the test of the act.” We need the confidence to know that we will “be judged honorable,” and we “will be praised” by future generations if we use every legal means available to countermand schemes to tamper with the constitutional right to free and fair elections.
There is no time to lose. Democrats must act decisively, and they must act now.
Great Job Stephen Rohde & the Team @ Ms. Magazine Source link for sharing this story.
