As Texas’ Republican-led state Legislature begins its special legislative session, members will have a limited amount of time to tackle some important priorities. The first will be the state’s response to recent deadly flooding.

The other will be an assignment from Donald Trump.

The president has been unsubtle in his ambitions, directing GOP state legislatures to redraw an already gerrymandered map in the hopes of delivering another five U.S. House seats for the party.

If this sounds a bit familiar, it’s because the same state has gone down a similar path before. For generations, there’s been a standard approach to decennial redistricting: Once every 10 years, after the U.S. Census is complete and states know how many congressional seats they’ll have, state legislatures draw up new district lines, ostensibly to remain in place for a decade.

But more than 20 years ago, at then-Republican Rep. Tom DeLay’s behest, Texas Republicans launched a radical mid-decade redistricting gambit (for the handful of you who were reading my original blog in 2003, I referred to this at the time as “re-redistricting.”) The partisan dispute was fierce — Democratic legislators literally fled the state to deny the quorum needed to conduct legislative business — but the GOP scheme ultimately succeeded, and the party secured an additional six seats in the U.S. House.

That partisan split has remained largely intact ever since, and under the current map, Republicans in Texas tend to get roughly 55% of the vote but end up with roughly two-thirds of the state’s U.S. House delegation.

The president has decided the existing gerrymander is not quite good enough: Trump envisions a map in which the GOP controls 30 of the state’s 38 seats, instead of the current 25, which would give the party nearly 80% control over Texas’ U.S. House delegation.

Why is this a story with importance far beyond the Lone Star State? Several reasons, actually.

1. Control of Congress is on the line: The Republican majority in the House is already narrow, and if historical patterns hold true, Democrats are likely to make gains in the 2026 midterm elections. If, however, Texas manages to execute this district map scheme, it will make it that much more difficult for Democrats to claim a majority, long before voters even start casting ballots.

2. This is a radical abuse: It is not illegal to engage in abuses like these, but such efforts are clearly at odds with democratic norms and appear to make a mockery of the Voting Rights Act. Several years ago, in a very different context, Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island delivered memorable remarks on the “because we can” standard and approach to governing, and five years later, that concept — if a party has the power, it should exercise that power, without regard for norms, traditions, values or restraint — remains relevant.

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3. The Texas gambit might backfire: In order to make this scheme work, the GOP-led state legislature will have to rig the map by moving boundary lines around. In some instances, however, that will mean taking some voters in districts currently held by Republicans, which would necessarily make those GOP incumbents a bit more vulnerable in 2026 and beyond.

In fact, The Associated Press reported that some Democrats believe the Trump-inspired redistricting plan might even hurt Republicans and help Democratic recruiting. The American Prospect’s David Dayen recently published a related analysis, explaining that Texas’ gerrymander could very well become a “dummymander” that threatens more GOP incumbents than Democratic ones.

“They are playing a little bit of roulette with these maps,” Democratic Rep. Julie Johnson of Texas told Politico earlier this month. “In a wave election like what we have a potential opportunity for in ‘26 I think it makes these Republicans very vulnerable.”

4. Other red states might follow. The current focus is on Texas, but the president has already indicated that he’s eyeing similar efforts to rig district maps in other states — he’s specifically said there could be four such states — including a possible effort in Ohio.

5. Blue states might follow, too. If Texas Republicans pursue such a gambit, what’s to stop Democrats in blue states from engaging in comparable schemes? Nothing. In fact, some Democratic leaders have already expressed an interest in tit-for-tat retaliation, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently writing online, “Two can play this game.”

The broader fight, however, is just now getting started, but the endpoint is not close. Watch this space.