Texas’ congressional districts are already heavily gerrymandered. In fact, 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.
Donald Trump has decided that’s not good enough, and in a radical gambit, the president has directed the GOP-led state legislature to launch a mid-decade redistricting scheme. Under the White House’s vision, Republicans should hold 30 of the state’s 38 seats, instead of the current 25, which would give the party nearly 80% control over Texas’ delegation.
Partisan legislators are doing precisely what they were instructed to do. NBC News reported:
Texas Republicans released a proposed new congressional map Wednesday that would give the GOP a path to pick up five seats in next year’s midterm elections. The proposal, which follows President Donald Trump’s public pressing for a new map in the state, would shift district lines in ways that would target current Democratic members of Congress in districts in and around Austin, Dallas and Houston, as well as two already endangered Democrats representing South Texas districts that Trump carried last year.
As The Texas Tribune reported, this draft proposal is likely to change as the process continues to advance, but for now, it appears Republicans in the Lone Star State are on track to rig their district map — or more to the point, manipulate it more than it’s already been rigged — which in turn would make it even more difficult for Democrats to regain a U.S. House majority, even if it’s what voters want.
A couple of hours before Texas Republicans unveiled their draft map, JD Vance took the opportunity to weigh in on the debate — by, oddly enough, complaining about gerrymandering.
“The gerrymander in California is outrageous,” the vice president wrote via social media. “Of their 52 congressional districts, 9 of them are Republican. That means 17 percent of their delegation is Republican when Republicans regularly win 40 percent of the vote in that state. How can this possibly be allowed?”
So, a few things.
First, California’s map really isn’t that bad, as gerrymanders go, but in light of the Texas Republicans’ scheme, it might soon become a lot more slanted.
Second, if Vance is looking for some truly outrageous gerrymandering, I’d direct his attention to the Republican-drawn maps in states such as North Carolina, Wisconsin and Vance’s adopted home state of Ohio. Third, while it’s certainly true that Democrats in blue states have drawn some gerrymandered maps — there are no angels here — it was congressional Democrats who proposed doing away with partisan gerrymandering altogether in a democracy-reform package unveiled in 2021. Republicans rejected it — even though it would’ve created a level playing field for both parties. (If readers were curious, Vance didn’t vote on the bill: It was unveiled four years ago, and the vice president’s career in elected office only began two-and-a-half years ago.) “How can this possibly be allowed?” the vice president asked, referring to partisan district lines. The answer is, “Because your party has blocked reform efforts.” But even if we put these highly relevant details aside, I’m also struck by Vance’s weird timing. Why complain about gerrymandering on the same afternoon that his own party advanced a closely watched gerrymandering scheme at his boss’ behest?
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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