The politics driving the push for gerrymandering : NPR

Ari Shapiro, host:

The fights on congress maps have never been so intense. The Texas Republicans have just passed to issue civil arrest mandates for the Democrats who fled the State. The GOP tries to redraw the districts of the house, and the new proposed card could give the Republicans up to five other house seats which could easily decide to control the congress. This fight also undulating to other states, President Trump urging the Republicans to follow the example of Texas and Democratic governors saying that they could follow the same path. David Wasserman of the COOK Political Report qualified this as a nuclear arms race for the control of the house. Welcome to everything considered.

David Wasserman: Thank you for doing me.

Shapiro: So start with this sentence in nuclear weapons. What do you mean by that?

Wasserman: Well, given the margin in the house, which is – it could hardly be tight than it is, each claw part for each advantage they can obtain from one state to another. And the Republicans, knowing that 2026 could be a difficult year, tries to superimpose sandbags to protect their majority from a house against a growing blue swell.

Shapiro: So, obviously, Texas alone, if it gives the Republicans five additional seats, could determine the control of the house. But if it is a nuclear arms race which overthrew many other states, what could be the overall impact?

Wasserman: It depends on how each state is shaking, and it would seem that the logical end of this arms race would be the eradication of the Democrats of the Red State and the Blue State Republicans. California, under Governor Gavin Newsom, threatens to retaliate by creating an amendment, an initiative to vote that voters could approve this fall. Democrats are very limited to retaliate in other states beyond California. What we know, however, is that the Democrats will always have a chance to gain control of the Chamber in 2026, even if the Republicans add three to five additional seats in Texas, two in Ohio, given the president’s low approval rating and what we historically know about the mid-term elections.

Shapiro: You have mentioned that California has an independent redistribution commission which is supposed to avoid partisan gerrymandering. New York has a similar commission, including governor Kathy Hochul, a democrat, may speak of getting rid of. What happened to the movement to make it an independent non-partisan process?

Wasserman: Mainly, it was the Blue States that have adopted redistribution reform in recent decades and have implemented independent and bipartite commissions. What the Democrats have achieved is that they play with a hand attached behind their backs, especially when Texas is ready to try something of this. Of course, given the few competitive seats and across the country, the Democrats – they really have no choice but to try to retaliate to express the maximum number of seats of the states they control, which means trying to climb on some of the reforms that voters have approved.

Shapiro: So do you think that this nuclear arms race for the control of the house will inevitably continue to advance the Farou

Wasserman: One of the reasons why it is not as simple as each state which only makes the continuation of a maximum gerrymander is that the criteria and the provisions of restarting the limits vary a lot from one state to another. Each state has its unique redistribution culture, and the two parties seek to circumvent the provisions designed to ensure the compactness or integrity of communities of interest in order to compensate for what the other party does. We did not even speak about Florida, where it is possible that the Republicans can increase their advantage over what they were able to pass in 2022 if Governor Desantis was to continue.

But overall, the United States Supreme Court and the Congress failed to slow down Gerrymandering. The Supreme Court has judged that complaints from Gerrymandering cannot be brought before the federal courts because it is fundamentally a political affair and there is no clear standard for what constitutes Gerrymandering or not. And the power of cartographers, the line drawers, which are supporters in most cases, has only been amplified by American voters who are in highly red and blue communities. And when the Americans live more and more in places where they are surrounded by people who share their political and cultural values, it is easier for partisan maphists to then separate them into highly red or blue districts to achieve their partisan goals.

Shapiro: So what are you looking for in the coming months when we are heading to the 2026 electoral season?

Wasserman: Well, we will look to see how many of these states shake. It is likely that Texas Republicans will arrive at the end of the day. And the question then becomes, Governor Newsom and the Democrats in California retaliate? Are they able to convince voters to put aside the reform they managed to adopt in 2010 to continue what the Republicans of Texas and what President Trump seeks to do to protect their majority. And when he is supervised in terms of combat to Donald Trump, California voters will probably take behind that, even if they have worries they have expressed in the polls in the past on aggressive partisan gerrymandering.

Shapiro: It’s Dave Wasserman, editor -in -chief and political analyst for the political report Cook. Thank you so much.

Wasserman: Thank you, Ari.

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