Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) mentioned Tuesday that California’s effort to redraw Home strains won’t solely succeed, however different Democratic states will pursue related redistricting efforts forward of subsequent yr’s midterms.
“We are not going to let Republicans successfully rig the midterm elections,” Jeffries instructed reporters within the Capitol. “California is just the first Democratic state to respond. It will not be the last.”
He didn’t specify which different Democratic states would possibly launch a redistricting effort, however social gathering leaders in Illinois, New York and Maryland have all expressed a point of curiosity in doing so.
California voters are set to vote subsequent month on Proposition 50, a referendum empowering the Democrats who management the state authorities to redraw the Home map. The weird mid-decade effort is in direct response to the transfer by Texas Republicans, on the urging of President Trump, to reconfigure their Home strains to flip as many as 5 seats from the Democrats to the GOP in subsequent yr’s elections.
Trump, who’s hoping to forestall a Democratic Home to behave as a examine on his administration within the ultimate two years of his second time period, has not stopped there. He’s additionally urging allies in a number of different GOP-led states — together with Ohio and Indiana — to redraw their strains to pad the Republicans’ slim Home majority in 2027.
North Carolina is the most recent state to heed his name. Though Republicans within the Tar Heel state had simply adopted new strains to the GOP’s benefit forward of the 2024 elections, they’re now prepared to take action once more in an effort to choose off yet another Democrat: Rep. Don Davis.
North Carolina is cut up virtually evenly between the events — Republicans management the Legislature, however Democrats received the workplace of governor, lieutenant governor and legal professional basic final yr — and within the final Congress, the delegation mirrored that even divide: Seven Republicans and 7 Democrats.
That modified after the brand new strains took impact in 2024, which knocked off three Democrats and gave Republicans a lopsided 10-4 benefit within the present Congress. Bumping off Davis, if Republicans are profitable, would make it 11-3.
Democrats have hammered the GOP’s gerrymandering as an overt energy seize, noting Republicans wouldn’t management the Home now if not for the North Carolina redistricting — a criticism Jeffries amplified Tuesday.
“They didn’t even legitimately win [the House] in an election where everything at the top of the ticket was breaking for them. … They had to rely on stealing three seats from the people of North Carolina to artificially create their majority,” Jeffries mentioned. “This is why you can’t take these people seriously in terms of any policy high-ground in the House that they may claim to have. It’s non-existent.”
