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Democratic lawmakers are defending redistricting efforts across the country, calling their efforts a necessary foil to similar Republican-led plans, while arguing vulnerable Republicans should have fought harder to prevent the “arms race” reshuffling district lines nationally.
“I feel like the system is fundamentally broken, but let’s be clear. Republicans began the redistricting arms race. And, so, Democrats are left with no choice but to level the playing field for the sake of democracy,” Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., told Fox News Digital.
Lawmakers’ comments come as the Supreme Court handed down a decision on Wednesday, reshaping the framework of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and opening the door to the possibility of fresh redistricting efforts ahead of the 2026 midterms.
SUPREME COURT ORDERS NEW ARGUMENTS IN PIVOTAL ELECTIONS CASE
In its 6-3 decision delivered along ideological lines on Wednesday, the court struck down Louisiana’s 6th Congressional District, which was redrawn in 2024 to have a predominantly Black electorate.
The court also ruled that states may not use race to either draw districts that disenfranchise voters or help minority communities support their preferred candidates.
It’s unclear which states may reevaluate their maps in light of the decision.
“This is a very nefarious thing that the Supreme Court has done, and it’s a very desperate thing that Republicans are doing to cling to unearned power,” Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., said.
Since President Donald Trump urged state lawmakers to expand the GOP’s 217-213 majority by eliminating five Democratic seats in Texas, states including California, Utah, Missouri, Louisiana, Ohio, Virginia and North Carolina have followed suit.
Most recently, the Florida legislature approved a plan to eliminate up to four Democratic districts.
DESANTIS LAUNCHES FLORIDA REDISTRICTING PUSH TO POTENTIALLY ADD MORE GOP HOUSE SEATS
While most Democrats have laid blame for the avalanche of redistricting efforts on Trump, others believe a desire to use redistricting to carve out partisan advantages goes back much farther.
“I put this all on Democrats,” Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Texas, said.
“In 2003, when Tom DeLay was majority leader, and he said that he wanted to get rid of five Democrats in Texas, we didn’t respond. We let him slap us around, we let him come around and slap us and we didn’t do anything about it,” Veasey said, referring to another mid-decade Republican redistricting effort that went unchallenged by Democrats in other states.
Veasey believes this time around, vulnerable Republicans in Democratic-leaning states invited their own demise by not voicing opposition to the Republican efforts in Texas.
“They didn’t say anything. The time to speak up, especially the Republican members from California, the time for them to speak was back then, and they didn’t,” Veasey said.
BETO ENCOURAGES DEMOCRATS TO FIGHT ‘FIRE WITH FIRE’ IN TEXAS REDISTRICTING BATTLE
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Rep. Christian Menefee, D-Texas, like many of his Democratic colleagues, lamented the redistricting struggle but argued that pretending that the situation didn’t exist was unrealistic.
“Look, in a perfect world, we would not have any political gerrymandering. We wouldn’t have folks trying to draw Black and Brown people out of their districts and then putting the partisan cover over the top. But because we don’t live in that world, we’ve got to fight fire with fire,” Menefee said.
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