(The Center Square) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said it’s “game on” with plans to redraw the blue state’s congressional districts to favor Democrats as the Texas’ Legislature moves ahead with a GOP-led redistricting plan.
Late Wednesday, the Texas House of Representatives passed a reworked congressional map pushed by President Donald Trump that could flip five Democratic-held districts ahead of next year’s pivotal midterm elections when much of Congress is up for reelection. The Texas state Senate is expected to approve the plan later this week, before sending the measure to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott for his signature.
Democrats decried the unusual mid-decade redistricting scheme as “blatant gerrymandering” to increase the number of GOP congressional seats in the midterms.
California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has been pushing a plan to draw new congressional maps in California in response to Texas or to other Republican-led states redrawing theirs, ripped Texas Republicans as “Donald Trump’s most loyal lapdogs” in a social media post. Newsom said it’s “game on” with the Democratic-led legislature poised to vote on redistricting legislation on Thursday.
Hochul followed with a statement late Wednesday also criticizing Abbott and other Texas Republicans for giving Trump “the rigged map he demanded” and pledged to move ahead with Democratic plans to withdraw New York’s congressional districts.
“Trump, Greg Abbott and their allies know they can’t win on their record of stripping health care, tanking the economy and making families pay more with less,” Hochul said in a statement. “This is a last gasp of a desperate party clinging to power.”
“In New York, we’ll confront Trump’s legal insurrection head on,” she said. “We’ll meet him on the same field and beat him at his own game.”
Two weeks ago, Hochul held a press briefing with six Texas Democrats who fled their home state amid the impasse over the Republican-led redistricting plan, calling for “a strong stand against a blatant power grab” and floating plans for a mid-decade redrawing of New York’s congressional maps.
The declaration prompted a backlash from Republicans and good government groups like the nonpartisan watchdog Reinvent Albany, which called the plan a “race to the bottom” that will disenfranchise the state’s voters.
New York bipartisan redistricting commission approved a plan last year after the state’s highest court ordered new congressional maps to be drawn for the 2024 election. The ruling was viewed as a major win for Democrats seeking to redraw the state’s maps after a chaotic redistricting process during the November 2022 midterm elections. Republican sought unsuccessfully to block the redraw maps, which were signed into law by Hochul.
Unlike the proposed changes in Texas or California, however, any new changes to New York’s congressional districts from a redistricting plan wouldn’t go into effect until the 2028 elections.
Congressman Mike Lawler, a Hudson Valley Republican, has said he plans to file a bill in Congress to outlaw mid-decade congressional redistricting and partisan gerrymandering by state Legislatures. He accused Hochul of being “full of s—” for criticizing Texas is redistricting efforts because New York redrew its maps mid-decade.
“For them to act as though they are holier than thou and that they dn’t actually do this first is laughable,” Lawler to Fox News. “And when you look at Texas, you know they legally can do it. New York legally cannot. And that’s the difference.”
