XPost: alt.politics.usa.congress, alt.politics.trump, talk.politics.guns   
   XPost: sac.politics, alt.politics.republicans   
   From: leroysoetoro@americans-first.com   
      
   https://apnews.com/article/trump-congress-house-republicans-texas-   
   redistricting-d18e8280a32872d9eefcbb26f66a0331   
      
   WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he is pushing   
   Texas Republicans to redraw the state’s congressional maps to create more   
   House seats favorable to his party, part of a broader effort to help the   
   GOP retain control of the chamber in next year’s midterm elections.   
      
   The president’s directive signals part of the strategy Trump is likely to   
   take to avoid a repeat of his first term, when Democrats flipped the House   
   just two years into his presidency. It comes shortly before the GOP-   
   controlled Texas Legislature is scheduled to begin a special session next   
   week during which it will consider new congressional maps to further   
   marginalize Democrats in the state.   
      
   Asked as he departed the White House for Pittsburgh about the possibility   
   of adding GOP-friendly districts around the country, Trump responded,   
   “Texas will be the biggest one. And that’ll be five.”   
      
   Trump had a call earlier Tuesday with members of Texas’ Republican   
   congressional delegation and told them the state Legislature would pursue   
   five new winnable seats through redistricting, according to a person   
   familiar the call who was not authorized to discuss it. The call was first   
   reported by Punchbowl News.   
      
   Some Texas Republicans have been hesitant about redrawing the maps because   
   there’s only so many new seats a party can grab before its incumbents are   
   put at risk. Republicans gain new seats by relocating Democratic voters   
   out of competitive areas and into other GOP-leaning ones, which may then   
   turn competitive with the influx.   
      
   “There comes the point where you slice the baloney too thin and it   
   backfires,” said Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of   
   California, Los Angeles.   
      
   Democrats will have a hard time retaliating   
   Congressional maps drawn after the 2020 census were expected to remain in   
   place through the end of the decade. If Texas redraws them at the behest   
   of Trump, that could lead other states to do the same, including those   
   controlled by Democrats. In response to the Texas plan, California Gov.   
   Gavin Newsom wrote on social media: “Two can play this game.”   
      
   Still, Democrats may have their hands at least partly tied. Many of the   
   states the party controls have their state legislative and congressional   
   maps drawn by independent commissions that are not supposed to favor   
   either party. That’s the case in California, where Newsom has no role in   
   the redistricting game after voters approved the commission system with a   
   2008 ballot initiative.   
      
   Newsom on Tuesday afternoon floated the notion of California’s Democratic-   
   controlled Legislature doing a mid-decade redistricting and arguing it   
   wouldn’t be expressly forbidden by the 2008 ballot initiative. Democrats   
   already hold 43 of the state’s 52 House seats. He also proposed squeezing   
   in a special election to repeal the popular commission system before the   
   2026 elections get underway, but either would be an extraordinary long   
   shot.   
      
   “There isn’t a whole lot Democrats can do right now,” said Michael Li of   
   the Brennan Center for Justice. “In terms of doing tit-for-tat, they’ve   
   got a weaker hand.”   
      
   Li noted that Democrats are backing lawsuits to overturn some GOP-drawn   
   maps, and there’s a chance some of those could be successful before the   
   midterm elections. That includes in Wisconsin, where the new liberal   
   majority on the state supreme court declined to immediately overturn the   
   state’s GOP-drawn congressional maps earlier this year. Democrats and   
   their allies have filed suit in a lower court hoping to beat the clock and   
   get new maps in place by next year.   
      
   Democrats also have litigation in Utah and Florida.   
      
   Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court is considering a case out of Louisiana   
   that seeks to unravel one majority Black district mandated by the Voting   
   Rights Act. The case could lead to sweeping changes in longstanding rules   
   requiring mapmakers to ensure that racial minorities get a chance to be an   
   electoral majority or plurality in some areas.   
      
   The high court is expected to rule in that case by next summer.   
      
   Re-opening maps undermines ‘free and fair elections’   
   Redistricting is a constitutionally mandated process for redrawing   
   political districts after the once-a-decade census to ensure they have   
   equal populations. But there is no prohibition against rejiggering maps   
   between censuses, and sometimes court rulings have made that mandatory.   
   The wave of voluntary mid-decade redistricting that Trump is encouraging,   
   however, is unusual.   
      
   It’s also left some Democrats fuming that their party has ceded much its   
   mapmaking power to independent commissions in states it controls,   
   including Colorado, Michigan and Washington.   
      
   “Reformers often do not understand the importance of political power,”   
   said Rick Ridder, a Democratic strategist in Denver.   
      
   House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries wouldn’t comment on whether   
   nonpartisan systems should be rolled back, instead saying Trump’s push   
   will “undermine free and fair elections.”   
      
   “Public servants should earn the votes of the people that they hope to   
   represent. What Republicans are trying to do in Texas is to have   
   politicians choose their voters,” Jeffries told reporters.   
      
   Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett, whose district includes part of Austin,   
   also criticized Texas Republicans for focusing on redistricting after   
   floods killed at least 132 people, and with more still missing.   
      
   “Redistricting, this scheme, is an act of desperation,” he said.   
      
   Texas lawmakers will consider a new map during special session   
   The special Texas legislative session scheduled to start Monday is   
   intended to focus primarily on the aftermath of the deadly floods.   
      
   An agenda for the session set by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott put forth   
   plans to take up “legislation that provides a revised congressional   
   redistricting plan in light of constitutional concerns raised by the U.S.   
   Department of Justice.”   
      
   Republicans in Ohio also are poised to redraw their maps after years of   
   political and court battles over the state’s redistricting process. The   
   GOP-controlled Legislature is considering expanding the party’s lead in   
   the congressional delegation to as much as 13-2. It currently has a 10-5   
   advantage.   
      
   Still, there are practical limits as to how many new seats any party can   
   squeeze from a map. That’s why some Texas Republicans have been hesitant   
   about another redraw. In 2011, the party’s legislators drew an aggressive   
   map to expand their majority, only to find seats they thought were safe   
   washed away in the 2018 Democratic wave election during Trump’s first   
   term.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)