One of the big political news stories last week was the effort by President Trump and his allies to steam roll through changes to Congressional lines in “red” states in order to boost the likelihood that Republicans will continue to control the House of Representatives after the 2026 elections.
Republicans do have a lot to worry about in 2026. Historically, the party that controls the White House takes an electoral pasting in the mid-terms. Given the current razor-thin majority that allows the Republicans to control the House, big changes in 2026 could flip it back to Democratic control.
A House controlled by Democrats would be a big headache for the President on multiple fronts.
Given the President’s weak polling numbers, rigging elections in red states seemed like a good way to hedge the Republican’s bets. And yes, they are rigging those elections. The President who consistently complains about “rigged” elections and lied about the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election is, in fact, engaging in the type of political tampering he decries. He is not hiding it, either, bluntly saying that re-writing the Congressional lines in red states, is a way to keep the Republican majority. The Republicans, the President said, are “entitled to five more seats” in Texas.
Re-writing those lines means changing the existing political boundaries in a way that will hurt Democrats and help Republicans, regardless of what it does to the Congressional representation by the people that actually live there.
Periodically redrawing political boundaries is as old as the nation itself. Since 1790, the nation has had a census to establish where people lived and then every ten years to readjust political boundaries (redistricting) and to sort Congressional seats among the states (reapportionment) after the census in order to ensure that the nation’s representative democracy reflects shifts in the population.
Efforts to redraw political boundaries to help political parties is, of course, old news. The political parties have been engaging in “gerrymandering” since Elbridge Gerry did so in Massachusetts two centuries ago.
What is different is that the President is throwing his political weight behind efforts to readjust House lines in the middle of a ten-year period and to do so with the explicitly stated goal of rigging the elections to help build a Republican majority.
In the hyper-partisan and toxic political environment that we unfortunately find ourselves in, Democratic governors feel compelled to follow suit and to try to rig elections in their states to benefit Democratic candidates for the House. A move that would most certainly further undermine public confidence in democracy and put partisan interests ahead of the public’s.
As has been noted, the problem with the old adage is that an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.
Governor Hochul is not immune. She has said that the actions of the President are a declaration of political “war” and that she will do what she can to help Democrats take more seats in New York.
In New York, that will not be so easy.
While the U.S. Constitution sets the broad rules for the census, reapportionment, and redistricting, it is up to the states to establish the specific steps. In New York, how redistricting is conducted is enshrined in the state’s Constitution. In order for the governor and state Democrats to try to rig elections here, the Constitution would have to be changed.
The process of changing the Constitution takes time. Two successive legislatures would have to approve the proposed amendment and then it would have to go before voters for final approval. If New York embarked on Constitutional changes, the fastest those changes could be put in place is January 1, 2028, well after the 2026 elections.
There is a case to be made to change New York’s redistricting process. The current system is a mess and some reformers opposed the creation of the current system when then-Governor Cuomo advocated for it in 2014. The key problem is that the current system relies on the two major political parties to agree on the new boundaries, which is – and has been – a recipe for gridlock.
Among other changes, setting up a redistricting process that relies on an independent, non-partisan, commission would be far better. Just changing New York’s system, however, doesn’t deal with the national problem.
So, what can be done about the political map drawing frenzy?
Here in New York, the Legislature should advance changes that fix redistricting in this state, measures that remove the political parties and that set boundaries that focus on the best interests of the public, not partisan schemes.
New York’s Republican members of the House should immediately demand that the President tell red states to back off. If he fails to do so, they should pledge to block his Congressional initiatives until he puts a stop to what he set in motion. Next month the House will take up extending the nation’s budget, which gives New York’s delegation leverage. While holding up the budget is risky, rigging elections is far worse.
The Congress should immediately take up legislation to stop gerrymandering. Let’s have elections in districts that are about communities and who they want to represent them, not rigged elections in which the dominant political party picks the winner.
This latest disgraceful spectacle demands political courage and action, not just speechifying and finger-pointing. New Yorkers will soon know how their representatives measure up.
Blair Horner is senior policy advisor with the New York Public Interest Research Group.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
