Republican redistricting is sweeping the nation, from North Carolina through Texas. Districts are typically redrawn every ten years following the census, but they can also be revised by a state legislature at any time.
Control of the House of Representatives hangs in the balance, where the majority is determined by a margin of only a few seats. Whichever side controls the House gets to decide what is voted on, and if Democrats regain power there, they will surely try to impeach President Trump yet again.
The redistricting movement can allow Republicans to pick up as many as ten seats, thereby enhancing their current margin of control. The Indiana legislature is debating a plan that would yield a net GOP gain of two seats in that small state alone.
The Supreme Court gave a green light to this effort last month when it stayed a lower court decision in Texas that had blocked the redistricting effort there, which could give Republicans up to 5 more seats in that state alone. Several entrenched Democrat incumbents, including Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), announced their retirement earlier this month rather than seek reelection against a younger Democrat in a newly drawn district.
Texas holds a very early primary, which is less than three months away, so the Supreme Court had to act fast to allow the redrawn lines to take effect. The High Court has not rendered a full ruling in the challenge to this, but in another case appealed from Louisiana, the Court is expected to weaken a provision of the Voting Rights Act that Democrats have used to thwart Republican redistricting.
The Missouri legislature recently redrew its congressional districts, as many Democrat-controlled legislatures such as next-door Illinois, have already done in the past to maximize their representation in Congress. But Democrats just submitted 300,000 signatures on petitions seeking to overturn the Missouri legislature through a vote of the people at an upcoming election.
The initiative process is allowed in roughly 20 states, and Democrats have been using it in Ohio, Missouri, and many other states to advance abortion, gambling, and marijuana. These measures enable dark money-funded groups to bypass state legislatures entirely, and that is particularly improper for redistricting, which is exclusively for state legislatures to decide.
On Monday, a Trump-appointed federal judge dismissed as premature a lawsuit by Republicans in Missouri to preserve the authority of legislative redistricting from being overturned by a ballot measure. U.S. District Judge Zachary M. Bluestone punted the issue to the Missouri Secretary of State, saying that he “has a tool at his disposal that almost no other litigant could boast — the power to declare the petition unconstitutional himself.”
While the Missouri redistricting would achieve a gain of just one GOP seat, unless it is reversed by a ballot initiative, a similar type of redistricting in Florida could net three to five new GOP seats. Currently, 20 out of the 28 congressmen from deep red Florida are Republican.
Florida holds a late primary, nearly half a year later than Texas’s, on August 18 of next year. So there is plenty of time for Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican-controlled legislature there to do this right.
Florida, too, has a ballot initiative process that bypasses the legislature, but fortunately, it requires a 60% threshold for passage, while Missouri and other states require only a simple majority. In Ohio, a ballot initiative attempted to establish a more Democrat-favorable process for redistricting, but it was defeated last November as Trump won that state by a landslide.
Ohio has a redistricting plan expected to swing two seats to the Republican side, but a stronger plan could do even better. A decade ago, Ohio sent more Republicans to Congress than it does today, even though Ohio was less Republican then.
Redistricting in Pennsylvania in 2010 was what helped convert that former Democrat stronghold into a state that Republicans can win, as they have when Trump heads the ticket. But now Democrats control the Pennsylvania legislature and the state supreme court, so there is no prospect of a new redistricting effort there helping the GOP, even though Pennsylvania voter registration is on course to give Republicans a majority next year.
The Department of Justice has sued California over its ballot initiative that would add even more Democrat-majority congressional seats. But in that case, the popular vote overturned a prior initiative, not the legislature, as Democrats are improperly doing in Missouri by seeking to block the Republicans’ legislative redistricting there.
It is overdue for courts to invalidate wide-ranging ballot initiatives that encroach on the legislative function, and Judge Bluestone erred in not swatting down the Democrats’ ballot measure in Missouri. There could soon be a swift appeal of his decision to the conservative Eighth Circuit.
John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.