Democrats are locking in for redistricting fight they never wanted

Democrats are torn between their long-standing wish for independent redistricting commissions and wanting to play the same redistricting competition as Republicans The issue is that those are mutually unique desires It s not the way we should be doing it Sen Peter Welch of Vermont advised NOTUS of Democrats efforts to redistrict blue states in response to Republicans But when the president decided to do the redistricting in Texas he gave us no option but to fight fire with fire It s not good for democracy and it s just another indication of all the norms collapsing Welch reported Still he argued This is bad in the long run but necessary in the short run In Virginia one of the states that is trying to draw Democratic-friendly seats in response to Republican efforts to keep their majority in the House of Representatives Rep James Walkinshaw commented that Democrats have to pursue every legal avenue I m someone who supports nonpartisan redistricting Walkinshaw narrated NOTUS Unfortunately with Donald Trump commanding Republicans in red states to try to change their maps in the middle of the cycle because he feels he s losing the midterm elections it s the reality that states where Democrats have the ability to keep that option on the table we have to do something That s the conclusion multiple in the party have come to Democrats need to lock in and pick up seats or face an electoral process landscape in which they re made irrelevant I want to see every Democratic governor in this country getting out of bed and eating glass and basically saying if you re not willing to come to the table for federal nonpartisan redistricting committees we are going to redistrict you into oblivion disclosed the Texas Democratic Party s chair Kendall Scudder And the reason that I want them to do that is not because I think redistricting is good or this gerrymandering is good I think it is very very bad But it s because if Democrats continue to operate by a separate set of rules than Republicans then we re going to continue to get shellacked across the board Scudder announced Republicans in several states including Texas Missouri Indiana and North Carolina have taken strategies to shift congressional district maps to help their party pick up seats Democrats have struggled with how to respond but now have chosen states lining up to try to pick up seats ahead of In California voters will decide on Proposition on Nov a ballot initiative which has the possible to net Democrats five more House seats in the midterm elections On Monday Virginia lawmakers voted to consider an amendment focused on redistricting which could lead to a gain of as a great number of as three seats And on Tuesday morning Illinois congressional Democrats circulated a comment urging their state Legislature to consider redrawing congressional lines One of the states that national Democrats have been pushing to get involved is Maryland Rep Jamie Raskin of Maryland argued that each state must consider its own costs and benefits of wading into the redistricting battle Our party is unified around the proposition that it s an ethical moral and political imperative to fight back against the Texas extreme gerrymander sequence that has been unleashed here by Republicans The question in every Democratic legislature including Maryland is basically a tactical oneinvolving what are the costs and the benefits of going forward and I think that s what the Legislature is looking at now So I believe the wheel is still in the spin We have an obligation to act but there s a hard factor of political math now The Republicans control a lot more state legislatures than we do Raskin went on So they re in a position to do a lot more gerrymandering than us House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has been campaigning to help push for redistricting in recent weeks traveling to California and Illinois to make the circumstance for it It s an all-hands-on-deck effort across the country and we will continue to forcefully push back against Republican efforts to gerrymander the congressional map Jeffries reported NOTUS on Tuesday But even in those states where the pathway to seats is largest part clear there has been hand-wringing In California Democrats worried that voters would balk at taking power away from an independent commission and made a point of creating a proposal that would return power to it in For Rep Julia Brownley measures like Proposition are several of the only tools Democrats have left despite concerns We are in a place in the current era where it is now or never in terms of saving our democracy and this is one of the only tools in our toolbox right now to win in and then to go on to win in For me it s that simple Brownley recounted NOTUS I hope the rest of the states are doing the best that they can do to draw the lines as fairly as workable but if we can eke out a Democratic seat in one state or the next we need all of that And inIllinois legislators have expressed concern that the revised maps could dilute the voting power of Black communities in the state But the pressure is mounting for the state to also jump in the fray I believe we should have fair math gerrymandering doesn t help the broader community Rep Brad Schneider of Illinois reported NOTUS But I also believe that Republicans are trying to flip seats everywhere they can under any circumstance they can and we need to fight fire with fire California s ballot initiative has become a crucial test incident for Democrats both in the state and nationally National figures are tracking it precisely as a likely blueprint It s pretty clear that Prop was put on the ballot to get back the five seats that Texas stole Other states are doing redistricting action now Rep Mike Thompson of California who spent part of his weekend campaigning for Proposition explained NOTUS I would prefer that we had commissions in every state and they put an end to the redistricting especially mid-decade redistricting This story was produced as part of a partnership between NOTUS a publication from the nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute and NEWSWELL home of Times of San Diego Santa Barbara News-Press and Stocktonia