Washington, D.C. — President Donald Trump’s push for Texas to gerrymander five new Republican-leaning congressional districts has triggered a redistricting arms race that has seen a growing number of states—including California, Florida, Missouri, and New York—threaten to redistrict in a bid to counter one another.
A new plan released by the Center for American Progress argues that the only solution to ending this arms race is a federal law that commits all states to fair redistricting standards that ban partisan and racial gerrymandering and include quantitative measures to hold states accountable.
But until Congress acts, CAP is urging states with redistricting commissions to adopt an agreement, or “redistricting treaty,” committing them to set aside their commissions until Congress imposes federal standards that force all states to play fair. Model legislation for this proposal is included in the report.
President Trump’s demands for gerrymandering correlate with his record-low approval rating and the rising unpopularity of his policies. This gerrymandering scheme is the president’s attempt to circumvent the will of voters and bolster his party’s odds of winning the 2026 midterm elections and keeping control of the House. Congress and states cannot stand for this and must stand for fairness for all Americans.
Currently, 11 states—eight states with Democratic governors and three states with Republican governors—have redistricting commissions tasked with drawing congressional maps, rather than the partisan state legislature. While these commissions are well-intentioned to take partisanship out of the process, they only exist in less than a dozen states and are not evenly divided between states with Republican and Democratic governing control.
Americans can only truly have fairness in representation if Congress imposes federal requirements for redistricting that all states must abide by.
Read the plan: “Trump Ordered Texas To Gerrymander 5 New Republican-Leaning Congressional Districts—This Is How Other States Can Fight Back” by Neera Tanden, Ben Olinsky, and Greta Bedekovics
For more information or to speak with an expert, please contact Sam Hananel at [email protected].