Texas and California voters caught between redistricting wars

As Texas approves new congressional maps, other Republican states may follow suit and Democratic-led California is fighting back. Caught in the middle are frustrated voters.

Texas Republicans are redrawing congressional district maps, potentially giving the party an advantage in upcoming elections.This redistricting effort has sparked backlash from Democrats, including walkouts in Texas and Democrats in other states vowing to redraw their own maps.Meanwhile, voters express concerns about disenfranchisement and the fairness of the process.

AUSTIN – A congressional district that stretches from Austin to the outskirts of San Antonio, held by a progressive lawmaker, may soon vanish from the Texas capital. A Republican-held district in Southern California could soon turn dark blue. And districts in Indiana and Ohio may also likely soon be unrecognizable. 

Across the USA, lawmakers on both sides of the political spectrum are engaging in an escalating redistricting war, with governors of both parties vowing to outdo the other – all in an effort to gain a partisan edge in next year’s midterm elections.

Meanwhile, voters in those districts watch in disbelief as long-held voting areas are stretched, shrunk or carved up into unrecognizable forms.

“Ridiculous,” said Steve Hochschild, 71, as he perused a newspaper and cradled a coffee cup at the Upper Crust Bakery in Austin, while other diners munched on Texas-sized cinnamon rolls or thumbed through smartphone screens. 

A few miles away, at the Texas Capitol, legislators were on the brink of approving redrawn Congressional district maps designed to give an extra electoral edge to Republicans – including turning Austin-area District 35, held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Greg Casar into a Republican stronghold. 

“It’s another random scheme by one side to go after the other side … Now we’re just in total confusion,” said Hochschild, a self-described “conscientious non-voter.”  “The outcome is to disenfranchise even more voters than are already disenfranchised.” 

“We’re on a downbound train,” he added.

Republicans hold a razor-thin advantage in the U.S. House and historically, the party that controls the White House fares poorly in midterm elections. President Donald Trump and White House officials urged Texas Republican leaders to redraw voting maps to add five new Republican-friendly seats to the U.S. House of Representatives. 

A Trump-friendly U.S. House could allow the president to continue one of the most aggressive and disruptive agendas in modern presidential history. A Democratic majority in January 2027 opens the door to Congressional investigations, legislative paralysis − even a third Trump impeachment.

The billowing retaliations over the redistricting push soon followed.

Dozens of state Democratic lawmakers staged a two-week walk out, fleeing Texas to temporarily delay the bill’s passage. Meanwhile, Democratic-led states vowed to redraw the maps in their states to counter Texas.

On Aug. 20, after Democrats returned to Austin, Texas House Republicans approved the initiative. Then early in the morning of Aug. 23, the Senate gave its approval, despite a threat from one Democratic senator to filibuster the new maps for as long as she could. The new maps now go to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott for his signature.

Texas Republicans already hold the majority in the state’s congressional delegation but the new maps could make three more districts likely Republican and two other ones competitive. 

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom has retaliated by devising a strategy to redraw his state’s map to convert five Republican seats. A Democratic hotbed, California is the nation’s most populous state. Similar actions by Republicans Indiana and Ohio and Democrats in New York could follow. 

Mid-decade redistricting has happened before, but never at the overt behest of the White House, said Kareem Crayton, vice president for Washington, D.C., at the Brennan Center for Justice. And the cascading efforts from one state to the next is also novel, he said. 

It’s also the first attempt at mid-decade gerrymandering since a 2019 U.S. Supreme Court decision ruled that federal courts shouldn’t interfere with partisan redistricting, emboldening states to engage in the practice, Trayton said. 

The Supreme Court “decided it’s not going to be the one to say ‘no’ to partisan gerrymandering,” he said. “It’s essentially invited it because there’s no sheriff in town.” 

Caught in the middle of all of it are regular voters and local officials worried about their representation in Congress. 

Indiana: ‘They’re making it up as they go’

The Sip Coffee House in Highland, Ind., deep in the heart of the nearly purple 1st Congressional District, is the kind of place where customers aren’t shy to share political views from one table to the next.  

On a recent morning, the topic du jour was redistricting – or whether their Democratic-leaning district would be carved up as Indiana leaders follow a Trump directive to redraw state maps. 

“Every 10 years they should be counted, every 10 years they should make a new map ― simple as that,” said 18-year-old Rafael Manzo Jr., a Gary resident who hopes to run for Democratic U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan’s congressional seat in 2032 as a Democrat. 

“They’re making it up as they go along,” LuShana Williamson, 50, of Hammond, chimed in from a neighboring table, as she placed coffee orders in a to-go carrier for her fellow hair stylists at the salon down the road. “They’re reframing the Constitution to fit their actual wants and desires at that time. Not a need, a want.”

Unlike Texas, which has unflinchingly followed Trump’s wishes to redraw maps, most of Indiana’s state lawmakers ― from moderates to Trump-supporting conservatives ― have spoken out vehemently against redistricting, voicing both moral and practical concerns. Those concerns were made known even after Vice President JD Vance made a personal visit to Gov. Mike Braun and state legislative leaders in early August.

Randy Niemeyer, the Lake County GOP chair and county council member who ran for District 1’s congressional seat last year, said there is an argument for redistricting nationwide, even five years after the last Census count.

That count took place during the global Covid-19 pandemic, and a post-enumeration report released in 2022 found there were overcounts or undercounts in 14 states. In Texas and Florida, two Republican-leaning states with undercounts, that could have cost them congressional seats, according to a conservative Heritage Foundation analysis.

That, combined with reports of millions of undocumented immigrants arriving in the U.S. since the Census, warrants further scrutiny, Niemeyer said.

“While it looks like a power play by the Trump administration, ’21 through ’24 was a power play by the Biden administration,” he said. “As a matter of policy, I don’t like mid-decade redistricting. But it’s a matter of necessity. When you look at the data, from my standpoint, I don’t know if we can ignore the numbers.”

Natalie DeJarlais, who voted for Niemeyer in the last election, disagreed. 

The only reason she sees to redistrict now is a partisan one, she said. 

“I just feel like the time frame for redistricting seems to work, so I feel like, why are they pushing that?” she said. “They already control the state, so do they need the whole state?”

California: Red districts may turn blue

In California, it’s Republicans who feel under attack. 

Democratic state lawmakers approved Newsom’s plan on Aug. 21 to send newly redrawn maps to voters for approval in a special election in November. The plan would convert five Republican districts to ones favoring the Democrats. 

Among the lawmakers targeted is U.S. Rep. Ken Calvert, the state’s longest-serving GOP member of Congress.

Under the proposed map, Calvert’s district, the 41st, would move westward into Los Angeles and Orange counties, while the areas he now represents would be split between several congressional districts, effectively erasing his seat.

Joy Miedecke, president of the East Valley Republican Women’s Club, in the Coachella Valley near Palm Springs, said her club’s members spent months involved in the state’s lengthy redistricting process in 2021, saying it was conducted “as fairly as could be done.”

“I’m embarrassed for the governor, because he’s doing this as a retaliation for what’s happening in Texas,” Miedecke said in an interview. “That is so childish and downright stupid. We have nothing to do with what happens in Texas.”

The proposed maps in California, if adopted by voters, would only take effect if Texas continues to move forward with its GOP-friendly map.

Miedecke said mid-decade redistricting by lawmakers is “completely within the law” in Texas, unlike in California. The California Constitution requires that an independent redistricting commission create U.S. House districts, while in Texas, lawmakers have that authority. 

Steve Sanchez, a member of the city council in La Quinta, part of Calvert’s current district, said the state government is not giving enough voice to Californians.

“This isn’t how a well-run republic runs,” said Sanchez, whose city would move into a strongly Democratic-leaning new district under Newsom’s proposal.

Newsom has said opponents are misleading voters by alleging he’s doing away with independent redistricting. The new maps would be temporary, with the independent commission drawing new ones as usual following the 2030 census. 

California Democrats’ push for new districts, Newsom has said, is merely a fair response to the political warfare being waged by Republicans. 

Sanchez said Newsom’s proposal doesn’t reflect the interests of Californians and that state taxpayer dollars should go to addressing issues such as homelessness, rather than combatting Texas.

“Make no mistake, this isn’t about policy,” he said. “This is strictly politics.”

California lawmakers pass redistricting plan for voters to decide on

California lawmakers passed a redistricting plan to counter Texas’ GOP map. Voters will decide Nov. 4.

Ohio: ‘Is it legal? Is it not legal?’ 

While most states must redistrict following the census that’s conducted every decade, Ohio is different. In 2018, voters approved an amendment to the state constitution requiring maps to be bipartisanly approved in order to be valid for a 10-year period. Democrats didn’t support the maps drawn following the 2021 census, so it’s back to the drawing board.

Outside of the Stow-Munroe Falls Public Library in Summit County, Stow residents Michael and Janet Gilbert, both registered Democrats, disapprove of the idea they could be gerrymandered out of their current district and representation.

“I just don’t like rigging the systems the way that Republicans so often do,” Michael said. When presented with the argument that Illinois, for example, is gerrymandered in favor of Democrats, he said, “I don’t like gerrymandering period, no matter who does it.”

Janet’s concern is that Ohio will become “even more red,” she said, “because I think if it weren’t for the gerrymandering already in place, Ohio would probably be blue.”

Mary Saylor of Norton, just outside of Akron, denounced what she calls the “amorality of politics.”  She’s a registered Republican who doesn’t vote along a party-line ticket and would object to her daughter dating someone like Donald Trump, she said. Still, she favors conservative causes over Democratic ones.

Saylor said she’s conflicted over partisan redistricting. 

“Do I think they should do it? I don’t know. There are laws for a reason. Is it legal, is it not legal?” she said. “I thought they were only supposed to do this kind of stuff after the census comes out every 10 years. So, if it behooves my party to do it now, it’s going to behoove the next party to do it then, so we never get anywhere.”

Saylor said she’d support a fairer process, “but that’s never going to happen.”

Texas: ‘People are just so disgusted’

By shifting Texas’s 35th District to the San Antonio outskirts, the redrawn maps were setting up a primary battle between Casar and longtime Texas congressional lawmaker Lloyd Doggett, who has represented Austin in Congress since 1994. 

But on Aug. 21, Doggett, 78, announced he’ll step down rather than run against Casar in his newly-drawn 37th District. The new map is expected to be signed soon by Abbott but then challenged in court by progressive groups. If it’s rejected by the courts, Doggett would continue running in the district, he said in a statement. 

Jan Pelosi, a North Austin resident who lives in Doggett’s district, will be shifted to a new district stretching nearly to the Dallas suburbs under the proposed plan, she said. The mid-decade redistricting has angered even some of her Republican neighbors, some of whom have removed their Trump lawn signs, she said. 

Pelosi, 71, joined an anti-redistricting rally at the state Capitol last week. She said she hopes the proposal galvanizes more people against the action. 

“People are just so disgusted with what’s going on,” she said. “If this is not the thing that ignites voters to show up and vote, nothing’s going to.”

Hochschild, the Austin resident, said he doesn’t think anything will stop the maps from being redrawn. 

Texas lawmakers are ignoring what he considers more important issues, like health care and education, in lieu of political brinkmanship, he said. Meanwhile, people in places like Austin will be less represented, Hochschild said. 

“Austin has a long, interesting history. And the rest of the state is just wiping that out,” he said. “Whatever they’re for in Fort Worth, they want us to vote for in Austin. And they’re going to make that happen whether anyone cares or not.”

Jervis is an Austin-based national correspondent for USA TODAY. Dwyer reports for the Indianapolis Star; Coulter and Rector for The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, California; and Kreider for the Akron Beacon Journal in Ohio.