As Gov. JB Pritzker welcomed Democratic Texas state representatives to Illinois, where they’d fled to deny a quorum in Austin, he denounced the GOP plan to redraw the Lone Star State’s congressional boundaries. He assailed Republicans for “a corrupt, middecade redistricting plan that would steal five congressional seats, silencing millions of voters, especially Black and Latino voters.”
New York’s Gov. Kathy Hochul calledthe Texas Republican plan “nothing short of a legal insurrection.” She pledged to redraw her state’s congressional lines “as soon as possible,” declaring that “we are at war” and that “all is fair in love and war.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, said he would “fight fire with fire” and override the provision in California’s Constitution requiring that a nonpartisan commission set the state’s congressional lines. Instead, he would urge the Legislature to draw a map offsetting any gains the GOP makes in Texas.
Welcome to the sixth ditch of the eighth circle of hell, where in the “Divine Comedy” Dante met the hypocrites, condemned for eternity to wear gold-plated lead cloaks.
Illinois, New York and California are already gerrymandered to Democrats’ benefit. Donald Trump received 44% of the Illinois vote in 2024, yet 82% of the state’s U.S. representatives are Democrats. The figures are 43% for Mr. Trump and 73% for Democratic congressmen in New York then 38% for Mr. Trump and 83% for Democrats in California.
The numbers for Texas are far less lopsided. Mr. Trump received 56% of the 2024 vote, and 66% of the state’s House delegation—25 of 38 members—is Republican. Now these low-down, dirty Texas Republicans think they can flip five seats through redistricting. That would make the Texas delegation 79% GOP. In other words, a delegation slightly more partisan than New York but somewhat less so than Illinois and California. That also assumes Republicans can beat Rep. Henry Cuellar, a popular albeit troubled Democrat incumbent in South Texas who ran 6 points ahead of Kamala Harris last year. (Mr. Cuellar is under federal indictment on charges including bribery and money laundering. He has pleaded not guilty.)
Yes, Texas Republicans are taking advantage of their state legislative majority to tilt things their direction. But the skew in Illinois, New York and California is no accident either. Earlier this decade, Democrats in each state tilted things in their favor (although in New York under some constraint from state courts).
The worst of the three hypocritical governors is Mr. Pritzker, a potential 2028 presidential hopeful, who presided over his state’s 2021 gerrymander. First, Democrats carved up the red ring of Republican voters in the Chicago suburbs and exurbs. The gerrymandered districts radiate from the heavily blue inner city, shooting out ribbonlike tentacles to draw in enough GOP voters to fill out each district’s population but not enough to threaten the Democratic hold on the seats.
Illinois Democrats then packed every GOP stronghold in the state’s rural west and south into three districts. Two are oddly shaped. The 16th looks like a miner kicking a can. The 15th is two irregular blobs nearly cut in half by a thin, serrated blade. Only the 12th, the southern tip of Illinois, looks normal. The remaining rural seats meander across the state, linking liberal pockets in union strongholds and college towns to give Democrats two more seats than if districts had been drawn compactly.
