Both Parties Have a History of Gerrymandering

New York Governor Kathy Hochul on Monday announced that she was open to using gerrymandering to redraw her state's Congressional districts - referring to the practice of creating district lines in a way that cuts up one party's majorities and gives another party an advantage, in the process often creating oddly shaped precincts. Hochul, a Democrat, was hosting Texan lawmakers from her party who fanned out to blue states to avert a vote on a gerrymandered Republican redistricting map in the Austin legislature. The proposed map is expected to give Republicans a five-seat gain. The party won 25 out of 38 Texas Congressional seats in the last election.

The move made nationwide news and drew heavy criticism by state Republicans, with Governor Greg Abbott accusing the lawmakers of bribery for collecting money to pay the fines they have incurred by being absent and threatening legal action to remove them from office.

Democratic California governor Gavin Newsom said last week that he was considering a similar move if Texas should enact the new map. California would need to mount a successful ballot initiative, however, as it has an independent commission presiding over redistricting plans, which was set up under former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. While Newsom is willing to call a special election to have a change finalized before the 2026 midterms, a New York constitutional amendment would take until 2027 to come into effect, according to Axios. Both Hochul and Newsom said they wanted to create a counterweight to gerrymandering used by Republicans in the current redistricting cycle, even though their states have used more balanced approaches to districting in the past.

While gerrymandering is often associated with Republicans, it has also been used by Democrats. States currently rated as gerrymandered in favor of Democrats are Illinois, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Oregon. This is according to the Princeton Gerrymandering Project. Maps rigged in favor of Republicans are meanwhile in place in Texas, Georgia, Florida, Ohio, South Carolina, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Tennessee and Kansas.

However, Republicans have gerrymandered more and benefited from the practice more historically, with the Texas proposal described as an extraordinarily brazen attempt. According to a 2022 report, Republicans have control over the redistricting process in more states due to fewer independent redistricting processes in place and more red states not having split governments. Before the 2020 redrawing of district line was when Republicans used gerrymandering to their advantage most, Brookings Institution writes. Since then, Democrats have become more savvy in fighting Republican redistricting campaigns while the country's voting patterns have moved away from Democrats being concentrated in cities and Republicans spread out in the rest of the country, causing each party to lose less votes to the winner-takes-all system. This has led to the fact that in recent elections, both party's share of the popular Congressional vote has matched their House seats more closely despite the current level of gerrymandering.