What if the Parties Struck a Truce on Self-Destructive Gerrymandering?

Newsweek

5 days ago

America's two major political parties are about to exchange the next salvos in a decades-long battle where—as is typical of trench warfare—they both stand to lose.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott is under severe pressure from President Donald Trump to restart one of the most craven and self-destructive practices of American politics in the 21st century: predatory gerrymandering. California Governor Gavin Newsom has made clear that, if Abbott goes through with it, he stands ready to retaliate.
If you're thinking "gee, this sounds like a boring, technical issue for government nerds to fuss over," it's not. It's been a poison that's seeped further into our political life than most realize.
Here's what happened. Partisan gerrymandering—drawing legislative and congressional districts to maximize your party's power—goes back literally to the birth of the republic. But for most of the 20th century, state political leanings were so stable that parties kept their maps in place. Even after Supreme Court rulings in the mid-1960s forced change, the parties settled into a fairly anodyne process, forming districts once every ten years after the new national census with only minor angling for political advantage.
In 2003, then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay broke the tacit truce. After Texas drew its districts following the 2000 census, he waited for Republicans to gain complete control of Texas government, and then maneuvered an ambush: a sudden redraw that gave Republicans six more congressional seats.
Once DeLay started this new predatory approach—grabbing for power at any opportunity—others followed. Republican-dominated states started to copycat Texas, and Republicans saw an opportunity if they were really willing to push the envelope. Political strategist Karl Rove crafted a project called REDMAP to win key state legislative seats all over the country in order to drive an even more aggressive round of congressional redistricting.
It worked: in 2012, Democrats won 1.4 million more votes for the U.S. House than Republicans, but Republicans won the chamber 234-201. In the Wisconsin legislature, as just one state example, Republicans won less than half of the statewide vote but took 61 percent of the legislative seats. These outrageous power tilts still exist around the country.
US President Donald Trump (L) listens to Texas Governor Greg Abbott speak during a meeting with local officials and first responders in Kerrville, Texas, on July 11, 2025, following devastating flooding that occurred in the...
US President Donald Trump (L) listens to Texas Governor Greg Abbott speak during a meeting with local officials and first responders in Kerrville, Texas, on July 11, 2025, following devastating flooding that occurred in the area over the July 4 weekend. More
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images
Most Americans might dismiss all this as another instance of all's-fair-in-love-and-war political skullduggery. Why was it actually so bad?
For Republicans, gerrymandering helped drive the MAGA-fication of the party. To achieve the 2010 backlash that would fuel their predatory gerrymandering scheme, Republican leaders engineered an angry populist movement—the Tea Party. That Frankenstein's monster came alive and helped Republicans shellack Democrats in the 2010 midterms, but then escaped lab containment. Feuds between Tea Party-aligned activists and establishment Republicans roiled the party in 2012 and sank them in 2014, leaving the party rudderless, confused, and ripe for Trump's takeover. Then the Trump faction became a force inside America's gerrymandered districts. Since his endorsement was seen as the critical factor in winning Republican primaries, and with almost all Republicans districts being "ultra-safe," the majority of state and U.S. House elected officials became Trump acolytes.
Democrats in turn became both politically neutered and schizophrenic: in a few places successfully depoliticizing redistricting through independent commissions, in other places trying (unsuccessfully) to even the score after the 2020 census with their own aggressive gerrymanders. So they remain boxed out of power in most states, still trying to land a feeble counterpunch. It's left them with a severe case of "don't wrestle a pig in the mud; you get dirty and he has fun."
And we Americans ended up with a mess. Trump's gerrymandering-enabled leveraged buyout of the Republican Party—and now the U.S. government—means his faction of MAGA Republicans (which represents only 16 percent of Americans) gets to drive a radical agenda that the majority of us oppose.
So everyone has lost—Republicans as much as anyone, as their party has been coopted and as their ultra-aggressive tactics have sometimes backfired. But, addicted to a toxic formula that has worked out well for him so far, Trump is now looking for even more aggressive gerrymandering, and California Governor Gavin Newsom is threatening to retaliate with some partisan redistricting of his own. So the cycle will restart, and the screws will continue to tighten.
But what if the few remaining adults in American politics said, "enough?"
There's actually a model in 20th century political history for one way it could work. In 1940s and 1950s, it was common for U.S. senators of opposing parties to form a "voting pair" on a bill. Since their votes would cancel each other out, they would skip the vote together.
Greg Abbott could call Gavin Newsom and say "hey, we're a couple of Washington outsiders with national ambitions—let's pair up on a ceasefire. I'll carve out a little space from Trump, you'll show that you can work with Republicans. Our parties will breathe a sigh of relief, and we'll do our country a lot of good. We could even start a trend for other states to follow."
Likely? No. But possible? Absolutely. It wouldn't undo the damage that's been done. But the first rule when you're in a hole is to stop digging.
Matt Robison is a writer, podcast host, and former congressional staffer.
The views in this article are the writer's own.