Texas may rig election maps. Should California too?

With a brazen movement, the Republicans in Texas began to redraw the congress map of the state – an effort to increase President Trump and GOP in the 2026 midterm elections.

Gov. Gavin Newsom threatened to answer the blue California Gerrymandering in the same way to give the democrats a lift and to balance the star move only for power.

This means that the political lines drawn by an independent citizen commission created by voters to remove the line from state politicians about twenty years ago.

Our columnist Mark Z. Barabak and Anita Chabria do not strongly agree with the wisdom and consequences of Newsom’s threat. They had hash here.

Barabak: Gavin Newsom – or the 48th president of the United States, as he imagined him – is perhaps the second in Donald Trump when it comes to surfing into a political wave. And so with redistribution and ordeal.

Partisan Democratic Hearts to Race – Part of Newsom’s intention – can create, but it is a bad movement for all kinds of reasons. Most importantly, ignoring the will of California voters who describe the state’s self -governing politicians in an indifference No mas!

48, Er, I understand the fire of fire with fire, which plays partisan support for even the head of Newsom. However, the danger causes even widespread damage.

Over the years, many Zeitgeist-Y movements of Newsom, titled, were wasted. This is something else from scrap.

Chabria: I acknowledge that Vegas rates are on the side of this Tat, nothing more than a Grabber titled Partizan.

However.

There is a greater and more important question that you believe in how serious our democracy is in danger.

Mark – As I think you are tending to hope – this will pass and our next choices will be free and fair, but it can be descended, but the idea of gerrymanding of our congress regions cannot be a terrible thing. This is especially true in California, one of the few states they vote for to ensure that our election maps are taken into consideration.

However, like me, if you think that we are on the edge of a knife if you think that we are on the edge of a knife, like me, our democracy, or at least hate is used for power, becomes a peaceful form of resistance.

Newsoma recently, iz We can be more sacred than the word. We can sit between them, we can talk about how the world should be, or we can recognize the existential nature that is the moment ”-that gives you an idea about my thought and frankly mine.

I’m gonna dive more, but maybe we’re starting. Do you think our democracy is intact and what we witness is a period of discontent that will pass without permanent damage?

Barabak: I’m sure I hope.

I don’t give anyone to anyone in my concern about Trump and what he’s doing. He is authoritarian. Autocratic. Arrogant. Antidemocratic. And it doesn’t even exceed this “a” letter

However, as Newsom threatened with redistribution, actions do not take place in a void, which is important to keep in mind. Short -term tactical gains can cause long -term pain.

For example: In 2013, the Democrats were very upset about the Republican blockade, in which President Obama’s judicial and executive branch nominations called the Senate majority leader Harry Reid called the “nuclear option .. At the order of Reid, the Senate voted for a narrow vote to change its rules and not to allow the presidential candidates to be opposition.

Conclusion, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And the clown car of Trump cabinet members.

And even though the democrats openly said that the change of rule would not be valid for the Supreme Court, the gate occupied once the Republicans shouldered their ways and eliminated Shilibuster for these candidates. The result is Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and the Supreme Court’s 6-3 Trump-Coddling conservative super size.

The risk of bad burning.

If the Democrats want a war on redistribution, the Republicans have ways to win more seats than the democrats in Gerrymander and potentially places like Florida, Missouri and Ohio.

Chabria: No doubt. However, and so low, if it really saves democracy, I will pay a hegseth price. The truth is that the only hope of a Congress that will prevent Trump in the democratic process is to change at least some power to the democrats in the 2026 elections.

Under the pressure of Trump, the Texas Republicans, if five new GOPs manages to redraw the sloping seats-and do not explode on their faces, this movement will increase the chances of staying around a Trump and the possibility of authoritarianism is the chance to go from a brush fire to forest fire.

The truth is that Gerrymandering is much more common than the difference of most. Kevin Johnson, an expert Election Reforms NetworkRecently, “In the 1990s, only 40% of the seats in the House of Representatives were accepted as a certain thing for a party or the other. Figure 83%. ” Because -most States Gerrymermer.

Indeed, independent, non -Partisan people who draw election maps such as really competitive races and California. So to play Devil’s lawyer, we’ve already lost Gerrymandering in the United States and Californiya doesn’t know it.

This is a problem that can be solved if a future president and congress want to do so. However, it requires reaching a future president and the congress. I always record this: I do not care about republicans or democrats. I care about democracy.

California Gerrymander helped to make the congress into a real control against authoritarianism and left Gerrymandering later to correct it, would it be really bad?

Barabak: Your crystal ball must be less hazy than mine.

I wasn’t convinced that even the five Texas House seat earnings would guarantee gop control. (And let me I Put it on this: I think what Trump and Texas Handmaides do can be completely understood.)

II. Since World War II, the party took more than two dozens of home seats in the midterm elections. Democrats need three earnings to seize control.

As you suggested, the political pork of republicans has the chance to recoil by weakening their voters very much, creating areas where democrats can take if there is a large enough blue wave.

While talking about Backfring moves, California’s commission votes in a special election to invalidate the commission.

It is a big question in today’s environment to deliver power to politicians. And newsoma does not seem to have a deep honor reservoir; Look at the questionnaire numbers.

Although the state did not have a single competitive competition, he went to South Carolina to campaign for democratic council candidates. California has about 10 races that look at least a little competitive – but you don’t see that the democrats do Clamading to fall into the districts of Newsom.

Chabria: I don’t have a crystal ball. What I have is a deep foreword, but it was the hope of your blue wavy, your power scenario for people.

In the meantime, Newsom said on Friday that he had discovered many ways to redistribute and do so.

There is a legal gambling in this list. Our current redistribution laws say that maps should be drawn fairly every 10 years after the census – but they do not say that we cannot do Gerrymander among them. Newsom basically proposes to cheat with a sunset: Immediately redistributing the democrats, but this will end when the normal redistribution occurs.

It can be connected hard and only to the courts indefinitely.

However, I was disappointed that politicians, experts, and even regular people continue to treat this administration as politics as usual, and I appreciate that there is no Newsom, even if some of them are caused by personal gain for a 2028 presidential proposal. Perhaps our democracy has been on its verge before, but it does not make the abyss less dangerous. We need to think outside our regular reactions against democrats against the Republicans or democrats or cultural wars or partisan divisions or much more harmless stress factors that disturb our system in the past.

What I love about Jab is that it forces us to make speeches like this and asks ourselves how to fight differently.

Because this fight is different.

Barabak: This Pollyannaish may come, but I think there is nothing that cannot be corrected about these terrible times on the ballot.

Texas A competitive US Senate can be a race next year. If the Texas do not like the brutality and powers of GOP MPs, they can send a message by choosing a democrat and help the party overcome possibilities And take control of the room. This would check Trump, regardless of whether the Republicans were hung home.

In the hands of voters. If democracy will be protected and protected, it is up to them. He doesn’t plan politicians.