The fight is on. How redistricting could unfold in Missouri and 7 other states

NPR ^ | August 15, 2025

[MinorityRepublican]

State leaders in both parties say they're ready to redraw political lines ahead of 2026, but state laws and constitutions make mid-decade redistricting virtually impossible in many places. In Missouri, Republicans are taking aim at Kansas City's U.S. House seat.

President Trump sparked a national sprint to redistrict when he asked Texas Republicans to draw five more congressional seats for the GOP in their state ahead of next year's elections.

In response, Democratic and Republican leaders in at least seven other states have said they're open to moving their political lines in the fight over the U.S. House, but that means very different things in different places.

States are often bound by constitutional language and laws that dictate how redistricting happens. And time is running out for maps to be set ahead of the 2026 midterms.

[military cop]

Why is NPR still on the air?

[Dr. Sivana]

Why is NPR still on the air?

Funding from left wing foundations, corporations, and people who are not like us.

[xp38]

It might take some time for the cutoff of funds to start biting.

[ransomnote]

George Soros is perhaps their #1 fan?

[vpintheak]

This is a battle conservatives with balls can win and nutless beta leftists will lose. Nutless leftists aren’t used to republicans fighting back because they’ve been scared of their shadows for so long. Maybe some fight will happen, finally!

[Alas Babylon!]

President Trump sparked a national sprint to redistrict when he asked Texas Republicans to draw five more congressional seats for the GOP in their state ahead of next year's elections.

Liars! This wasn't started or especially "sparked" by Trump. These SOBs at NPR know the democrats started with the gerrymandering long before Trump.

[nathanbedford]

Assuming redistricting can sweep across the country, should we support or oppose the trend?

Conventional political science theory says that heavily gerrymandered districts produce a Congress more extreme of left and right. If that should be the case, would Congress be moved to the left or to the right? There is a general demographic trend towards the south that presumably would enhance the Republican caucus. Northern states like New York, Illinois and California are losing residents to the South because their high taxes, regulations, crime, cost of housing and deteriorating education make refugees of the middle class. Presumably, the demographics would favor the Republicans with a large majority in the House.

A polarized Congress would probably have implications for party discipline. Currently, Republicans in Congress are vulnerable to indiscipline because the margins are so thin and even a few rogue Republicans can block the party's initiatives. Increasing the Republican majority would certainly stand to undermine the power of mavericks.

Democrats, in contrast, have traditionally been a party more disciplined than Republicans even though they pretend otherwise. One thinks of homespun cowboy political humorist, Will Rogers, who quipped, "I don't belong to any organized political party, I am a Democrat." Democrats are not the free spirits they pretend to be, rather they are subject to rather ruthless discipline from donors and from the institutions which they have co-opted into their party. On balance, I don't think the Democrats would be any more effective even if they surprisingly became more disciplined.

If Republicans became a larger, more disciplined majority party, how would they govern differently?

First, assuming control of the White House and Senate they certainly would govern more effectively. They probably would be able to raise money easier, after all, they would have more power. The party would tend to be further right and the less receptive to Rino fringe members. With greater discipline, one would expect the House to be even less deliberative, less accommodating and more rigid in its procedures as well as in the bills it advances.

If Democrats become a smaller, poorer minority party how would they conduct themselves?

I would expect them to become more shrill, more demagogic and more Marxist, meaning more racialist, class warfare minded, and more divisive in general. In sum, the Democrats would seek to attack the Republican majority as they always have, by identifying and exploiting potential splits in the culture. Their resources would have diminished and the action would be moved away from legacy media that has traditionally supported them to the new frontier of social media. There demagoguery will only be more poisonous.

So the country will move to the right, until and unless some intervening event upsets the order of things, such as a war, a depression or pestilence, or until the Republican Party forgets its roots and spins off into corruption.

[Bullish]

Tick toc... Tick toc... for NPR.

[fella]

Gerrymandering is one of the worst forms of racism. It gives US political horrors like Adam Schiff, Lindsey Gramm and you can name hundreds more.

[unclebankster]

Good post.

Thanks.

[lurk]

MO is solid red outside the boundaries of the two big cities. And those two populations are committing self-elimination.

[Political Junkie Too]

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is charging ahead with a plan to bring the redistricting fight directly to voters in a special election on November 4.

Newsom, with the support of Democrats in the state legislature, is looking to redraw California's congressional maps to help Democrats pick up five additional U.S. House seats. Californians handed line-drawing power to an independent commission more than a decade ago, so Newsom's plan can only move forward with voter approval.

The state legislature reconvenes on August 18, and lawmakers will have until August 22 to place a redistricting measure on the ballot. The map that will go before voters is expected to be released later this week.

I don't think we will ever see this new California map.

Newsom knows that it is unconstitutional in California to put forth a map that was not created by the "independent commission" and that only maps created by the independent commission are legal until the state Constitution is changed. Newsom's map must wait until the Constitution is changed BEFORE he can put it on the ballot; putting it on the ballot now would be putting an illegal map before the voters.

Newsom cannot put a constitutional amendment AND the fruit of the constitutional change on the same ballot.

See this post of mine for the details.

-PJ

[HANG THE EXPENSE]

One of the problems within the republican party is just too many demorats.

[citizen]

I do not equate gerrymandering with racism. That’s something Democrats & their media would say.

Gerrymandering has always been primarily a political power ploy.

[Nachoman]

Laws are for Republicans.

[nathanbedford]

That would be addressed to a great degree by a broad gerrymandering among the states.

[Machavelli]

Democrats talk democracy but ten east coast states have NO republican representatives even though republicans make up a considerable percentage of the vote.

[Wallace T.]

In the 12 Eastern states north of North Carolina, there are only two U.S. Senators: Collins from Maine and McCormick from Pennsylvania.

[Ex-Con777]

“ President Trump sparked a national sprint to redistrict when he asked Texas Republicans to draw five more congressional seats for the GOP in their state ahead of next year’s elections.”

Liars they surely are!

The Biden DOJ filed suit against Texas in December 2021 to redraw their districts to comply with the Voting Rights Act “ because it both was enacted with an intent to discriminate against Latino and Black Texan voters…”

https://thearp.org/litigation/united-states-v-texas/

Texas is complying, but the Hispanic vote swung heavily red and the dems are regretting it.

Truthfully, it was started by Biden and Trump had nothing to do with it.

EC