The Arms Race That’s Slowly Undoing, Not Saving, Democracy
Texas’ gerrymandering fight, where lawmakers claim saving democracy requires manipulating it, is the latest example of hyper-partisanship.
While Texas communities still dig out from devastating floods, their elected officials are playing an expensive game of hide-and-seek.
Democratic lawmakers fled the state rather than face a Republican redistricting power grab designed to hand President Trump five more congressional seats. The Republican response? Threaten arrest. The national Democratic counterpunch? Promises to gerrymander everything they control in retaliation.
It seems we're in the latest round of America's democratic erosion, dressed up as salvation. It’s a gerrymandering arm’s race.
I've written extensively about our current political climate — the manufactured outrages, the theatrical distractions. Unlike most of that noise, gerrymandering actually does matter. It fundamentally alters democracy by rigging who gets elected to Congress. In a system this manipulated, Americans lose their ability to hold power accountable, and further lose their trust.
Here's the bitter irony: The one thing Americans agree on is they don’t want gerrymandering. Nine out of ten Americans say they don't want parties manipulating maps for political advantage. Yet here we are in 2025, watching a crisis of leadership in both parties deliver exactly that.
Portrait of Fearless Leadership
Just eleven days after Texas floods devastated communities, President Trump called Texas Republicans with a redistricting scheme. The timing was interesting — right after previously impeached Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is now challenging the Republican Senate incumbent, faced fresh scandal. His wife, Senator Angela Paxton, after she previously stood by her man, announced she would file for divorce on "Biblical" grounds, alluding to unnamed recent discoveries.
The day of Trump's call, he took to social media: "Just spoke to our Great Congressmen and women of Texas... I keep hearing about Texas 'going Blue,' but it is just another Democrat LIE. With the right Candidate, Texas isn't 'going Blue' anytime soon!"
The plan? Redraw maps that had just been redrawn, including some boundaries still being challenged in court. Within weeks, Republicans pushed through new boundaries with minimal input and scheduled the special session vote.
Texas Democrats declared they were fleeing to preserve democracy. Their chosen sanctuary? Illinois — the ancestral home of highly partisan, already-gerrymandered political maps. If you're making a moral stand about fair representation, there must be better symbolic hideouts than my home state under JB Pritzker's watchful eye.
But the theater wasn't finished. A small band of political nomads then moved to New York, where they refused to reveal their strategy at a press conference, claiming they didn't want opponents knowing their next destination.
Meanwhile, the Texas Republicans decided to threaten arrests, though there's scant evidence the civil offense would trigger extradition. They promised to "hunt down" the lawmakers. Nothing says serious governance like turning the legislature into a manhunt.
Both sides have used the recent floods as a political cudgel. Democrats noted Governor Greg Abbott hadn't attended a single victim's funeral, arguing they wanted flood relief but got gerrymandering instead. Republicans countered they couldn't vote on flood funding because Democrats refused to show up for redistricting.
Lost in this posturing are Texas's actual crises. This is a state with the highest uninsured rate in America, an energy grid that has failed when it's needed most, and looming water shortages even as communities recover from floods. And the trigger for this special session? The Governor vetoed a bill banning THC.
The South Park episode writes itself.
The Contagion Spreads
Here's the thing about Texas: The Longhorn state’s problems don't stay confined. The virus of hyper partisanship is infecting other states.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who oversees a state with a nonpartisan process for drawing districts, has suggested if the Trump maps are codified in Texas, then his state could spin up a new map to put on the ballot by November of this year.
Gov. Kathy Hochul in New York promises to do much the same, despite legal hurdles. She even claims voters will now support it because of what Texans are doing. Maybe so. It looks like California will test the thesis.
Pritzker, already presiding over Illinois districts that look like a maze, said redistricting would be “on the table.”
The message from Democratic leadership is clear. As party Chair Ken Martin put it on CNN: they're not going to bring a pencil to a knife fight. This isn't their grandfather's Democratic Party, Martin declared — they're going to fight fire with fire.
But somehow it seems we all get burned.
Trump's target isn't subtle. After their meetings, Texas lawmakers prioritized redrawing districts like the one represented by Rep. Jasmine Crockett, an outspoken Trump critic. New boundaries are expected to deliver five GOP seats — all in an off-year when redistricting isn't normal, and when Republicans are sweating economic data and worried about midterm results.
The Path Forward Requires Honesty
I understand why Texas Democrats felt compelled to act. They worried redistricting would disappear in the Trump drama noise, falling under the radar. They wanted a megaphone — and got one.
But here's my hope: that they're honest about what this really is.
They're not saving democracy through redistricting. They're doing exactly what Republicans are doing — manipulating the system because Donald Trump is targeting legislators who criticize him, working to consolidate power.
And it sucks. All of it sucks, most of all for the American people who watch their representatives abandon governance for theater, who see their democracy slowly cannibalized by the very people sworn to protect it.
In this arms race of democratic destruction, there are no winners. It’s just the slow erosion of the thing both sides claim to be saving.
As a Texas native and resident, I think it’s shameful to attempt to redraw maps mid-decade. The precedent it sets and the potential counter-attempts by blue states will be a damaging blow to democracy, as you mention.
I will say there are plenty of Texans fired up about this, and not just those on the left.
“Nine out of ten Americans say they don't want parties manipulating maps for political advantage” Obviously, not so much in Texas! After the horrific tragedy from the flood just a month ago, where is the moral outrage from Texans that their Governor and AG are more concerned with prostrating themselves before Trump above taking steps to safeguard their citizens. You may not like hearing this but turning the other cheek is not a strategy when dealing with unscrupulous politicians. An eye for an eye, a gerrymander for a gerrymander.