Mid-decade redistricting and gerrymandering in CA and TX

Normally, congressional districts are re-drawn every 10 years, coinciding with the constitutionally-mandated decennial census. Congressional districts are often gerrymandered to favor the party that is drawing the lines, which serves to protect their power but also harms the democratic process because congressional races are often less competitive in the general election and more polarized in party primaries. Texas is one state that enacted gerrymandered district lines after the 2020 census. Now, those lines were probably not as aggressively gerrymandered as they could have been because, at the time, the Texas legislature was also concerned about protecting incumbents. There has also been significant population growth in Texas in the last 5 years and some notable changes in voting patterns among some demographics. The Texas legislature is now trying to change the district map mid-decade in order to maximize the power of Republicans. Other states such as California are considering retaliating against this through their own mid-decade redistricting that would be designed to optimize the representation of Democrats in the state. Unlike Texas, California has an independent commission that draws the congressional district lines, which limits the ability of any party to gerrymander. Gov. Gavin Newsom is arguing that this effectively amounts to unilateral disarmament in the fight for democracy and is calling a special election later this year wherein the voters will be asked whether to re-draw the district lines without using the independent commission just temporarily in an effort to counter the anti-democratic efforts of the Texas legislature. Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is campaigning against this move, as he was one of the major advocates of the creation of the independent commission in the first place.

We may ask: how do we preserve our democracy that seems threatened on many fronts? If some states are enacting these anti-democratic aggressive mid-decade redistricting efforts in order to optimize their party’s power, does it make sense to fight fire with fire, as Gov. Newsom is advocating? Or do we continue to try to uphold our democratic ideals in our own state of California and keep our redistricting commission and our independently drawn congressional map regardless of what is happening in other states, as former Gov. Schwarzenegger is advocating?