A Republican representative has waded into the redistricting war—but not on Donald Trump’s side.
California Representative Kevin Kiley introduced legislation Monday to prevent congressional districts from being redrawn mid-decade. The bill, though ostensibly targeted at California Governor Gavin Newsom, would nullify any new districts drawn before the 2030 census.
“This is already the law in California under our State Constitution, which provides that redistricting is done once a decade by an Independent Commission,” Kiley posted on X about his new bill’s boundaries. “But Newsom is planning to blow all of this up so he can impose his own partisan map on voters before the next election.”
“Fortunately, Congress has the ability to protect California voters using its authority under the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution. This will also stop a damaging redistricting war from breaking out across the country,” he continued.
Kiley conveniently left out the reason this war has broken out in the first place: President Donald Trump’s push for Texas to gerrymander its districts beyond recognition in a quest to maintain a Republican majority in the House of Representatives.
Some powerful blue state governors such as Newsom and Kathy Hochul of New York have abandoned their traditional resistance to gerrymandering, threatening to redraw their own districts to create more Democratic representatives in response.
“This is war. We are at war. And that’s why the gloves are off and I say, bring it on,” Hochul said Monday.
Democratic representatives from Texas aren’t playing around, either. They’ve fled the state, making it impossible for the Texas House to reach a quorum and vote on the new maps.
Despite his stated focus on fighting Newsom in California, if Kiley were to pass his bill, it would also nullify any new districts drawn in Texas.
And to be fair, Kiley’s loud silence on Texas’s redistricting may not just be an attempt to fly under the radar of a vengeful, gerrymander-happy president: it could also be a purely self-motivated attempt to keep his seat!
The post GOP Representative Rushes to Block Texas’s Growing Redistricting War appeared first on New Republic.
