Trump forces Democrat policy flip-flop: ‘No choice’

Sparked by Texas House Republicans’ decision to follow President Donald Trump’s orders to redraw voting district lines mid-decade to deliver more GOP Congressional seats in the next election, Democrats are reluctantly reconsidering their ideals and indicating a willingness to follow suit after years of taking the moral high ground, Knewz.com can report. Leading the way in the national U-turn is California Governor Gavin Newsom, who’s backing a partisan power grab to redistrict in his state — a move designed specifically to cancel out Texas lawmakers’ efforts by giving Dems five more seats in Congress.

What Nancy Pelosi said then

It marks a major about-face for Democrats. In 2021, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, backed a national attempt to put a stop to partisan gerrymandering — the U.S. House of Representatives, which was then under her party’s control, even passed a bill to end it (that legislation, however, died in the Senate). “The people should choose their politicians,” Pelosi said at the time, adding, “Politicians should not be choosing their voters.”

What Nancy Pelosi says now

Amid Texas lawmakers’ efforts to redistrict to favor Republicans in the Lone Star state, Pelosi said she supports California’s current efforts to counter the move by the GOP to “rig the elections in their favor,” she told Politico, and redraw maps to improve Democrats’ chances of being elected to Congress. “While we continue to support enacting legislation to create nationwide independent redistricting commissions, Democrats must respond to Republicans’ blatant partisan power grab. Democrats cannot and will not unilaterally disarm,” Pelosi added.

Widespread rethinking

Pelosi isn’t the only Democrat who’s grown more willing to — temporarily, at least — change her stance. U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, now accepts that his party has to respond in kind. “I would rather fight fire with water and put gerrymandering out of business,” he told Politico. “But if the Republicans are going to plunge us into a race to the bottom, then we have to fight back with every means at our disposal.” Rep. Mike Quigley, a Democrat from Illinois, also weighed in. “Look, in an ideal world, these maps are drawn by nonpartisan commissions, and they represent what the Constitution said we should do,” he told the same outlet. “We’re not there yet. … So you can’t be a Boy Scout in a situation like this — you have to be as tough as they are.” Quigley added that even as his party pursues partisan gerrymandering to counter Republicans’ efforts, Dems should still keep “pushing and advocating” for national redistricting standards and “educating the public of where we can be and why it matters.”

More Democrats explain their shift

U.S. Representative from New York Joe Morelle, the top Democrat on the committee overseeing federal elections, told Politico that Trump’s efforts to get states to redistrict mid-decade to favor Republicans demands an emergency response. “I will be an advocate for continuing to try to create national standards, but until those national standards are agreed to by everyone, I think it’s going to make it increasingly difficult for states to continue to engage in a more nonpartisan system of redistricting,” Morelle said. “As with so many things, Donald Trump shatters the norms and the standards that we have lived for, and as we try to improve our democracy, he is just shattering it. We have no choice but to respond in kind.” Another notable Dem, John Bisognano — president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee — said his organization is now “taking a posture that we’re not going to oppose states taking corrective and temporary measures.”

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