'Birth certificate of multiracial democracy': NAACP attorney makes case to save Voting Rights Act

In June, Texas Republicans announced a plan to redraw the state's congressional districts. The goal was clear: flip as many as five Democratic-held seats in the House of Representatives to the GOP.

That revision, which was enacted in August, is already transforming American politics -- and decidedly for the worse. Red and blue states are engaged in a redistricting arms race that risks creating, in effect, one-party red and blue states and further sharpening the country's partisan divides.

The latest state to jump on the redistricting bandwagon is Virginia, where state Democratic leaders are considering a plan to amend the state's constitution to allow for redistricting that could potentially flip two to three House seats from red to blue.

This move comes on the heels of Missouri Republicans revising their congressional map to target the district held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. In North Carolina, already one of the most heavily gerrymandered states in the country, state Republicans passed legislation redrawing the state's congressional map to potentially flip one House seat from blue to red. California voters appear poised to pass a referendum that would amend the state constitution to allow mid-decade redistricting. The move, made in direct response to Texas' redistricting, could flip as many as five or six Republican-held seats to Democrats.

Other redistricting efforts by Republicans in Florida, Louisiana and Kansas, and by Democrats in Maryland and Illinois, are also under consideration. Ohio is already required to redraw the state's congressional maps, which will likely give the GOP a boost of one to three seats. A plan to redraw maps in Indiana, pushed heavily by the White House, is in jeopardy because Republicans in the state legislature are balking.

The irony of all these partisan machinations is that if Democrats are successful in California and Virginia, it would likely cancel out the GOP's redistricting efforts, or ensure that Republican efforts yield only a handful of potential flips.

But Texas' gambit is already opening the floodgates to even greater partisan redistricting. For example, in both Virginia and California, Democrats are seeking to undo their party's previous good-government initiatives. In 2008 and 2010, Californians voted to create an independent redistricting commission to redraw congressional maps. In 2020, Virginia voters approved an amendment to the state constitution creating a nonpartisan redistricting commission. Both had strong Democratic support. But Texas' brazen redistricting effort led Democrats in both states to scrap those plans and pursue partisan redistricting.

And other states may soon follow suit. In New York, Democrats are discussing plans to amend the state constitution to allow mid-decade redistricting that would take effect by the 2028 midterms. In Colorado, Democrats are floating the idea of amending the state constitution to allow emergency redistricting in 2028. Such a move could shift three to four seats from red to blue. Democrats in New Jersey, Michigan, Minnesota, or Pennsylvania and Wisconsin (if Democrats take control of the legislatures in the latter two states) could face similar partisan pressure to abandon independent redistricting commissions.

All this maneuvering is the logical outcome of the Supreme Court's 2019 decision allowing partisan redistricting to go forward. The Court ruled that while partisan gerrymandering may be "incompatible with democratic principles," it was not an issue that federal courts could remedy.

The Court's decision was akin to handing a 16-year-old the keys to a sports car. Once Republicans were given the chance to redraw maps that benefited their members, they were more than eager to take the wheel. While Democrats pursued nonpartisan redistricting commissions, Republicans saw a political opportunity.

Indeed, Democrats at the federal level offered a legislative off-ramp from this intensifying political arms race: the For the People Act, which would ban partisan gerrymandering and require independent redistricting commissions in every state. This legislation, which passed the House in 2019 and 2021, has been filibustered by Senate Republicans.

The Supreme Court would add insult to injury if it moves to further dismember Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which allows for the creation of majority-Black districts in Southern states. In a recent SCOTUS hearing on a redistricting case in Louisiana, the Court's conservative members hinted that they are leaning in that direction. If it happens, it could shift a dozen or more seats to the GOP, which would put even greater pressure on Democrats in blue states to respond.

If Democrats embrace partisan gerrymandering in 2028, it could have significant implications two years later, as congressional districts will be redrawn again in 2030, in concert with the constitutionally mandated census.

Ironically, the GOP's redistricting ploy could push Democrats to go nuclear on partisan redistricting in 2030, potentially cancelling out most of the partisan gains Republicans stand to make from redrawing maps in Texas, Missouri and elsewhere.

So all these special legislative sessions, state constitution amendments and costly referendums could change little. But make no mistake: They will have an impact.

A redistricting race to the bottom will create more and more one-party states, with little to no federal representation from a rival political party.

The country's already substantial political divides will grow wider and deeper. The standard criticism of gerrymandering is that it allows politicians to choose their voters. The current redistricting craze could have an even more enduring impact -- by allowing both political parties to choose what kind of country they want: a red one or a blue one.

Opinion | Red and blue states are in a redistricting arms race to the bottom