Declaring that “this is a war,” Gov. Kathy Hochul pledged on Monday to respond in kind to Texas Republicans’ move to redraw that state’s congressional districts to further advantage their party in the 2026 midterm elections.
In a blistering rebuke to the Republican-dominated Texas House of Representatives, whose effort to redraw the state’s congressional districts to flip five seats now held by Democrats led most of the Texas House’s Democratic delegation to flee the state to prevent a quorum and adoption of the proposed redrawn map, Governor Hochul said, “we’re not going to tolerate our democracy being stolen.”
Speaking in Albany, the governor was flanked by six of those Democrats of the Texas House of Representatives, along with New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie. “If Republicans are willing to rewrite these rules to give themselves an advantage,” she said, “then they’re leaving us no choice, we must do the same.” She is “exploring with our leaders every option to redraw our state congressional lines as soon as possible. . . . We’re already working on a legislative process reviewing our legal strategies and we’ll do everything in our power to stop this brazen assault,” she said.
Though redrawing of congressional and state legislative districts typically follows the decennial United States census, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas called a special session of the Legislature last month, with redistricting among the agenda items. Republicans, reportedly at the direction of President Trump, have advanced a bill to redraw the boundaries so that heavily Democratic districts would include enough Republican voters to flip them to Republican control.
The New York State Legislature voted early in 2022 to redraw the state’s congressional districts in a way that would have made a Democratic gain of three seats more likely. But the Independent Redistricting Commission, the creation of which voters approved in 2014 to reform the redistricting process to introduce greater independence, conduct rational line-drawing, and protect minority voting rights, could not agree on a redrawn map.
The matter was relegated to the Legislature, where Democrats held a majority in the Assembly and Senate. Republicans accused the Legislature of gerrymandering, the manipulation of electoral boundaries to favor one party over another that is practiced in many states and by Republicans and Democrats alike. A judge declared all of the redrawn legislative district maps unconstitutional, blocking their use. In a split decision, the State Court of Appeals sided with the Republican complainants and appointed an expert to draw new boundaries. Those were certified in May 2022.
Concurrent bills introduced in the New York State Legislature last week would amend the Constitution to authorize the state to redraw congressional district lines at any time if another state does so more than once in a 10-year period. But because an amendment to the Constitution requires passage in two consecutive sessions before being put to voters, it would not go into effect before the 2028 election.
Representative Nick LaLota of New York’s First Congressional District, a Republican and an early endorser of Mr. Trump’s 2024 candidacy, told The Star on Tuesday, “Unlike Texas, New York’s Constitution explicitly bans partisan gerrymandering — and Governor Hochul knows it, because in 2022 she tried to ram through maps, including one that would have stretched our district from Plum Island to Plainview, before being struck down by the state’s highest court.” There was no reply from a spokeswoman when asked if the congressman supports the Texas effort to gerrymander congressional districts for partisan advantage.
Amid the effort in Texas, other states are also exploring mid-decade redistricting, including California, Missouri, and Ohio.
Redrawing congressional boundaries for partisan advantage “has helped lead to the current hyper-partisanship and polarization” in the United States, said John Avlon, the former CNN anchor, author, and 2024 Democratic candidate for New York’s First District. Current efforts at gerrymandering, he said, are “nothing but a partisan power grab designed to try to blunt the force of the midterms to be a check and balance on Trump’s power. States like New York have tried to do the right thing, and we find ourselves in sort of an arms race.”
Should Texas and Ohio Republicans succeed in redrawing their congressional maps, “it will take at least New York to retaliate,” Mr. Avlon said. “But I think that’s a dangerous path . . . a sign of very dangerous times. We all need to be clear-eyed about that.”
Voters, Governor Hochul said on Monday, are “ready to vote Republicans out of power in Washington, certainly in the upcoming 2026 elections.” Republicans, she charged, “know they’ll lose the elections, but to subvert the will of the people, they’re hell-bent on rigging the system. Rigging the system is un-American.”
