Trump's bid to rig the House is no mere map war

Four-and-a-half years ago, President Donald Trump phoned Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and demanded a reversal of the state’s 2020 election tally.

"All I want to do is this," Trump told the Republican official. "I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have." It sounded as if the president thought he was ordering a DoorDash dinner.  

Raffensperger rightly refused — despite facing denunciations and threats from the ruling faction of his party during the scandal-ridden end of Trump’s term in January 2021.

Now that Trump is back, he's looking to bias next year’s congressional contests, this time in advance. He wants Republicans who control Texas to carry out an ad hoc redistricting of its U.S. House seats to pave the way for five more GOP districts. His party now has an uncomfortably close 219-212 majority.

Unlike Georgia’s officials in 2021, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton, the state’s attorney general, are feverishly pushing this new MAGA assault against bipartisan governance. Paxton especially has always been eager to take exotic steps for Trump — such as unsuccessfully suing to nullify the election procedures of Democratic states in the same 2020 debacle.

Since tilting Texas alone won’t accomplish its goals, and with leaders of blue states vowing to respond in kind with gerrymandering of their own, the Trump team is approaching other GOP domains, in the Midwest. On Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance was due to meet with Indiana’s Republican governor, Mike Braun, possibly to press him into a Texas-like redistricting.

But in America, individual states and their citizens elect their own leaders and do not exist to follow personal directives from national bosses. Braun, who couldn’t be thrilled at the White House's interference, said: "Whatever we discuss there, and if that topic comes up, it’s exploratory. There’s been no commitments made."

Trump, 79, is clearly motivated like no previous president not to let either chamber of Congress slip from his grasp next year. As in 2018, the House, in Democratic hands, would have the power to check Trump's most fevered policies and actions. It could effectively investigate for wrongdoing, usurpations and Constitution-breaching behavior.

For all his hype about "deals," everyone knows Trump does not reach compromises necessary to share power with anyone, even if the design of our Constitution demands it. Losing one or both houses to Democrats could turn bitter his last two years as president.

For the public, the more relevant question is what the "out" parties — Democrats in red states and Republicans in blue states — could face as a redistricting war escalates. Are they fated to lose ground or wither away? Current House delegation numbers vary. In Texas, there are 25 Republicans, and 12 Democrats. In New York, it’s 19-7 Democratic. California and Illinois are 43-9 and 14-3 respectively.

There are worries within Trump’s party about all this. Republican Reps. Mike Lawler of New York and Kevin Kiley of California are demanding nationwide limits on partisan gerrymandering. That has not traditionally been a Republican position.

Trump’s Texas gambit benefits neither incumbent, at least in the short run. There’s no sign that this president can be made to care, however. He is determined to be the lone star of his own partisan drama for better or worse — just as he was in the failed election-denial scheme four years ago. The rest of America is left to worry about the polarizing chaos ahead.

Columnist Dan Janison's opinions are his own.

By Dan Janison

dan.janison@newsday.comDanJanison

Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.