Democrats don’t hate gerrymandering

When more than fifty Texas House Democrats bolted for Illinois to deny Republicans a quorum, legacy media lauded them as modern-day freedom riders. Spare us. The walk-out is no act of moral resistance; it is partisan self-preservation wrapped in civil-rights cosplay. Democrats don’t despise gerrymandering – they despise losing control of the process.

Texas Republicans, who hold both chambers and the governor’s mansion, are pursuing a mid-decade redraw that could net five new GOP-leaning congressional seats. That is tough, bare-knuckle politics, but it is also constitutional. Map-making belongs to state legislatures, and nothing in Texas law forbids drawing lines more than once a decade. Faced with that reality, Democrats chose not to debate, amend, or even vote “no.” They chose to run.

This sudden squeamishness about partisan maps is rich coming from a party that gerrymanders with surgical precision whenever it can. New York Democrats ignored their own “independent” commission, rammed through a cartoonishly lopsided map, and only retreated after the courts slapped it down. Illinois has spent the last decade erasing Republican districts from the political landscape altogether. Maryland’s lines meander like spilled ink – by design.

Yet those same map manipulators now clutch their pearls in Chicago hotel suites, tweeting about democracy while Texans go unrepresented.

Look closer and you’ll see the deeper motive: desperation. Texas Democrats have hemorrhaged credibility at home. Crime is up, test scores are down and housing costs outpace wages in the urban districts they dominate. Voters notice. So leadership reaches for the one trick that still excites the base – dramatic protest. Anything to suggest they still have a spine.

By fleeing the chamber, they trade policy defeats for viral theatrics, banking on images of lawmakers on buses and group selfies in O’Hare to prove they can “fight back.” It is camouflage, not courage – an attempt to hide a record of failure beneath a banner of resistance.

Suppose Democrats truly believe partisan line-drawing disenfranchises voters. They could champion real reform: an independent redistricting commission with teeth. Not the performative panels blue states tout – actual neutrality. Membership chosen by citizen lottery or bipartisan balance; bans on using party registration, racial data, or incumbency protection; meetings livestreamed and maps insulated from legislative override. Enshrine it in the state constitution so neither party can claw the pencil back.

Yes, some Republicans will balk at surrendering a tool they presently wield. But conservatives who preach limited, accountable government should welcome rules that keep both sides honest. Power worth having is power worth checking – even when it’s ours.

Democrats will never take that deal, and we know why: outrage is easier than self-restraint. Calling the Texas map “Jim Crow 2.0” rouses donors and distracts from the party’s policy drought. Meanwhile, friendly gerrymanders in Illinois or California remain sacrosanct. Their moral compass points due partisan.

Walk-outs aren’t new. In 2003 and again in 2021, Texas Democrats fled to block bills they lacked the votes to defeat. Both times the legislation eventually passed. This sequel will end the same way: Republicans will pass a map, courts will sift the details and the spectacle will fade. What remains is a public further convinced that politics is performance art.

Democratic lawmakers insist they left to defend democracy. In truth they left to defend a narrative – that they’re still relevant, still fighting, still worth the checks small-dollar donors write. It is easier to board a plane than to explain why neighborhoods they represent remain unsafe, schools underperform and budgets bleed red.

Texans deserve better than Kabuki theatre. They deserve representatives who stay in the chamber, duke it out and then face voters on the merits. They deserve a redistricting process neither party can rig. Until Democrats (and, yes, many Republicans) submit to that principle, every map will be suspect and every session one tantrum away from paralysis.

The moral crisis here isn’t that partisan maps exist; it’s that politicians would rather stage-manage outrage than fix the rules. Gerrymandering will survive this drama. Public trust may not.

Because the problem with gerrymandering isn’t which party does it. The problem is that anyone can – and both parties will, until we make it impossible.