House Republicans say they have little to do with the planning to redraw congressional lines across the South ahead of this year’s midterm elections. The decisions around that, they say, are owned by the White House and state legislatures.
President Donald Trump’s push to create new, Republican-friendly congressional districts could determine whether the party controls the House of Representatives. Many of the members who already hold seats say they are leaving the gamesmanship to state-level party heads and are figuring out their new districts on their own.
“I had been campaigning and going to diners and things in eight counties I no longer represent,” Tennessee Rep. Scott DesJarlais, whose race will be more competitive as his district takes up parts of Nashville, told NOTUS. “It’s just out of my hands, and so I just have to deal with what it is.”
He called the move to redistrict in Tennessee “a top-down strategy.”
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Tennessee was one of the fastest states to redistrict following the April Louisiana v. Callais Supreme Court ruling that significantly weakened the Voting Rights Act. In a Truth Social post last month, Trump said he had spoken with Gov. Bill Lee about redrawing the state’s maps. Days later, the state approved a map friendlier to Republicans.
“If the president hadn’t asked that to happen, it probably wouldn’t have. You saw Indiana,” DesJarlais said, referring to the state senators who, after refusing to redraw their lines, lost to Trump-backed challengers earlier this month.
As Republicans take steps to make districts favorable for their party, Democrats are beginning to campaign against the power grab. They are mobilizing voters who are dissatisfied with the changes to head to the polls and planning their own redistricting efforts.
Though Rep. Robert Aderholt’s district isn’t changing much in Alabama — another state that rushed to redistrict after the Supreme Court ruling — he told NOTUS that House Republicans “talk about” redistricting amid “a lot of uncertainty” about districts being redrawn and the new timing of primaries. But that doesn’t mean they get input.
“Our hands are tied because it’s all done at the state level,” Aderholt said.
The same goes for North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson, even as chair of the House’s Republican campaign arm.
“No one asked my opinion on redistricting,” Hudson told reporters last week. “It wasn’t my idea.”
Republicans stand to gain up to 17 House seats, compared to Democrats’ six, as part of the ongoing redistricting wars, according to Stateline. Many of those Republican pickups came after the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision, which opened the floodgates for red states to carve up previously protected majority-minority districts.
Central to that case was a majority-Black district in Louisiana. When the court decided that district was unconstitutional because lawmakers relied too heavily on race in creating it, Louisiana state lawmakers moved to redraw their states’ congressional lines.
One House member who could acquire some of that district’s constituents under the new map Louisiana lawmakers are considering is House Speaker Mike Johnson.
“It basically goes back to the way it was,” Johnson told NOTUS when asked about his new district. “So, you know, we’re familiar with those maps.”
House Republicans also report limited, if any, conversation with state legislators who are in charge of designing their districts.
“I’ve had zero conversations with any governor or state legislator about any district, on purpose, because I have no impact on it,” Hudson said, adding that his team has “daily” conversations with the White House about upcoming House races. “It’s a state responsibility.”
Rep. William Timmons of South Carolina told NOTUS he’d be comfortable no matter what his district ultimately looks like, but he’s only heard “a little bit” from state legislators. Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana told NOTUS he’d spoken with the governor and some state legislators, “but those conversations have been along the lines of, ‘I respect your authority, and you have to comply with the ruling of the Supreme Court.’”
Some lawmakers districts’ are getting safer under redistricting, while others are having to give up reliably Republican parts of their districts to create the new maps. Even in districts that stay solidly red despite line changes, or even ones becoming more Republican-friendly, they’ll still have to meet new voters.
“The state legislature exclusively controls this, so we really have no say,” Tennessee Rep. Chuck Fleischmann told NOTUS. “We’re either the beneficiaries or the victims of that.”
Following his state’s decision to rapidly redistrict, Fleischmann spent part of the weekend following the redraw visiting the two new counties that his district had grown to include. Fleischmann said that among Republicans, there is a “renewed sense of optimism” because of redistricting efforts.
“I’m really not affected in my district, but I am affected whether or not I’ll be in the majority or minority,” Fleischmann said.
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