House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) revealed a plan on Wednesday to pick up a dozen congressional seats for the Democratic Party.
Jeffries called on Democrats in blue states, particularly New York, New Jersey, Washington, Colorado, Oregon, Maryland, and Illinois, to act “aggressively” to counteract Republicans’ gerrymandering push with their own redistricting agenda, during a CNN interview. The development comes as the Left looks to rebound from a bruising couple of weeks in the redistricting war, after a Supreme Court ruling sparked the redrawing of political maps favoring Republicans and Virginia’s top court blocked Democrats from implementing a plan that would likely have netted the party four House seats.
“We cannot exist in an environment where Republicans are free to gerrymander congressional districts out of existence without an expectation that Democrats are going to respond immediately and forcefully,” Jeffries said this week.
Jeffries and his allies have designed plans to push blue states to set aside nonpartisan redistricting rules and aggressively gerrymander to shift at least 12 seats toward Democrats by the 2028 elections, according to the outlet. The effort could cost hundreds of millions of dollars over the next two years.
Democrats’ plans face an uphill battle. In Maryland, the state Senate already refused in April to advance an effort to redraw the state’s maps, despite holding support from Gov. Wes Moore (D-MD). This followed a Supreme Court ruling that squashed a Democratic effort in New York to redraw last year, even as Jeffries continues the redistricting campaign in his home state.
In Illinois, the state’s laws allowing for race-based districting came under fire just last week. Former state Rep. Jeanne Ives filed a lawsuit challenging the Illinois Voting Rights Act of 2011 on Friday, in light of the Supreme Court’s recent Louisiana v. Callais ruling, which established that states should be given more freedom to draw political maps without prioritizing racial outcomes. Ives’s lawsuit comes after Illinois Senate President Don Harmon, a Democrat, told Capitol News Illinois that his caucus decided against pursuing a constitutional amendment on redistricting after the Callais ruling.
In New Jersey, a top Democratic leader said Tuesday that he was taking a “real hard look at the possibility of redistricting.” Senate President Nick Scutari’s comments come after Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) previously confirmed she was open to mid-decade redistricting.
“We can’t just let states like Texas [redraw maps] when New Jersey can be in that fight,” Scutari said. “We’re having active discussions, and I’m in favor of that.”
In Colorado, Jeffries could already have the wheels turning on redistricting.
House Majority Forward, a super PAC tied to Jeffries, gave $150,000 earlier this year to Coloradans For a Level Playing Field, the issue committee pushing several redistricting initiatives in the state, according to the Colorado Sun.
Oregon and Washington have been named as targets for gerrymandering by the States Project, which invests in Democratic legislative races. The States Project told the New York Times earlier this month that it is also targeting Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania, where the organization hopes gains in state legislatures could protect or add as many as nine Democratic congressional seats for the 2028 cycle.
Washington has long relied on an independent redistricting commission to draw district lines. But Washington State Democratic Party Chairwoman Shasti Conrad recently suggested that if her party secures a legislative supermajority, lawmakers could look for a workaround, as party members float a new map.
TENNESSEE DEMOCRATS WHO PROTESTED NEW MAP STRIPPED OF COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS
“I am not pushing for us to undo the independent redistricting system,” Conrad told the Washington State Standard last week. “But there’s a national discussion that is happening around how to meet the moment. … We’re having to fight fire with fire.”
“Washington state is not going to just sit by while Donald Trump and his allies in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio seek to rig the U.S. House to lock in a Republican majority,” Washington House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon of West Seattle added in January, when he led an ultimately unsuccessful redistricting push.