State Democrats united on redistricting effort

While Texas lawmakers prepare to redraw congressional district lines during a legislative special session, New York's top Democratic lawmakers are publicly weighing their options. U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said he’ll talk to Governor Hochul in August about doing just that. Hochul indicated last week that she’s open to it.

“All I’m going to say is all fair and love it more because we are following the rules. We've been redistricting every 10 years. But there's other states they're violating the rules that are going to try and get themselves an advantage. All I'll say is, I'm going to look at it closely with the Hakeem.”

Although the district lines are drawn by an independent commission, the state legislature has final approval. Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes says she’s willing to approve any map that gives democrats a better chance at picking up more congressional seats.

“I would personally be willing to do that for the congressional races, because, as you know, the current president, who led an insurrection, is convicted of 34 felonies, all sorts of existing torrid behavior for a grown adult man is encouraging that this should happen in Texas, and he's not encouraging that for the benefits of the 10 million people that are going to be put off from Medicaid.”

“How long are you gonna let people keep punching you in the face and you keep turning your back as if nothing's going on?”

When redistricting happens, there are often accusations of gerrymandering. Former New York State Senator Ed Rath III, who lost reelection in large part due to district lines being redrawn in 2022, wonders how many times state Democrats will go back to redrawing the lines.

"We’ve gotten very far away from the Independent Redistricting model to know where we see in New York state, the state legislature drawing up the congressional lines, which they did in 2024 just last year, they redraw, redrew the lines. So how many times do the Democrats want to go back to redrawing the lines?"

"This has become such a partisan process, and the people in general, are frustrated with partisan politics, and they're tired of the acrimony that happens back and forth during this redistricting process every 10 years or in New York state, it seems like just about every other year we're going through some type of a redistricting dialogue."

Current congressional republicans have chimed in with their thoughts as well. Mike Lawler and Elise Stefanik claimed any changes would be against the state constitution.

It’s unclear yet how Democratic leaders would legally approach redistricting in New York, but the consensus is any movement would not take effect until after the 2026 midterms.