Aug 6, 2025 minute read

California’s GOP Rep. Kevin Kiley and New York‘s Mike Lawler have both introduced independent legislation to prevent mid-decade redistricting in their states. Texas is currently engaged in a partisan fight among state lawmakers over redistricting, which has caused governors in both New York and California to threaten redistricting as well as a means to decrease GOP representation.

“I am introducing legislation in Congress to stop Newsom’s corrupt scheme to overthrow our Citizens Redistricting Commission and make California a permanent one-party state,” said Kiley.

“My bill prohibits congressional districts from being redrawn in the middle of the decade. This is already the law in California under our State Constitution,” Kiley went on, “which provides that redistricting is done once a decade by an Independent Commission. But Newsom is planning to blow all of this up so he can impose his own partisan map on voters before the next election.

“Fortunately, Congress has the ability to protect California voters using its authority under the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution. This will also stop a damaging redistricting war from breaking out across the country,” he said.

“In 2021, New York Democrats tried to jam through an amendment to the constitution to weaken our independent commission,” said Lawler. “Voters rejected it. Yet, that didn’t stop New York Democrats. They proceeded to gerrymander our maps and try to rig our elections in 2022. 

“The courts threw it out and ordered a new map — a fair map. Republicans won 11 seats,” Lawler continued. That wasn’t good for New York Democrats — so they tried again to rig our elections and redraw the map. They picked up 4 seats.

“Still not good enough for New York Democrats,” he said, “they want to redraw the map again — despite the state constitution being very clear that they cannot do mid-decade redistricting and cannot gerrymander.

“The courts and the voters should reject any effort to thwart the will of the voters and this cynical power grab. Gerrymandering is wrong and should be banned everywhere — including in New York, Texas, California, and Illinois. I’m introducing legislation to ban it. I look forward to every single Democrat signing on to it,” Lawler said.

“Stop lecturing everyone about protecting democracy when the only thing New York Democrats care about is holding onto power.”

Both men are eager to hold on to their seats and to continue representing the interests of their primarily Republican constituents. Lawler and Kiley were both part of the 2022 midterm “red wave,” which saw House seats flipped and gained on behalf of Republicans in blue states just two years into Joe Biden’s presidency.

The fight over Texas redistricting has gone national. President Donald Trump asked Texas to have a look at mid-decade redistricting as the state has increased substantially in population over the past five years. After Texas Governor Greg Abbott called a special session to do just that, a map was drawn up that could create five more GOP stronghold districts in the state. 

State House Democrats refused to entertain the matter and in order to prevent the quorum needed to pass legislation, they fled the state. They have been entertained in Illinois by JB Pritzker and in New York by Kathy Hochul. Texas, per law, is fining those representatives $500 per day and threatening to have them removed from office.

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