Hochul declares 'war' amid Republican redistricting battle in Texas
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www.timesunion.com /capitol/article/hochul-declares-war-amid-republican-20800832.php
Hochul declares 'war' amid Republican redistricting battle in Texas
Raga Justin 6-7 minutes 8/4/2025
New York will seek to redraw congressional district lines in 2028 — four years earlier than called for under the state constitution — in a move Gov. Kathy Hochul said represents a "fight fire with fire" mentality.
Will Waldron/Times UnionALBANY — Six Texas Democratic lawmakers came to Albany Monday to protest what they allege is a push by President Donald J. Trump’s administration to increase the number of Republican seats in Congress. Gov. Kathy Hochul framed the effort by Texas Republicans to reconfigure their congressional districts as an act of “war” and pledged to do the same thing in New York to benefit the Democratic Party.
“This is a war. We are at war and that’s why the gloves are off,” Hochul said. “And I say, bring it on.”
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The political skirmish over redistricting comes as Trump’s administration seeks to flip five Democrat congressional seats in Texas in order to shore up the Republicans narrow majority in the House heading into next year’s midterm elections. The rare mid-decade redistricting effort in Texas has angered Democrats across the country and initiated similar efforts in blue states, including New York, where voters had approved a constitutional measure to have that work done by a nonpartisan commission.
Hochul said she hosted the Democratic lawmakers from Texas at the governor’s mansion for breakfast early Monday. They fled their state Sunday in advance of a key vote on redistricting to prevent their Legislature from obtaining a quorum.
Texas Democrats insisted that breaking quorom is a legal move available to them. Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott threatened them with consequences including “potential loss of seats and felony violations,” in a statement Sunday. Many ofo the Texas Democrats are in Illinois and Boston, while those visiting Albany on Monday declined to comment on where they are headed next.
Hochul said she and legislative leaders are now considering “all the options available” to redraw New York’s own congressional lines earlier than scheduled. Typically, redistricting happens once a decade after a census, and New York’s last redistricting saga — which was fraught with court challenges and accusations of Democratic gerrymandering — ended in 2024.
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That last New York redistricting cycle involved New York's independent redistricting commission. But Hochul did not rule out disbanding the bipartisan commission during a news conference Monday.
“With all due respect to the good government groups, politics is a political process,” Hochul said. “The playing field has changed dramatically, and shame on us that ignore that fact and cling tight to the messages of the past. That era is over. Donald Trump eliminated that forever.”
New York Democrats have sought to swat away accusations of the hypocrisy of them seeking to change the rules to benefit their party.
“It’s very difficult to play fair when your opponents are playing dirty,” said Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie. He pointed to the fact that red states tend to control mapmaking via state legislatures while Democrat-led states typically hand control of redistricting over to independent commissions and rejected the idea that Democrats should not redraw congressional boundaries to try and get more seats for their party in Congress.
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“Sometimes the high road gets you nowhere,” he said.
Hochul, in turn, suggested voters would be receptive to the argument that the rules governing how redistricting works in New York should be rewritten. She claimed polls indicate voters are not pleased with Trump's policies, although Democrats have been getting their lowest approval ratings in decades from voters.
Texas state lawmakers most recently broke quorum in 2021 to stave off changes to election laws that they argued would exacerbate voter suppression for minority voters. They managed to camp out in Washington, D.C., for over a month, meeting with national Democratic leaders like U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a former longtime speaker of the House of Representatives.
U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, who is mulling a gubernatorial challenge of Hochul next years, issued a statement calling the governor's news conference with the Texas lawmakers "pathetic."
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"The worst governor in America needs to be reminded that she conveniently forgot to tell the unlawful out-of-state radical Democrats at today's desperate press conference that she lost not once, but twice, in her effort to illegally draw gerrymandered lines in New York to rig our congressional elections and suppress the will of the voters," Stefanik said. "New Yorkers rightfully won that fight and have fair constitutional lines as a result of that victory."
The political relationship between Texas and New York has long been contentious. In 2024, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a staunch conservative, sued a New York doctor he alleged had prescribed abortion pills to a Texas resident, a move Hochul decried.
Paxton is now suing the Ulster County Clerk’s office , which has rejected attempts to enforce the judgement against the New York doctor.
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The crisis at the southern border also inflamed tensions between the states. In 2022, Abbott began busing migrants who had entered the U.S. at the southern border to major, Democratic cities, including New York City.
Neither Senate Minority Leader Robert Ortt nor Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay had plans to meet with the six Texans visiting the Capitol. A spokeswoman for Ortt said they were not informed in advance of the Texans’ plans, calling it an “absurd political stunt.”
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It is good to see a moderate like Hochul finally realize and admit we are in a war.
This would have no effect on the midterms.
2024- Hochul and New York Democrats did a partisan mid decade redistricting to eliminate Republicans seats. Democrats cheer.
2025- Texas does a partisan mid decade redistricting and Democrats like Hochul complain democracy is threatened.
You can't make up this level of hypocrisy.
Not to mention that it will be a bit more difficult for blue states to redistrict due to their setting up nonpartisan commissions to create the maps.
Any efforts by New York, Illinois or California to redistrict are worthless. They are already redistricted to the gills. All are about 80-90% set up for democrat representation.
Texas is only about 65% set up as Republican.
BTW the Texas dems pulled this twice before. Both times the GOP prevailed.
Gerrymandering only hurts the voters no matter which side pulls this stunt, and yet every cycle the same shyte is repeated ad nauseum ... maybe for once the US could take some advice from Canada and other nations that deploy non-partisan commissions to draw the maps. But no, in America all sides have to be equally childish and flay one another with some "but Mom, they did it first crap-storm".
The democrats made it into a fine art long ago.
We got a lot of catching up to do.
In other words you will do your best to be part of the problem and continue to press America into "shithole" status. My, such love for your country.