Congressional Cowards is a weekly collection highlighting the worst Donald Trump defenders on Capitol Hill, who refuse to criticize him—irrespective of how disgraceful or lawless his actions.
A number of GOP lawmakers this week accused California Democrats of corruptly making an attempt to redraw their state’s congressional districts, despite the fact that the Golden State is shifting to redraw its maps solely to counter the bare energy seize Republicans pulled off in Texas with their mid-decade gerrymander.
Humorous, you can say mainly the identical factor about Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, who was extra targeted on rigging the midterms for Republicans and his pricey chief, President Donald Trump, than serving to his state recuperate from devastating flooding that killed dozens of individuals.
Different Home Republican leaders additionally slammed California’s redraw whereas ignoring Texas’.
Texas state Sen. Juan Hinojosa, proper, appears to be like at a protester dressed as loss of life standing outdoors of the Home Chamber the place Democratic Texas state Rep. Nicole Collier refuses to go away resulting from a required legislation enforcement escort on Aug. 19.
However when he was requested earlier in August about Texas’ gerrymander, Hudson demurred.
“Well, it’s up to the states. I mean, I have nothing to do with it. I found out about it when you all wrote about it,” Hudson instructed reporters, including later that he was “not “concerned” about California’s redraw.
“Some of the states, they can do what they want to do,” Hudson stated—earlier than it was clear simply how critical California was about countering Texas’ energy seize.
Different Republicans cooked up their very own standards to say that Democrats gerrymander extra typically than Republicans do, when the alternative is true.
Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who comes from the state that fired the primary shot on this newest redistricting conflict, additionally slammed California with out having a look within the mirror.
Cruz then made up a metric he thought would show his level, asking Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok to “Examine states with six or more congressional seats. Compile a list of the five most egregious gerrymanders, defined as the biggest delta between the percentage of the congressional delegation a party wins & the percentage that party wins statewide.”
“Which party is it?” Cruz requested Grok.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, proven in 2022.
However Grok’s response confirmed that Republican-run states even have gerrymanders which are “egregious” primarily based on Cruz’s metric, together with Tennessee and Wisconsin. To not point out, Cruz limiting the checklist to states with six or extra districts leaves out quite a few Republican-run states that closely gerrymander their seats, together with Oklahoma, Arkansas, Utah, and Iowa, amongst others.
In fact, Democrats would love to finish gerrymandering nationwide. It is why it was within the first invoice Home Democrats launched in 2019 after they took again management of the Home within the 2018 midterms. Not a single Republican voted for the invoice, and the GOP managed Senate by no means introduced it up for a vote.
Republican Rep. Ken Calvert, who would even be drawn out of his Home seat within the California plan, additionally complained about California’s redistricting effort with out complaining about what Texas did first.
“There is zero transparency as Sacramento Democrats scheme to eliminate the power of the Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission,” Calvert moaned.
On the finish of the day, Republicans are merely getting a style of their very own drugs within the redistricting wars. And it appears to be like like they do not prefer it.
