WSJ editors blast Trump for sparking ‘gerrymandering brawl'

President Donald Trump is the reason America is descending into a fight over which party can rig their states' congressional districts more efficiently, the Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote in a scathing analysis published Thursday.

At Trump's direction, Texas Republicans are ramming through a map that gives a stronger Republican advantage in five Democratic-held seats, even going so far as to impose police escorts on Democratic state lawmakers so they can't walk out a second time to deny quorum. Other states, including Florida and Missouri, are debating whether to move forward with similar plans, and in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom has retaliated by launching a ballot referendum in which voters will choose whether to draw five Republican seats out of their own current map.

None of this was how democracy was supposed to work, the board fumed.

"President Trump started this latest gerrymander brawl by urging Lone Star Republicans to redraw their Congressional map to mitigate potential GOP losses in next year’s midterm elections," the board wrote. "His Justice Department also threatened to challenge the state’s existing map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander."

Democrats aren't innocent in all this, wrote the board, and the conservative paper complained too about Democrats' tactics, saying they are "more aggressive in using courts rather than legislatures to redraw maps, all while pretending to defend democracy or fight racism."

Nonetheless, they wrote, Republicans' schemes here could blow up in their faces in a big way.

"Gerrymandered gains are sometimes swept away with big election tides, as in 2006 and 2018. A large share of voters aren’t fiercely partisan. Texas Republicans also risk inviting a voter backlash that could flip a Senate seat if state Attorney General Ken Paxton defeats Sen. John Cornyn in the GOP primary," wrote the board. "Gerrymanders reduce political competition, and they’re getting worse over time. Congress could set limits on the practice, but incumbents want safer seats."

"Unless voters rebel, it will continue," the board concluded. "At least the political cynicism is no longer hiding behind false flags."