President starts a gerrymandering war

Donald Trump’s second presidency is becoming one of the most consequential in American history. To many he is acting more like a King than a President. 

The US Constitution which was meant to create a system of government with separated, balanced powers, protecting individual liberties and ensuring a balance between federal and state authority, is now looking completely inadequate. 

As President, Trump has signed orders that have sent the military onto the streets of Washington DC over the objections of locally elected officials. He fired officials of independent agencies that he doesn’t like, even though he has no official power to do so. He has trampled all over citizenship rights and the rights of immigrants.

But that’s not what we’re writing about today. We’re talking about gerrymandering that the President has set in motion across the nation. 

In the UK, politicians don’t get to decide how elections are run - that’s the job of the Electoral Commission. Although we are quite worried that the Government of the day can now set the priorities of the Commission, that’s not a power that has been weaponised in a party-political way yet (Unlock Democracy is campaigning to restore the independence of the Electoral Commission).

In the UK, the boundaries of our Parliamentary Constituencies are drawn up by the independent Boundary Commission - so again, they can’t be drawn up to favour one party over another. 

However in the US, these powers lie with politicians, usually at State level. Over the years we’ve seen many Republican and also some Democrat-run states redraw the boundaries for House of Representatives districts in order to secure more seats for their own party. It has led to some bizarre shaped districts that are designed for maximum party political advantage.

Just look at District 35 in Texas that was set up in the 2010s -

It was carefully designed to take two Democratic areas in two different cities 80 miles apart that used to have two Democratic Congress representatives and turn it into a single Democratic seat.

This is how gerrymandering works.

Returning to what’s happening now in the US, President Trump has a very narrow majority in the House of Representatives. He faces losing that majority in the midterm elections next year, so he has instructed Texas Republicans to carve out an extra FIVE Republican seats in Texas by redrawing the boundaries.

Texas Republicans have moved forward with the plan. While Democrats in the state tried to block it by refusing to turn up to vote, the State’s Republican Governor ordered the arrest of Democratic representatives.

The plan was passed last week, but the story doesn’t end there.

The Democratic Governor of California now says he’ll hold a vote on a similar redistricting plan in California that will give the Democrats five more seats to even out the changes.

Other states, Democratic and Republican run, potentially could also do the same. 

This could be an arms race where the losers are the voters and democracy itself.

The debate has already begun in California, where some are arguing that two wrongs don’t make a right and that the Democrats will lose any moral high ground by copying the Republicans’ tactics.

Others argue that moral high ground matters little if the Trump gerrymander ensures Republican control of Congress for two more years. 

It’s not an easy answer. Cheating is obviously wrong, but this isn’t a game of Monopoly, the stakes are the control of the US Congress and Trump’s agenda for the remainder of his Presidency. So can the Democrats afford to sit on their hands while the Republicans play by a different set of rules?

That’s a question that can only be settled in the US. For us, the lesson is we can’t let UK politics end up in a place like this. All too often, where US politics goes, British politics follow.

The last Government’s introduction of photo voter ID was a clear attempt to make it harder for some people to vote, just as we see in the US. Former Cabinet Minister, Jacob Rees-Mogg admitted as much in 2023. The last Government also gave itself the power to set the strategy and policy of the previously independent Electoral Commission. This Government’s Elections Strategy paper suggests they will not reverse this. 

Reform UK’s close links to Trump have been underlined this week by Reform UK run Nottingham Council banning communications with the local paper and local democracy reporters - a move straight out of the Trump populist playbook.

Nothing can be taken for granted - for as long as anyone can remember, the US was one of the our strongest democracies and through various programmes supported the spread of democracy around the world. Now democracy in the US looks threatened and those programmes that used to spread democracy have been cancelled. 

Here in the UK, we need to make sure we maintain the independence of our electoral process. We need to modernise our political system so it can cope with the challenges that populism and authoritarianism brings. 

The forthcoming Elections Bill is our chance to make a start, but what the Government has shared about its contents so far suggests that it is unlikely to be ambitious enough to tackle the threats we face. 

Unlock Democracy will be fighting to change that. 

We hope we can rely on your support. In the meantime, we would love to hear your views. 

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