When the Texas House Democrats bolted from Austin in earlier this month, they did so with the swagger of martyrs. They cast their self-imposed exile as a noble stand against injustice, a heroic resistance to gerrymandering. But like most political theatre, the drama was better lit than written. What these Democrats inadvertently illuminated was not Republican overreach but their own decades-long monopoly on congressional cartography in the states they dominate. In trying to indict Texas, they put their own crimes on trial.
To begin, one must understand the stakes. Texas, having gained population at a blistering pace, should have been awarded two more seats in the House of Representatives after the 2020 census. Instead, bureaucratic errors by the Census Bureau cost Texas those seats, effectively disenfranchising millions. No coincidence, those seats would almost certainly have landed in Republican hands. The math is simple, and so is the motive.
Next came the knife of the Voting Rights Act, twisted with activist interpretation. The VRA, which once nobly sought to protect minority voters, metastasized into a legal cudgel forcing Texas to create racial coalition districts. These districts, drawn not to represent natural communities but to guarantee preferred racial outcomes, diluted Republican voting strength across the map. The cost? At least five House seats. Five Republican seats.
But then came Petteway v. Galveston County, a quiet case in the Fifth Circuit with thunderous implications. The court ruled that such coalition mandates were not required under Section 2 of the VRA. The decision cleared a path for Texas to redraw its maps in line with both demographic reality and constitutional clarity. Hence, Governor Abbott’s special session. Hence, the Democrats’ flight. Hence, the national spotlight.
And what it revealed was devastating.
Across the nation, in state after blue state, Republicans are ghosts in their own democracy. Let us count the ways.
Massachusetts. Trump won over a third of the vote in 2024. Zero Republican House members. None. Not since 1997 has the Bay State sent a Republican to Congress. This means nearly 2.5 million people vote Republican in a state that pretends they do not exist.
Rhode Island. Over 40 percent of the vote went to Trump in 2024. Representation? Zero. The last GOP representative served in 1989. It has been thirty-five years.
Maine. Trump claimed 45.5 percent of the vote. Still, every congressional seats are controlled by Democrats. Not since Olympia Snowe left office in 1995 has a Republican voice echoed from Maine in the House chamber.
Vermont, Connecticut, Delaware, New Mexico, and Hawaii all tell the same story: Republican votes cast, none counted. Collectively, in these states alone, almost ten million Republican voters live under a de facto congressional gag order. Not a single voice in Washington to speak on their behalf.
Even where Republicans do gain a foothold, it is a toe clinging to the edge of a cliff. In Maryland, Republicans received over a third of the vote in 2024 but hold just one of eight seats. In Oregon, 41 percent of voters cast ballots for Trump, but Republicans hold just 17 percent of House seats. The pattern repeats in New Jersey and Illinois. Nearly half the population votes red, but their congressional delegation is overwhelmingly blue.
And it is not just Republican voters who are waking up. Even Democratic strategists, when recently gamed out scenarios for counter-redistricting in states like Massachusetts or Rhode Island, expressed surprise. Why? Because there were no Republican districts left to target. You cannot draw maps to flip what has already been obliterated.
This is not democracy. It is cartographic tyranny.
Now, let us return to Texas. Here, Republicans control the legislature. The maps, while favoring the party in power, still manage to produce Democratic victories, especially in urban centers and along the Rio Grande. In 2024, Democrats held roughly 13 of 38 seats. Trump received 54.5 percent of the Texas vote. While imperfect, the disparity is far less egregious than in any of the blue states just examined.
And now, with the Petteway ruling in hand, Texas aims to remedy its own distortions. The maps under discussion are not designed to pack Democrats into fewer districts but to reflect actual population clusters and allow for legitimate political representation without artificial racial engineering.
Here lies the bitter irony. The Democrats who decry gerrymandering are its most prolific artisans. The party that shouts “voter suppression” has suppressed millions of Republican voices through decades of cartographic manipulation. And now that a state dares to push back, they flee. Not because they fear injustice, but because they fear justice.
The consequence of their flight may well be the opposite of their intent. National scrutiny has not generated sympathy for their cause but curiosity about the maps they so vocally defend in other states. Why, after all, should a Republican in Albuquerque or Bridgeport or Honolulu be denied representation simply because of partisan cartography?
This moment is ripe for redress. Texas is already poised to gain five Republican seats through mid-decade redistricting. Ohio may add three. Indiana and Missouri can add one each. Florida could net as many as three. What began as a Democratic stunt may end in a Republican surge.
The Democrats have drawn maps like fortresses, designed not to reflect public will but to repel it. Texas, for all its faults, is trying to open the gates. For this, it has earned scorn from the press, lawsuits from activists, and exile for its Democratic legislators.
But it may also have sparked a reckoning.
If the American experiment is to endure, it cannot do so with millions silenced by ink and line. Representation must be earned, not engineered. The voters in Massachusetts and Vermont and Hawaii deserve to be heard. And if it takes a Texas-sized fight to make that happen, so be it.
Let the maps be redrawn.
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