Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York is taking a page out of California’s playbook, pledging to jump into the redistricting wars now that Texas state Republicans have voted on a partisan congressional map.
“We’ll confront Trump’s legal insurrection head on,” Hochul said in a statement after the Texas vote. “We’ll meet him on the same field and beat him at his own game.”
The California state Legislature on Thursday cleared the way for a new map that would likely flip five seats in Congress ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
But Hochul’s desire to “beat” Trump, who pressured Texas Republicans to redraw their maps, runs up against the lengthy and complex redistricting process, multiple experts and Democratic strategists told NOTUS.
“The trouble she has is she’s announcing her intention to join a war she can’t actually join for another two years,” Dave Daley, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan election organization FairVote, told NOTUS. “Gov. Hochul’s rhetoric simply doesn’t match the reality of the situation.”
In Texas, the state Legislature controls redistricting. In California, the state Legislature must vote once to put forth a ballot measure that would allow voters to approve a new map and temporarily override the bipartisan redistricting commission typically in charge of drawing district lines.
New York is different. State lawmakers have to vote two separate times during two separate legislative sessions to approve a ballot measure to bypass the state’s independent redistricting commission. Then, voters must pass that ballot measure. The Legislature must also review and pass the new maps themselves.
Jeffrey Wice, a redistricting expert and professor at the New York Law School, said that means new maps for New York would not go into effect until 2028 at the earliest — which would prevent Hochul from enacting a new map before the midterms.
New York’s state leaders have said as much. Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie told reporters that the legislature would likely wait until 2026 to take any first steps related to redistricting, adding that leaders are “having those discussions.”
On that timeline, it’s unclear what the appetite for redistricting would be, Wice told NOTUS.
“New York is a blue state, so you think that voters would be favorable towards a change that could limit Trump’s power, but also keep in mind that the Legislature pushed forward a constitutional amendment to also reform redistricting in 2021 … and that was defeated overwhelmingly,” Wice told NOTUS.
New York’s independent redistricting commission, the body that oversees and carries out decade-to-decade reapportionment, has faced criticism from fair-elections advocates for the partisan way its members are elected. But comparatively, the state is less prone to gerrymandering than several of its Democratic-leaning counterparts, including California, according to multiple evaluations.
In 2014, New Yorkers voted overwhelmingly to create an independent redistricting commission and in 2021, more than half of New York voters voted against a ballot measure that would have weakened anti-gerrymandering policies. Daley suggested that voters’ penchant to avoid gerrymandering in the past makes it unlikely that new maps will pass easily.
“Voters hate partisan gerrymandering,” Daley said. “You can probably assume that Republicans and lots of independents are going to be against it, and there’s a lot of Democrats as well that I think would be very uncomfortable with the idea.”
Some Democrats are exploring ways to speed up the potential redistricting process, though multiple experts told NOTUS these avenues are unlikely.
The state’s congressional delegation said in a letter to Hochul yesterday that the governor should look into amending the state’s voting rights act to cover state and federal districts — including congressional districts — and “take any other actions to protect the integrity of our elections” that are needed.
Democrats could also pursue mid-decade redistricting with a court order that deems current congressional maps unconstitutional, but Wice and Daley said that’s unlikely given the tight timeline it would require and the fact that Democrats would have to launch a coordinated operation to make it happen.
Hochul earlier this month also floated the idea of scrapping the state’s independent redistricting commission and allowing Democrats in the Legislature to directly control congressional maps. That move would put the state on par with Texas’ approach — but in a state long known for its lack of gerrymandered maps, injecting partisanship into the process could draw legal challenges and criticism.
“It would be kind of a big ask to ask voters to turn their backs to that sentiment,” Daley said.
There’s also the question of just how much New York Democrats have to gain through redistricting given how different parts of the state vote. Reps. Mike Lawler, Claudia Tenney and Nicole Malliotakis would be most at risk of losing reelection under redrawn maps, but Wice said there “aren’t that many to choose from” when it comes to options for gaining Democratic seats.
Unseating some members, like Rep. Nick LaLota, would mean narrowing Democrats’ chances of unseating others in adjacent districts, like Rep. Andrew Garbarino, Hofstra University’s Larry Levy told Politico.
New York’s more moderate Republicans have sought to distance themselves from Republicans’ gerrymandering push. Lawler and Malliotakis told reporters they don’t agree with what Republicans are doing in Texas and criticized suggestions from New York Democrats about retaliating.
Still, Hochul may stand to benefit politically from joining the redistricting discourse.
“It’s very smart of her to do what she’s doing,” New York Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf said of Hochul, adding that “this should strengthen her” because it will allow Democrats to see her as “more partisan and more protective of Democrats against Trump.”
Hochul is also getting applause from her political allies. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other members of Congress are reportedly supportive of her retaliating against the Texas maps.
At the state level, lawmakers in both state Legislature chambers proposed legislation that would trigger mid-decade redistricting if other states engage in it — a condition that’s already been satisfied with Texas’ actions.
“This kind of contentious set of circumstances is not of the norm, and it will probably create more interest among the voters,” Sheinkopf said.
Some are more skeptical. Daley pointed out that many voters don’t support gerrymandered maps right now — even in California, where the process is moving much more quickly than it would in New York.
“If blue-state governors think that it will be easy to convince voters who understand the problems and the consequences attached to partisan gerrymandering to give up these commissions and allow politicians to do their worst, I think they have another thing coming,” Daley said.