- Update: The New York Court of Appeals threw out the state's new congressional map on Wednesday afternoon and ordered a new map to be drawn by a special master. The primary will be delayed.
After Florida enacted a new, controversial congressional map late last week, just two states have yet to complete the redistricting process, although courts have thrown out approved maps in two other states and additional lawsuits are pending around the country.
Legislators in Missouri and New Hampshire have yet to pass new maps to be used for the next decade – even though Republicans control both chambers of the legislature and the governor’s mansion in each state. And a key deadline has already passed in Missouri.
Meanwhile, courts have struck down congressional maps in Kansas and New York.
Unfinished business
While Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made national headlines by asserting his authority over the redistricting process, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu did the same thing in March but drew far less attention. Perhaps that’s because there is less at stake in New Hampshire (which has two districts split between the parties) than Florida (where DeSantis engineered a map that likely swings four additional seats to the Republican ledger).
Sununu threatened to veto a map approved by the legislature in March and offered his own version that he said would make both districts more competitive. On Tuesday, Republican lawmakers presented a new map that adheres more closely to the original version than Sununu’s proposal, drawing renewed criticism from the governor.
The governor and legislators have until late May to work out a compromise. If they do not, the state Supreme Court will appoint a special master to draw a final map.
The deadline for candidates to file to run in the state is June 10. The primary will be held Sept. 13.
Republicans are at a similar impasse in Missouri, where the chambers have been unable to agree on how big an advantage to give their party for the next decade.
The congressional delegation is currently split 6-2 in favor of the GOP, and the first map passed by the state House in January would have maintained that margin. However, the Senate pushed back and wants to move another seat into the Republican column.
After rounds of negotiations, the Senate passed a new map in late March but the House would not approve it and now the two chambers cannot agree to schedule a conference committee to work out the differences.
The filing deadline was March 29 and the primary is scheduled for July 6. Barring a quick resolution, lawsuits seem likely.
Back to the drawing board
Democratic-controlled New York seemed to have finished its congressional redistricting process Feb. 3, when Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the new map into law. That map was drawn by legislators after a redistricting commission designed to remove elected officials from the process broke down under the weight of partisan fighting.
But two courts determined that the map, which would increase the Democrats’ margin of control in the delegation, is an illegal partisan gerrymander. The state Court of Appeals heard oral arguments on the case Tuesday and could rule this week on whether to reinstate the approved map or to require new lines be drawn.
Three alternative maps have already been submitted – one by the Republican plaintiffs, another from a New York nonprofit and a third by a lawyer.
The candidate filing deadline has already passed (April 7) and the primary is scheduled for June 28.
The new congressional map has also been overturned in Kansas, where a county judge ruled on Monday that the Republican-approved map is unfair to Democrats and people of color and therefore violates the state Constitution. The map, if allowed to stand, would likely increase the GOP’s chances of winning the sole district currently controlled by Democrats.
While the court has ordered legislators to draw a new map, the state attorney general has vowed to appeal the ruling.
The candidate filing deadline is June 1 for the Aug. 2 primary.
Additional lawsuits
On Friday, DeSantis signed the bill to make his congressional map official. That same day, a collection of voting rights organizations and individual voters filed a lawsuit claiming the new district lines violate the state Constitution.
In 2010, Florida voters approved a “Fair District” amendment that empowers minority voters to be able to select their representatives. DeSantis’ map breaks up a district currently represented by Rep. Al Lawson, a Black Democrat. The plaintiffs also argue the map violates state prohibitions on partisan gerrymandering.
A lawsuit is also pending in Ohio, where Democrats are fighting a Republican-approved map. However, that case will not be heard in time to affect the 2022 elections.
A Republican-led lawsuit in New Mexico has become stalled, and a lawyer for the state party recently asked for a judge to be appointed so it can move forward.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.