tAcross the democracy reform movement, a growing debate has emerged over how, if at all, reformers should respond to the escalating gerrymandering battles unfolding in states like Texas, California, and beyond.
Last week, Fix.us convened a provocative discussion thread featuring academics and practitioners, surfacing a wide spectrum of views on this contentious issue.
Given the profound implications for democratic integrity in the United States, The Fulcrum is hosting a curated roundtable to explore the strategic, moral, and civic dimensions of partisan redistricting. We invited leading voices in the reform space to share brief reflections (250 words or fewer) in response to one or more of the following questions:
- What principles should guide reformers when one party engages in aggressive gerrymandering?
- Is retaliatory redistricting ever justified in defense of democratic norms?
- What national reforms could meaningfully end the gerrymandering arms race?
- And finally, what concluding insight might help illuminate the tensions and possibilities of this moment?
Below are the initial responses we received. Some in direct answer format, others as narrative reflections.
Together, they offer a compelling snapshot of the values, dilemmas, and aspirations shaping the future of fair representation.
Response from: Joe Leadem, founder of www.thesaveamericaproject.org
Question: What national reforms would meaningfully end the gerrymandering arms race?
Answer: In this country, we are told that we are a “representative” democracy. We are not.
Our elected officials do not really represent voters: they represent themselves, their big funders, and their political parties. This is at the heart of all our problems, including gerrymandering, which has become a go-to strategy for keeping power.
If you agree with this line of thinking, then the solution is to elect real representatives who will do their best to represent citizens. Is that even possible? How might we do it?
A look back at the Founders’ thinking on this topic is a good starting point. The Constitution allows for electing one House member for every 30,000 people. The Founders seem to have thought that this ratio would allow for a better connection and accountability between citizens and their representatives. FYI, this ratio was considered so important by George Washington that he himself made the case for it at the Constitutional Convention. He spoke on no other topic!
Now, we have 750,000 people for every elected House member. What happened?
To that end, I propose we attempt to resurrect the Founders’ plan and elect a lot more representatives to get closer to that 1 to 30,000 ratio. Of course, the devil is in the details. But we need to take the devil on! Nothing is easy.
Response from : George Linzer, founder of theamericanleader.org
Question: What principles should guide reformers when one party engages in aggressive gerrymandering?
Answer:
- Single-party rule is un-American.
- Retaliation is justified if the gerrymandering is disenfranchising and further empowering single-party rule.
- Retaliation should be tailored to the circumstances.
Question: Is retaliatory redistricting ever justified in defense of democratic norms?
Answer:
The question seems to diminish the extent to which our democracy is currently being attacked. What we are seeing today is a full-scale assault from within, not just on norms but on the rule of law and the checks and balances designed to protect against strong central authority. Let’s remember that unitary executive theory has long been a driver of the far right. Now that we are seeing what an “unitary executive” looks like in action, that term is looking more and more like a euphemism for “autocrat.”
Today, the orders and actions of the executive branch flout the law, question the boundaries of the Constitution, bypass a mostly silent Congress, and, according to virtually all polling data, ignore the wishes of the majority of Americans. This is only made possible by one party’s control of the White House and both chambers of Congress. So yes, retaliatory redistricting in these circumstances is not only justified to prevent solidification of single-party minority rule but absolutely necessary if we hope to preserve our democracy for the immediate future.
Question: What national reforms would meaningfully end the gerrymandering arms race?
Answer:
- Outlaw political gerrymandering.
- Establish national parameters for redistricting, extrapolated from the work of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project.
- Require independent redistricting commissions in every state to limit potential corruption of the process.
Question: And a concluding brief thought.
Answer: When we get through this, we’ll have the opportunity to rebuild and fix many vulnerabilities in the system.
Response from: Larry Diamond, MA, PhD- Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and professor, by courtesy, of political science and sociology
Gerrymandering has long been a sordid and undemocratic process. But the threat it poses to democracy is growing. First, where the law allows, state parties with “trifecta” partisan control (of both legislative houses and the governorship) are increasingly using raw power to impose as brutal a partisan advantage as they can achieve. Second, with ever more abundant digital data and now AI, partisans can draw boundaries with ever more surgical precision, to ever more grotesque partisan advantage. Third, Republican legislatures in Texas and probably elsewhere are now endeavoring to squeeze out more seats for themselves in between the decennial exercise. And finally, they are under intense pressure to do so by a president, Donald Trump, who is seeking to transform our democracy into an autocracy.
I respect principled opposition to gerrymandering anywhere at any time. But it is ludicrous to equate California’s coming voter initiative to redraw Congressional district boundaries with the Texas seat grab. The former is an unwarranted effort to thwart the likely national will of the voters in swinging partisan control of the House to the Democrats. The latter is a defensive measure to neutralize the national electoral impact of what Texas is doing, and it would return redistricting to an independent California commission after 2030.
I urge Congress to ban mid-decade redistricting without a court order, and to mandate that all states use independent commissions to draw Congressional districts. Until that’s the law, Democrats have a right to ensure a fair national balance of districts.
Response from: Glenn Nye, president of the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress
The latest gerrymandering wars should be a clear sign to all Americans that we need to change course and get off this downward spiral of partisan warfare before it’s too late. While Democrats had no choice but to respond to such brazen Republican attempts to rig election maps in Texas to pre-ordain a majority in Congress at President Trump’s insistence, this further degradation in hyper-partisan divisions threatens to bring political tribalism to the brink of no return.
Efforts to ban gerrymandering and use independent commissions involving citizens who are not also contestants in partisan elections have made some notable strides in recent decades, but the latest mid-decade redistricting move in Texas shows that, given the stakes for control of Congress and the outsized partisan influence on state legislators to rig elections, a bill to ban gerrymandering countrywide is needed.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Yes, gerrymandering has been around as long as our Republic, but the same was true for an embarrassingly long time for slavery. It took over 130 years to finally guarantee women the right to vote. Just because we suffer from cancer for a long period does not mean we must keep doing so. On July 4th, 2025, America began its 250th anniversary year. What better time to once and for all resign gerrymandering to the dustbin of history? Our founders warned us that our garden of democracy would require cultivation. It’s high time we step up and pull this weed.
Response from: Jeremy Gruber, SVP of Open Primaries, a national election reform organization
Some reformers have embraced the “he started it” defense during the current gerrymandering debate. That tired excuse is not accepted by parents from their children, and it shouldn’t be accepted by reformers now. As far as most voters I talk to believe, “he started it” began long before the Texas gerrymandering fight.
Real reform is not a parlor exercise. It’s needed more than ever, exactly when the going gets tough.
That doesn’t mean “letting Trump win,” as many in Democratic Party leadership declare, and too many in the left-leaning reform community parrot. Our fight shouldn’t be on behalf of either of the two parties jostling for power.
Our fight should be on behalf of the majority of the American people, independent voters, and independent-minded party voters alike, who are caught between the two major parties’ positions and told they must choose. Millions are conflicted and searching for another message, one focused on democratic rather than authoritarian means to protect democracy against its enemies.
We should be working with voters to craft that message. Our starting point must be, “When politicians gerrymander their own districts, voters lose. Every time.”
Let’s empower Americans to speak that message and act on it. That doesn’t mean exploiting the moment with prepackaged reforms that voters know will not affect the current debate.
The time for policy prescriptions can come when there’s space to genuinely debate them. Now is a time for organizing the American people to stop the power grab—by both parties.
Response from: Erik Carter, founder and publisher of the Free Democrat on Substack. He is a lawyer, financial planner, and political activist with a focus on market-based climate change solutions, fiscal responsibility, social tolerance, electoral reform, and depolarization.
If Republicans are going to aggressively gerrymander, Democrats shouldn’t unilaterally disarm. They should use defensive gerrymanders to move outcomes closer to what neutral maps would yield and to gain leverage for a national solution.
If necessary, they can offer a grand bargain:
- Independent redistricting nationwide with uniform, ranked criteria (compactness, communities of interest, VRA), public submissions, and pre-set metrics that trigger redraws—so maps aren’t a once-a-decade knife fight. Independent commissions reliably make elections more competitive and reduce incumbent/party lock-in. One recent analysis finds that states with independent commissions are over twice as likely to produce competitive House races and see a large drop in incumbent-party wins. That’s concrete, durable progress toward representation.
- Two electoral reforms Republicans want: voter ID requirements and no more no-excuse mail voting (keep needs-based absentee for military/overseas and the homebound, paired with robust early in-person voting and paper ballots with audits). A 2005 bipartisan commission (Carter–Baker) flagged mail-in ballots as "the largest source of potential voter fraud" in U.S. election administration. Even though documented fraud is rare, these reforms can help restore confidence in election integrity.
Politically, Democrats shouldn’t fear this trade. High-quality studies show that voter ID and universal vote-by-mail have neutral partisan effects and small turnout effects overall. Democrats also increasingly perform best among higher-propensity voters.
This isn’t about “fighting dirty.” It’s about making sure neither party gets rewarded for map-rigging. The result: more competitive races, more legitimate outcomes, and fewer incentives for brinkmanship. Voters everywhere should select their representatives, not the other way around.
Response from: James Coan, Co-founder and executive director of More Like US.
My connection to structural political reform is indirect. I run an organization, More Like US, aiming to change what Americans see and hear about each other across the political spectrum.
I care about structural reform’s ability to improve incentives that politicians face, so they less frequently and less harshly demonize political opponents.
While I rarely refer to anything religious, I think of the Serenity Prayer in terms of today’s “gerrymandering arms race.”
I think the political structural reform field has to accept the things (it largely) cannot change. From my perspective, the field has little short-run ability to stop maximal gerrymandering. I see states with Republican trifectas in state government mostly maximizing their possible seats, and states with Democratic trifectas mostly doing the same, if sometimes in response. Only in the longer term might proportional representation be a solution.
Still, the political structural reform field should have the courage to change the things (it) can. These can be beneficial, even if maximal gerrymandering becomes common. Open primaries reduce incentives for politicians to placate their base and could scramble general elections. They are now less politically fraught than ranked-choice voting.
I cannot fully claim to have the wisdom to know the difference. But I think More Like US’s work can also help. Part of the underlying drive for gerrymandering is deep concern—or fear—about those in the other party. Yet much research shows these fears of everyday Americans are overblown. If we drain away the overblown threat of each other, the desire for gerrymandering should also decline.
David Nevins is publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
