On April 29, Issue One posted an image on Facebook and Instagram: CONGRESS CAN FIX THIS WITH THREE SIMPLE STEPS:
- Establish Clear National Criteria for Fair Maps
- Require Independent Redistricting Commissions in Every State
- Ban Mid-Decade Redistricting.
Issue One added below: “… but it needs 60 Senate votes to do it.”
One week earlier, on April 22, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY-8) said, “The Republicans are dummymandering their way into the minority before a single vote is cast,” after learning that Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, and Tennessee are all taking steps to redraw their congressional maps following the Supreme Court’s Callais decision. “They started this war, and we’re going to finish it.”
This oversight can be traced back to the last day the Senate held a filibuster-proof majority on February 4, 2010, when the Democratic Party did not advance redistricting reform. At that time, the party prioritized other major legislative goals, such as passing the Affordable Care Act and responding to the economic crisis, which left election reform issues like redistricting lower on the agenda. Big political differences within the party and concerns about jeopardizing their congressional gains also contributed to the inaction, making this a missed opportunity for systemic change.
As an expert on the Hypocrisy of Gerrymandering, I urge you to use the Issue One post as clear evidence that redistricting reform is urgently needed. Congress’s failure to act shows that it is not prioritizing fair representation. Take direct action: Contact your representatives now and demand they champion comprehensive redistricting reform. Your call can make a difference.
Recently, Columnist Jamil Smith wrote in his Guardian column, “The next Voting Rights Act must outlaw gerrymandering.” Yet since the 93rd Congress (1973–75), no federal legislation specifically aimed at reforming or regulating congressional redistricting has passed both houses of Congress, often failing to advance beyond committee or subcommittee referral.
In 2005, Representative John S. Tanner, a Democrat from Tennessee, was the first to introduce his redistricting reform legislation, the Fairness and Independence in Redistricting Act (FAIR Act), during the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. He then reintroduced it in the next two sessions during the Democratic-controlled House.
Beginning in 2005, Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California introduced a bill in each of the last eleven Congresses, except the 118th (2023-2025), to stop gerrymandering by allowing each state to establish an independent redistricting commission. It was rejected in committee each time because it lacked sufficient support from Democratic leaders to move forward. Some leaders were concerned that national reform might weaken their party’s advantage in states where Democrats controlled redistricting, and worried that pushing the issue too aggressively could create divisions within the caucus or risk existing seats. Note: During the 117th Session (2021-2023), her 2021 version was included in the House version of the For the People Act (H.R. 1) as part of the redistricting provisions, but it failed to pass the Senate. Ten sessions in total!
Barack Obama briefly held a 60-seat Senate majority in 2009, lasting about 72 working days from July 7, 2009, to February 4, 2010. During those 72 days, Democrats did not advance election reform, including bills on gerrymandering, the Electoral College, or voting rights.
Lofgren’s redistricting bill, H.R.5596, came four months after the 60-vote majority ended, with 12 co-sponsors—all California Democrats. Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not support it, expecting Democrats to win the 2010 midterms and control redistricting.
At that time, Democrats held 57 Senate seats with two allied independents, and 255 of 433 Representatives. The Supreme Court was split 4–4, with Chief Justice Roberts as the swing vote.
The 2010 midterms saw Democrats lose 63 House seats, 6 Senate seats, 6 governorships, and approximately 726 state legislative seats.
Key Redistricting Reform Efforts (2025-2026)
At least nine distinct bills to regulate congressional redistricting—specifically, to ban mid-decade map redrawing—have been introduced in the 119th Congress (2025-2026). Click each bill number to read its summary and a list of co-sponsors.
Ban Mid-Decade Redistricting bills:
On July 10, 2025, Rep. Marc Veasey [D-TX-33] introduced H.R. 4358, the Anti-Rigging Act of 2025, with nine co-sponsors.
On August 5, Rep. Kevin Kiley [I-CA-3] introduced H.R. 4889, titled To prohibit States from carrying out more than one Congressional redistricting after a decennial census and apportionment, with two co-sponsors.
On October 28, Rep. Donald Davis [D-NC-1] introduced H. R. 5837—Restoring Electoral Stability to Enhance Trust (RESET)—without any co-sponsors.
On October 31, Rep. Vicente Gonzalez [D-TX-34] introduced H.R. 5879, the Save American Democracy Act, with six co-sponsors.
Require Independent Redistricting Commissions bills:
On July 25, Rep. Donald Beyer [D-VA-8] introduced H.R. 4632, the Fair Representation Act, with six co-sponsors.
On September 17, Rep. Steve Cohen [D-TN-9] introduced H.R. 5426, the John Tanner and Jim Cooper Fairness and Independence in Redistricting Act. Imagine that it has no co-sponsors!
The next day, September 18, Rep. Zoe Lofgren [D-CA-18] reintroduced H.R. 5449—Redistricting Reform Act of 2025. House Minority Leader Jeffries is not among the 58 co-sponsors. On the other side of the Capitol, Sen. Alex Padilla [D-CA] proudly introduced S. 2885—Redistricting Reform Act of 2025, with three co-sponsors.
On January 26, 2026, Rep. Mike Lawler [R-NY-17] introduced H.R. 7219, the Fair Apportionment and Independent Redistricting for Maps that Avoid Partisanship (FAIR MAP) Act, with one co-sponsor.
The low number of co-sponsors shows that these bills have little chance of passing without immediate pressure from constituents like you. When lawmakers hear directly from the people they represent, especially in significant numbers, they take notice and often reconsider their priorities. Your call, letter, or email signals to your representative that voters are paying attention and care deeply about redistricting reform. Act now: call or write your representative and insist they support redistricting reform. Your engagement is vital.
As I approach my 82nd birthday in July, I realize that ending gerrymandering may not happen in my lifetime. But I stay committed—and urge you to do the same. Take an active role: demand your representative support federal action against gerrymandering. Together we can lead meaningful change.
Howard Gorrell is an advocate for the deaf, a former Republican Party election statistician, and a longtime congressional aide. He has been advocating against partisan gerrymandering for four decades.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.