The Common Cause North Carolina, Not Trump, Triggered the Mid-Decade Redistricting Battle

“Gerrymander” was one of seven runners-up for Merriam-Webster’s 2025 word of the year, which was “slop,” although “gerrymandering” is often used. Both words are closely related and frequently used interchangeably, with the main difference being their function as nouns versus verbs or processes. Throughout 2025, as Republicans and Democrats used redistricting to boost their electoral advantages, “gerrymander” and “gerrymandering” surged in popularity as search terms, highlighting their ongoing relevance in current politics and public awareness. However, as an old Capitol Hill dog, I realized that 2025 made me less inclined to explain the definitions of these words to anyone who asked for more detail.

“Did the Democrats or Republicans Start the Gerrymandering Fight?” is the obvious question many people are asking: Who started it?

Most media suggest that Republican President Donald Trump started the mid-decade redistricting fight. However, I see it differently, as many overlook the earlier political moves and court decisions that set the stage for this ongoing battle.

I believe the fight actually began earlier, in 2016, fueled by Common Cause North Carolina and supported by the North Carolina Democratic Party.

President Trump publicly called on Republican-led state legislatures to pursue mid-decade redistricting, especially following the Supreme Court’s 2019 decision in Rucho v. Common Cause, which clarified that federal courts cannot hear claims of partisan gerrymandering, leaving such disputes to state courts and legislatures.

This Rucho case established that claims of partisan gerrymandering cannot be filed in federal court, effectively leaving the issue to the states.

The Rucho case arises from North Carolina’s 2016 congressional map, drawn by the Republican-controlled legislature. This map became a key example in a legal battle involving Common Cause and the North Carolina Democratic Party, highlighting the ongoing struggle over partisan gerrymandering. Its significance lies in how it shows the legal and political conflicts that continue to influence redistricting disputes today, making these groups feel central to the story.

While Rucho definitively ended federal judicial oversight of partisan gerrymandering, League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry (2006) mainly addressed mid-decade redistricting and racial gerrymandering. The Supreme Court ruled in that case in 2006 that there is no constitutional barrier to changing maps mid-decade.

By the end of 2025, six states’ dominoes are falling into place after adopting new congressional maps outside the regular post-census cycle: Texas (favoring Republicans), California (Democrats), Missouri (Republicans), North Carolina (Republicans), Ohio (Republicans), and Utah (Democrats).

On December 11, twenty-one of the 40 Republican senators joined all 10 Democratic senators in voting against a plan to implement a mid-decade congressional gerrymander. So, its domino still stands.

In his December congressional statement praising Indiana’s stance against Mid-Decade Gerrymandering, U.S. Representative Kevin Kiley (R-CA) wrote, “Gerrymandering is wrong wherever it occurs. Now is the time for Congress to end the practice once and for all.”

Most of the public is unaware that, four months earlier, on August 5, Rep. Kiley introduced his legislative bill, H.R. 4889, which aims to prevent states from conducting more than one congressional redistricting after a decennial census unless a court orders it to uphold the Constitution or the Voting Rights Act. If enacted, the bill would “apply with respect to any Congressional redistricting which occurs after the November 2024 election.”

Currently, this bill is still in the House Judiciary Committee and has no official cosponsors, not even from Texas Democrats or California Republicans.

The benefits of H.R. 4889 include (1) ensuring district lines are set for a full ten years between censuses, providing stability and maintaining a consistent relationship between representatives and voters, (2) preventing mid-decade efforts by the ruling party to redraw maps for partisan advantage, (3) safeguarding the voters' will against politicians, often referred to as a “redistricting war.”

However, the disadvantages of H.R. 4889 include (1) the potential for political hypocrisy, (2) the fact that it prohibits when redistricting can occur but does not address partisan gerrymandering itself (which the Supreme Court has largely left to the states to manage), and (3) oversteps federal authority by limiting states’ ability to manage their own election processes in response to changing demographics or other factors, even though the U.S. Constitution’s Elections Clause grants Congress authority in this area.

The National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC) asserts that the recent increase in mid-decade redistricting poses a “dangerous threat” to democracy. Neither the NDRC nor the National Republican Redistricting Committee (NRRC) has publicly endorsed H.R. 4889.

H.R. 4889 has been sitting in the House Judiciary Committee for five months, but, championed by Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren (California), the bill aimed at preventing gerrymandering by allowing each state to establish an independent redistricting commission, has not moved out of the House Judiciary Committee since 2005 (20 years ago!).

Rep. Lofgren’s latest bill was introduced on September 18, 2025, when she unveiled the Redistricting Reform Act of 2025 (H.R. 5449) with 55 Democratic cosponsors and no Republican cosponsors. Some aspects of her legislation have also been included in broader voting rights packages, such as the For the People Act (H.R. 1), which passed the House in 2019 and 2021 but failed in the Senate.

Arguments against Lofgren’s redistricting reform efforts mainly focus on violations of state authority, the potential for nonpartisan commissions to be manipulated, and the timing of these federal mandates.

Fact: Since the 93rd Congress (1973–75), no redistricting bills have experienced any action besides being referred to the appropriate committee or subcommittee.

“We have to end the practice of drawing our congressional districts so that politicians can pick their voters, and not the other way around,” said Democratic President Barack Obama in his final State of the Union address in January 2016. It echoes calls made by Republican President Ronald Reagan twenty-nine years earlier in 1987, “That’s all we’re asking for: an end to the anti-democratic and un-American practice of gerrymandering congressional districts... The fact is, gerrymandering has become a national scandal.”

Gerrymandering is named after Elbridge Gerry, the Governor of Massachusetts in 1812. In reality, Gerry didn’t invent it himself and reportedly found the map drawn by his Democratic-Republican party uncomfortable. Still, he signed a bill that benefited his party by manipulating district lines for unfair political advantage.

If the Common Cause North Carolina and the North Carolina Democratic Party decide not to file a complaint, there will be no mid-decade redistricting effort in the 2020s.

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.