For nearly 15 years at Common Cause, one of the country's oldest and most venerated democracy reform organizations, Kathay Feng has been focused intently on efforts to end partisan gerrymandering. After taking over the group's operation in California in 2005, she was at the heart of the lobbying and organizing effort behind creation of an independent redistricting commission in the most populous state. Since 2015 she has led all Common Cause's legal, legislative and ballot initiative redistricting efforts. The Cornell and UCLA Law School graduate has also fought for civil rights and against racial discrimination in Los Angeles. Her answers have been edited for clarity and length.
What's the tweet-length description of your organization?
Holding power accountable for 50 years.
Describe your very first civic engagement.
I ran for student president in high school. Luckily, no one else really wanted the job, so I won. But seriously, in college, when an Asian-American student was targeted and assaulted, I organized students to push the university to include a standard for handling hate crimes in the campus code of conduct.
What was your biggest professional triumph?
Helping lead the campaign that created the nation's first citizens redistricting commission. After three years of work, we knew legislators would never agree to give up power to draw district lines ensuring their own re-election. I never imagined how brutal the resulting initiative battle would be, going against Democrats and most of our progressive friends to take this power away from a Democratically controlled Legislature. I never imagined we would be working with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger or the Chamber of Commerce to pass Proposition 11 in 2008.
And then I did the hardest thing in my life, working with opponents of the proposition to raise money for outreach and public engagement. That ensured 30,000 people applied to be on the commission, which held over 100 meetings and hearings with huge crowds coming to speak about their communities.
The resulting maps have proven to be the most responsive to voter choices over this last decade, with a real shake-up of incumbents. The process has helped inspire people in Ohio, Michigan, Colorado, Missouri and Utah to insist on building a better redistricting mouse trap. And now Virginia and Oregon are approaching doing the same.
And your most disappointing setback?
I was pretty devastated when the Supreme Court handed us a disappointing decision in Common Cause v. Rucho, where we challenged North Carolina's partisan gerrymandering and the court said there was no room in the First or 14th Amendments to bring a federal case.
But then there was a strange twist of fate. Because of our parallel challenge to those lines under the North Carolina Constitution, Stephanie Hofeller, daughter of Republican redistricting operative Thomas Hofeller, turned over documents revealing her father's research on how to subvert the census by asking a citizenship question to gain partisan and racial advantage.
Those documents became part of the legal challenge to putting such a question on the census form. So on the same day we lost at the Supreme Court on partisan gerrymandering, we cheered the court's decision against instituting segregation through the census.
How does your identity influence the way you go about your work?
When I grew up in Texas, I wished I was white. Being Asian-American meant no one knew how to say my name, I was embarrassed to bring the food my mom made for me to lunch, and the teasing and loneliness were relentless. It took me a very long time to find myself.
When I worked for the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, I monitored voting locations where seniors who looked like my grandmother were sent to the back of the line because poll workers could not read their names. I worked with the Ileto family, which lost a member to a hate shooting. I endeavored to rebuild redistricting so no community would be cut up or cut out of political representation. At Common Cause, I have a huge platform to take on the same fundamental challenges — building a society of inclusion, where every voice is heard and respected.
What's the best advice you've ever been given?
Always ask: Who is not at the table who should be?
Create a new flavor for Ben & Jerry's.
Mango Manila Ice. Because, well, mango.
What's your favorite political movie or TV show?
Lately, we are watching "The West Wing" every night with our 13 year old, who's experiencing — for the first time — the comforting blanket of an imaginary White House that cares about doing the right thing, taking science and reason seriously, and struggling in every episode to put the public interest over personal interests.
What's the last thing you do on your phone at night?
Pokemon Go. It's the only thing that allows me to turn off the news and events of the day.
What is your deepest, darkest secret?
I think I just revealed it! But, also, I have started eating cereal in my coffee. It is simultaneously more efficient and surprisingly tastier than the sum of the parts, which is what I strive for as a general operating principle for life.
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.