Voters across New York will decide this fall whether to take some of the few teeth out of a new system designed to make redistricting of the nation's fourth largest state a bit less partisan.
The ballot measure was quietly given final approval last week by a Democratic-controlled Legislature voting almost entirely along party lines, the first victory this year by politicians out to make the most of their mapmaking powers.
The vote reminds democracy reformers they made only marginal gains in their bid to curtail partisan gerrymandering in time for the redrawing of all the nation's electoral boundaries for this decade.
Assuming approval in November's low-turnout, off-year election, the measure will allow the Democrats in Albany to unilaterally accept or reject the handiwork of an independent but only advisory redistricting commission that next January is supposed to draw maps for the first time. When creating the commission seven years ago, the divided state government established rules to give either party a reasonable shot at legislative veto power over the lines.
Abandoning that feature will assure New York remains the biggest state where the Democrats can leverage their partisan advantage. That's because California is one of only eight states that will rely on truly independent commissions to make the maps, while in Texas and Florida the process is under Republican control — the situation, for a second straight decade, in a solid plurality of states.
New York Democrats are keen not only to preserve their control of the Legislature but also to keep dominating the congressional delegation. They hold 19 of the 27 House seats now but at least one and maybe two districts will soon have to disappear, depending on the reapportionment that follows the census, which will be finalized in the coming weeks.
The current map was decreed in 2012 by a panel of federal judges after the Legislature deadlocked. In a bid to prevent that from happening again, the lawmakers put a referendum on the ballot two years later creating a panel of 10, with two seats reserved for political independents, that will take the first shot at setting legislative and congressional boundaries.
The measure, approved with 57 percent support, said that if the Legislature is under one party's control then a two-thirds supermajority would be needed to approve the maps — essentially assuring the lines would require some GOP buy-in. The new referendum would reduce that threshold to a simple majority, putting the Democrats in total control at least in 2022.
If they decided to reject both the first and second proposals from the commission, they would effectively claim all the cartographic power for themselves.
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.”
____
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.