Why are Texan Democrats on the run?

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

0:30business needs in one place, saving you time, headaches, and serious money. Stop paying for missing pieces. Go to odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com to learn more. Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, is a show about the psychology and economics behind our decisions. Join host Katie Milkman, an award-winning behavioral scientist and author of the best-selling book, How to Change, as she shares true stories from Nobel laureates, authors, athletes, and everyday people about why we make the choices we do and how to make better ones to help avoid costly mistakes. Listen to choiceology at schwab.com slash podcast or wherever you listen.

1:15BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. They say everything's bigger in Texas, even the news, and it seems it is. A plan by Texas Republicans to redraw the electoral map has drawn attention from right around the nation. It would create five new Republican-leaning seats in the House of Representatives. The Democrats say they're not going to go down without a fight. Blue states, Democratic states, saying they are pledging to gerrymander their own maps in response. Here is the governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker. When they're taking it upon themselves to thwart the will of the American people, well, they say when Donald Trump calls, they say, yes, sir, right away, sir, Happy to lick your boot, sir.

1:59When Donald Trump says jump, Greg Abbott and Ken Paxson say, how high? Those two individuals, very prominent Texas Republicans. So with the midterms coming up, this is the battle that could reshape Congress and thus President Trump's entire second term. Welcome to AmeriCast. AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. God spared my life for a reason. Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. A star is born, Elon. I'm not just MAGA, I'm dark, gothic MAGA. This is what happens when the machine comes after you. I'm terrified for this country and I'm so hurt that America let this happen. I think that we just witnessed the greatest political comeback in the history of the United States of America.

3:00Hello, it's Justin in the worldwide headquarters of AmeriCast in London, England. And it's Anthony in the American headquarters of AmeriCast in Washington, D.C. The sub-office. We're going to talk redistricting today, which, my goodness, sounds dry, but isn't at all, actually, is it? It's really fundamental to the whole of the politics of the United States, in a way, and could be quite crucial for the Trump presidency. So let's start with that word, with redistricting and, Anthony, its meaning. Sure. The congressional map, the House of Representatives map, the 435 people who represent all the states in the House of Representatives, they represent congressional districts with lines that are drawn by states in various different ways.

3:42And how those lines are drawn will tell you a lot about the kind of person who gets elected to Congress from there. So redistricting is a constitutionally mandated procedure that happens, is supposed to happen every 10 years after the national census in order to adjust these congressional district lines to reflect changes in population. People moving around within a state or people from moving from state to state. Sometimes some states get more congressional districts because they have more people after 10 years. Sometimes they get less because they have fewer people after 10 years. That's what the way it's supposed to work.

4:18You make yourself irrational. What we're seeing right now is that there is a push to draw the state lines, draw the congressional lines again in the middle of a 10-year census. The census happens every 10 years on a year that ends in zero. So we just had new congressional districts drawn in 2021. They're supposed to stay there until 2031. but Donald Trump and the Republicans in Texas and maybe Democrats elsewhere and Republicans elsewhere are looking at redrawing these lines to maximize the partisan advantage that they have. Because as I said, the way you draw the lines will tell you who represents that district.

4:59So if you draw the line, so there are more Republicans than Democrats, a Republican has a good chance of winning that district. If you draw it where it's an even balance, then you are going to get someone in the middle, maybe even a moderate. It'll be a very closely contested race in the next election. It really has everything to do with who controls the House of Representatives and therefore who sets the national political agenda and who can either rubber stamp Donald Trump's agenda for the second two years of his presidency or provide a check on that if Democrats win control. And we ought to underline the midterm elections next year are likely to be won by the Democrats, but it can really derail a presidency.

5:40And what they're trying to do, basically, is it as simple as this? They're just trying to make sure that even if they lose on the Republican side, they don't lose by as much as they might. Right, if you look, I mean, Joe Biden had to deal with the Republican Congress for the last two years of his term, created all sorts of headaches with all the investigations. Donald Trump lost control of the House of Representatives in 2018. In those midterm elections, as you mentioned, Barack Obama had to deal with it, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton in 1994 was Republicans and Newt Gingrich who had a massive electoral landslide.

6:15So this is this is kind of the political gravity reasserting itself after a president wins the White House, where the out of power party tends to do well. And as you say, this is Donald Trump's attempt to prevent that from happening. And if you look at the numbers in the House of Representatives, right now there's a three-seat difference between Republicans and Democrats. So this is control balanced on a knife's edge. Now, if it's a Democratic wave election, if they do really well next year, nothing that the Republicans are doing right now will probably matter. But if this is close and it's one of these ones that comes down to a handful of seats, then the five Democratic controlled seats in Texas that Republicans are going to try to make friendlier to Republicans could be the difference.

7:02And actually, we saw that in 2024. The Republicans redrew lines because of some some court battles in North Carolina, ended up flipping three seats in that state's delegation from Democrats to Republicans. and that was the difference in control of Congress. So these line drawings, when it's a close election, can be the difference between one party giving oversight and giving Republicans headaches and making a real trouble for Donald Trump and not being able to get his agenda through and the Republicans being able to push even more stuff through in the next two years. Okay, so one big question is what the Democrats should do about all of this and we're going to put that question later on to Steve Israel who's not only a former US congressman, someone we've talked to before on the pod, he was also chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

7:51So he really knows the nuts and bolts of how you get people into the House of Representatives and indeed how you fail to get people into the House as well. So it's going to be interesting to hear from him. Before we get there, though, let's focus a bit on Texas, a place you know well, and a place where, I mean, it's just a really weird story, isn't it? that to anyone outside the United States looking in, it's one of these kind of oddities of the US. The Democrats, as I understand it, have fled. They have literally got in their cars and driven to another state in order that there isn't a quorum in the legislature.

8:25Is it as simple as that? Yeah. So what's happening in Texas is that the governor, Greg Abbott, called a special session of the legislature at the behest of Donald Trump, who had been pressuring Republicans of the state, in order to consider drawing these new district lines. The Democrats, knowing that the special session was happening, decided to hightail it out of the state to deny the quorum so that they can't do anything in this session. They've gone to places like Illinois and California and New York, and they're hunkering down there in an attempt to just run out the clock and delay, at the very least, delay things, but maybe even block this redistricting from happening.

9:04And it's actually a familiar playbook. Back in 2003, Republicans in Texas did the exact same thing. They redistricted in the middle of a decade. They drew lines that gave their party a much stronger hand in the Texas House delegation. Democrats fled the state to Oklahoma and to New Mexico. And it delayed things, although ultimately enough Democrats felt the pressure, came back home. They gave a quorum and they redrew the lines. But, you know, politics is different now, 22 years later. And I think the Democrats seem to be digging in their heels and they're getting a lot of national support from from members of their party, because in the feeling of liberals, at last someone is standing up to Republicans.

9:49Someone is drawing a line in the sand and doing whatever it takes. And in their view, playing by the same kind of hardball rules that the Republicans have been using. Yeah. And some of those doing the welcoming, some of the governors doing the welcoming, of course, themselves presidential candidates, presumably next time round for the Democrats. Among them, among the punchier ones, certainly at the moment, J.B. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois. Let's listen to a bit of the press conference he held for his star Escapers from Texas. Donald Trump, Governor Abbott, Texas Republicans, well, they know that they're headed toward a loss of the Congress in 2026.

10:28They're afraid, and they should be. So they've decided that the only way to save themselves is to cheat, to change the rules in the middle of the game. When Donald Trump calls, they say, yes, sir, right away, sir, happy to lick your boot, sir. when Donald Trump says jump, Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton say, how high? They don't care that they're violating the Voting Rights Act and racially gerrymandering their state. Well, they're hoping they can rob the bank and get away before anyone notices. All right. A couple of things from that clip. First of all, we're hearing Pritzker be very, very animated, which I think a lot of Democrats love and makes him possibly a contender for the presidential nomination in 2028.

11:14Ken Paxton, the person he referenced there, is the attorney general of Texas. He's one of the ones who is pushing for these Democrats to be rounded up and brought back to Texas or vacated from their seats, essentially deemed to not be elected officials anymore, and then they can be replaced. Also, when he's talking about racial gerrymandering and how this is a racial gerrymander, gerrymanders the process of drawing these congressional district lines to advantage. That's actually illegal. Racial gerrymandering is ruled out in federal civil rights law. So if they can prove that these lines were drawn in order to disadvantage minority voters, then it gives them a much better chance of striking down these districts in the court.

11:57The court has said that political gerrymandering, drawing lines in order to give partisan advantage is perfectly allowable, perfectly normal. There's a long history of this in America. So it's It's something that states can do. The risk, I suppose, is that the Democrats go nuclear. We'll put all this to Steve Israel in a minute. But the Democrats go nuclear. And in doing so, they actually damage the things that they say they love about America. Yeah, Democrats control 43 of the 52 seats in California. There's already a large Democratic California delegation, but they could probably draw the maps that would knock out at least a few more Republicans.

12:36And yes, one of the criticisms of political gerrymandering is that it doesn't create competitive districts, that it does make members of Congress more responsive to the extremes because their seats are determined by who can win the primary, if they can win the primary, rather than the general election where they know they have an advantage, a built-in advantage with more of their party in the district. And that is what's pulling this country apart. And one of the things that these these attempts to take the line drawing out of the hands of politicians and put them into bipartisan or nonpartisan commissions was trying to do.

13:17And if you talk to some liberals and maybe Steve Israel will say this, is that, well, you know, we do want to do this. This is a goal and we have tried to do this, but we're not going to do it until everyone pushes the same way. And if Republicans are going to play dirty, the one thing we've learned now is that we have to play dirty, too, until we can everyone change the system together, which, you know, don't hold your breath. Well, let's ask the man himself, because he's on the line and he's a friend of the part. We've talked to him quite a few times in the past. So, Steve, can you hear me? Are you there?

13:48I can. It's great to be with you. And I hope you've had just a bit of a conversation because you can correct us or at least correct me and the things I've got wrong. But you can also, I mean, address that question that Anthony's raised now. Are you an all out, let's fight fire with fire man? Or are you a no, hold on, let's try to keep some vestiges of the old system that we respect man? Or are you halfway between those two? Tell us where you go. I have been burned by the fire as a Democratic member of the House. I was in the House when Texas Republicans did something unprecedented, which was a mid-decade redistricting, back in 2003.

14:29And they stole five seats from House Democrats by doing that. And so I was burned by that. Now, I will say, in fairness, I also was on the other side of the redistricting weapon when I chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which was the committee that waged campaigns for every House Democrat and every Democratic congressional candidate. That was in 2012 when the state of Illinois, which was under Democratic control, redistricted and we picked up seats. The difference between what happened in Texas in 2003 and what is happening now and the way we have always played it is that we have played fair, quite bluntly.

15:11We have waited. We've never engaged in mid-decade redistricting. We have waited for the constitutional process. And every 10 years, we have done everything we could do legally in order to pick up seats. What Texas Republicans are doing is not only breaking the rules, but they're creating new rules by engaging in this mid-decade redistricting. And they're transparent about it. When President Trump says, yeah, we're doing it because we want to pick up five seats, It's clear what they're doing. And it is political malpractice to allow this to occur again without responding. And so I support what Governor Newsom is doing in California, what Governor Hochul is doing in New York, what could happen in other states.

15:56The problem is that in those democratic states, Democrats have enshrined a sense of fairness into the law. And so in some states, you can't deviate by a certain percentage. In others, you have independent commissions and court oversight. And so Democrats are playing with a hand that they themselves dealt that makes it more difficult for them to respond in kind to what's happening in Texas. Yeah. And in your own state of New York is one of those states that had this law that said you had to draw nonpartisan congressional district lines. And it got held up in court. And I think you had one map in 2022 that actually helped Republicans and was one of the reasons why Republicans took back control of Congress.

16:37And then Democrats were able to get another map for 2024 that picked up some seats in your home area of Long Island and switched it back to the Democrats. So, I mean, even in New York, where you have this sort of rule, the maps have been changing a lot in the past few years. The maps have changed. And this cuts a little close a home for me because the maps that the Democrats generated took my former district, which stretched across the northern coast of Long Island, roughly from New York City, all the way out to the excerpts. And they reconfigured that district so that it crossed two or three bridges, multiple counties, many cities, all the way into northern Westchester County.

17:28And that was, you know, as gerrymandered as you can get. Elbridge Gerry would have been proud of those lines. And it ultimately got struck down by the courts because New York has a different kind of process. And the courts struck it down and the courts ended up adopting a much fairer, cleaner map that didn't allow Democrats to pick up what we had hoped. And then are you sacrificing your principles because you want to try to get an advantage now? I mean, it seems like these are high-minded ideas, what New York did, what Virginia did, what California did. Are you deciding to play dirty? And is there going to be a cost, a moral cost for that on your side?

18:11You know, I'll tell you what my fundamental principle is. It is to protect and save democracy and stop Donald Trump's authoritarian tendency and stop him from continuing to have a monopoly in the three branches of government, stop his defying the courts, stop him from treating Congress as if it was a bunch of interns. That's my fundamental principle. The only way Democrats can achieve that is to fight by the same rules that Republicans are fighting by, to do everything we can to stop them from breaking the rules and adding seats unfairly. Then when we have the House back and possibly the Senate, tougher path in the Senate in the upcoming midterm elections, but then when we have the House back, we will do what we did the last time we had the majority, which is to introduce legislation that would create a national standard for fair and independent redistricting.

19:03But we can't even get a hearing on that bill for as long as Republicans hold the majority and they're holding the majority using these ruthless and relentless strategies you wonder why i think a lot of people look kind of looking on at the states from outside wonder why these things haven't been dealt with before in other words what what is it about your system that allows such partisanship to kind of foul up everything all the time and i'm gonna you know Now, make the distinction between you and it's not as if the British political system is in ideal shape at the moment. I don't think anyone here would suggest that it is.

19:42But we do have this. We have taken the politics out of districting. Here they're called constituencies, as you know, because we have this completely independent. It's mainly lawyers who go around and do the necessary work every however many years it is. It just seems weird to people that that hasn't ever been properly approached kind of nationwide. Well, we tried. The Democrats, as I said before, when we had the majority passed, the first bill they passed, H.R. 1, would have created a fair and independent system for redistricting across the board, uniform. And it was passed by the House and never was passed in the Senate.

20:24Look, I'm a political nerd. My favorite gerrymandered district was the old Pennsylvania 7th District outside of Philadelphia, which was configured to protect a Republican who had more and more Democrats surrounding him. And that district is known as Goofy Kicking Donald Duck, because when they actually drew it, you know, they had to cut here, cut there, go to the left, go to the right, go north, go south. When you look at it, it looks like a caricature of the Disney characters, Goofy, kicking Donald Duck. The other one that I remember was in Arizona. I think it was in 2000 when a district literally snaked along the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon so that it could include one reservation, tribal reservation, but exclude another one.

21:21And so the district was literally from one bank of the Colorado River across to the other for some length. This system is, it's crazy. And may I say one other thing, here's who's losing. Bipartisanship is losing. When I went to Congress Redistricting was not really weaponized as much as it is now. So when I went to Congress, in 2000, there were about 100 fairly moderate centrist districts where you campaigned on bipartisanship. Today, by my most recent count, there are 30 because all of the other districts have been specifically contoured to protect the far left or the far right. And as a result, Congress is more polarized than ever.

22:11Right. And I think if you listen to some California Republicans, there are some who are actually calling for congressional legislation now to to stop this practice because they see the writing on the wall. Right. I mean, they're the ones in the Democratic crosshairs. and you did mention that this has been going on for a long time and the term gerrymandering is hundreds of years old but one of the differences now is that with the latest kind of statistical models and computer models you can actually do a really good job of scientifically pairing it to the point where even in a district that looks relatively narrow it still tends to be a safe district for one person or the other I mean when you were in these congressional committees and the campaign committees.

22:55I mean, how much do you drill down into the science of this, the science of gerrymandering to, say, in Illinois, try to figure out how to squeeze some more Democrats out of that? Well, in Illinois, I ended up calling the Democratic governor of Illinois at the time Rembrandt, because his artistry in that map was successful in picking up Democratic seats and countering what Republican governors were doing elsewhere around the country. Both parties have very elaborate, very sophisticated data operations that, as you say, can draw lines down to somebody's front door, can carve around and then carve back.

23:40We relied on some very sophisticated software and data programs that gave us a sense of what could be done and what could not be done. But I want to repeat, we did this in conformance with the constitutional requirement. We did this in conformance with you have one shot at it, and that is after the census is done every 10 years. What Republicans are doing is weaponizing it mid-decade. There's a big difference. And the result is, and this is another huge problem in the House of Representatives, districts have been drawn so far to the right and so far to the left that most members of Congress don't wake up in the morning worrying about being defeated by someone from the other party.

24:25Such a good point. They wake up worried about being defeated by somebody who's further to the fringe than they are. And that explains some of the personalities you see in the House of Representatives. And that's really sapping, isn't it, of American democracy and bipartisanship, as you say. I mean, it's sapping of the way that Congress is meant to work. That's right. That is a really depressing thought, isn't it? And I mean, in a way, unless you can get a grip on all of this, it's quite difficult to see a way out, isn't it? Because of the way in which it feeds on itself. There's one way out other than Democrats being able to take the majority and passing this bill.

25:03I'm sorry to say, but I'm also pragmatic enough to say it's mutual assured destruction. It's the California Republicans who have suddenly seen the light and want a fair nationwide standard. It's Republicans in New York, Republican members of Congress, who are about to see the light if New York is successful at doing its own mid-decade redistricting. It may just take a sense of mutually assured destruction to scare enough members of Congress to support the kind of reforms we need. Meanwhile, in Texas, Anthony, who's going to win? Because you've seen these come and go. You're a Texas lad. and as Steve was saying, well, as you were saying right at the beginning before Steve joined us, this is not the first time this has happened.

25:46Do the Democrats get any kudos for leaving the state? You're meant to stand and fight, aren't you, if you're a Texan? Yeah, I think that the view among Texas liberals is that this is the way they can fight. I mean, there's been a lot of criticism and I'm sure the congressman will back this up of Democrats in Congress right now not doing enough and acceding to Donald Trump's efforts. Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, has caught a lot of hell from his constituents and from Democrats for not shutting down the government instead of allowing Donald Trump to get some of these cuts through. So in a way, I think there are a lot of liberals out there that see this as a fight, finally a fight that their party is doing and are finally rolling up their sleeves and taking it to Republicans.

26:37I mean, Steve, you probably heard a lot of that criticism of your former colleagues in Congress and that they haven't done enough to resist. Yeah. No, Anthony, you're exactly right. I hear almost every day this desire to see signs of life in the Democratic Party. And so what's happening in Texas, I think, is vital. It's also encouraging. But let's face it. It's the only play that the Democrats have in Texas. Were they to remain, de facto they lose. They're in the minority. They don't have the votes. This is a bulldozer that cannot be avoided. The only way of avoiding it is to make Texas Republicans feel some pain and do exactly what Texas legislators are doing.

27:23But they'll eventually be dragged back, won't they? I mean, there's even talk of the FBI being involved now and picking them up and bringing them back. isn't that? That's not going to be a great look, is it? Because eventually they'll have to pass this, won't they? I'll tell you what, if they resort to the wanton politicization of the FBI, who will take their eyes and resources off of trying to find terrorists and other existential threats to the United States in order to haul back duly elected legislators in order to ram through this act, I actually believe that that plays well, not just with the Democratic base, that actually will really antagonize moderate and independent voters.

28:08They do not want the FBI engaged in a political stunt. And I think that that overreach, that abuse of power, will backfire on Republicans in the long run. You sound more fired up, Steve, than we've ever had you on the pod before. And we can't overemphasise, actually, how much this is firing up Democrats. And yes, some who want to be president and have got their own reasons for being fired up. But actually, one or two others. I mean, actually, the governor of your own state, we should listen to her. Kathy Hochul talking in kind of really apocalyptic terms about how important this moment is. Let's listen to what she said.