August 22, 2025 • 6 mins
California Governor Gavin Newsom has announced plans to redistrict California, just like Texas is doing. Is this going to backfire for the Dems? President Trump is eyeing Missouri for redistricting now.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Seven ten WR the Voice of New York. I'm sorry
eight oh nine, Ken Rozatto and for Larry. See Larry
can do that transition smoothly, not me, because I don't
do it on a regular basis. But we go to
the phone right now. Rick Climb from my old alma mater,
ABC News when I was working for Channel seven locally
here in New York. Rick Climb, ABC News, Washington Bureau Chief,
(00:20):
thanks for being on this morning. Good morning, it's youre
a happy weekend to you.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Hey, good morning. Good to do with you.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Absolutely well, look, redistricting, redistricting. What's to stop every darned
state from saying, oh, yeah, well we're going to redistrict too,
and we're going to have more more Republicans. Oh, we're
going to have more Democrats. Is this going to just
go on and on?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah? What an extraordinary thing. I mean, You've got the
two biggest states in the country in Texas and California,
that have gone toward major revamps of their maps literally
halfway through the decade. You're supposed to do this right
after the TENTSUS, so do it in the middle of
the decade is extraordinary. Trump started it with his calls
for Texas. Texas's map now very close to becoming the
(00:58):
new law of the land. If it is so, Republicans
can expect to pick up as many as five new
seats in the state of Texas. But Gavin Duson responded
to California Democrats there, if the voters approve of the
plan this fall, will have a chance to counter those
five with five Democratic seats. There's a bunch of other states,
including New York, that have talked about doing it, but
there aren't. There's a lot of deuce to sweeze, and
(01:20):
in New York it's probably not going to happen until
at least twenty twenty eight. So I think the net
event effect of this is probably the Republicans pick up
a couple of state seats. But keep in mind, you know,
it's so narrow right now in the House Representatives that
a wave election is going to kind of blast through
any of those any of those eventuality, so I don't
know if it's going to end up controlling or dictating
(01:40):
control of the House.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
And Rick, the interesting thing is, just because the new
districts in Texas are leaning Republican, that doesn't mean that
it's guaranteed it's not a slam dunk, because you could
very well have a great Democrat editor come out who
could squash it and end up winning for the Democrats. Right,
it's a.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Terrific point, and it looks the history of gerrymandering is
filled with untended and you could easily draw a districts
that we've got to put those voters somewhere else, and
so you can endanger a different Republican or a different
Democrat in a different district because you've changed the line
all of it. By the way, all these assumptions are
based on the votes on the voting patterns for the
last election, and we're not going to do that again.
Trump's not going to be on the ballot again and
(02:18):
is standing among younger voters, mail voters, Latino voters. All
of that could change. So it's all exampled. And you know,
if you're a very tight control the race for control
of the House like we were last time, it might
be a gamble that's worth it. But you're one hundred
percent right that voters actually have to vote at the
end of the day, and you could easily see a
scenario where all of these efforts in a red stater
(02:41):
or a blue state actually end up backfiring on the
on the governor, on the legislate, turn on the president.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
And you always have the possibility that Republicans get complacent
in a district like or a state like Texas where
they think, oh, everybody's a Republican here, and then boom
you have the Democrats squeaking right through. It could very
well happen. So when I keep hearing that these are
five guarantees Republican seats, I'm like, not so much. You know,
it could go either way. It's still as you said,
it's up to the voter at the end of the day,
(03:06):
and voters often surprise people, as we've seen the history
point out. The other thing, though, is Texas does not
have a law in the state. The state legislature, or
should say, the state law for Texas simply says that
the legislature proposes the districts and the governor signs them
into law. It doesn't say how often. So yes, though
they tend to do it when you have the results
(03:28):
of the census, it is not something that's required only
at that point, right, They could technically redistrict although it's expensive,
but they could redistrict every couple of years if they
wanted to. But if you start this process, then it
keeps going.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah, in every state has different laws around this. In California,
this is all supposed to be in the hands of
an independent commission, and that's why Governor Newsom has to
take it to the voters this fall. In New York,
there's no way to do it functionally in time. In Florida,
there's a law that said you have to do it
once a decade unless there's a significant and changes some sorts.
So Governor Defansers is looking at that. So it is
(04:03):
an absolute legal mess. But redistricting generally is left to
the states, and it's been clear that with the you
know the things you can't do in terms of discrimination.
But this new uh, the new conservative majority of Supreme
Court is given a wider leeway to a political rationale
for punishing or or targeting or trying to enhance the
(04:25):
value of one or the other. They've given less it's
too race based or ethnicity based redistrict thing, but they've
given quite quite a wide birth for states to try
to to try to run through.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah, when you look at a state like California, where
you have so and such a huge state, high population,
you have so many US Congress members there, but the
majority of them, the vast majority of the members of
Congress are Democrats already. So, as you alluded to before,
even if they redistrict a little bit to give some
advantage to the Republicans, it's not like they're going to
gain a whole lot of Republican seats because the aren't
(04:58):
that many Republican members of the House of Representatives from California.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah, I'm forgetting the numbers off him, but it's something
like forty four to nine right now, right so, you know,
and yeah, and some of those are pretty red places,
so you got to put them somewhere. And that's what
that that's going to limit this is. It's not like
gerrymandering just got discovered that it's been going on literally
since the beginning of the republic and and a lot
of states have already done this quite a bit, and
(05:25):
they've tried to go as far as they could. So
you know, once you get fast the big delegations like
the Texas and the Californias and the Florida's, it's really
hard to see how you get a lot of extra traction.
I've heard talk about Indiana, I've heard talking about Missouri.
I think both of those states only have two Democratic congressmen.
Now they do it out of one. So it's you know,
we're we're talking about things that are sort of tinkering
(05:47):
over the edges, and as you've wint out, it can
create competition in places that isn't hard. You know, they're
not currently thought of as.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Being on the back, you know all the years. By
the way, I'm just going to stay in a side
because i have admired you forever, Rick when I worked
I worked for Channel seven WABC TV in New York
for twenty years, and I used to always scream when
it was political season, why don't we have Recline on?
Why don't we have Recline on? And it used to
drive me nuts because we hear you everywhere else but
on the O and o's and whatnot in all the
(06:15):
big cities. But you are just a treasure. They are
very lucky to have you. I'm sorry I had to
say that, just had to fan a little bit while
we had John Recline, ABC News Washington Bureau Chief. Always
awesome to have you on. Thanks for joining us. Have
a great weekend.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Thank you. And you know I grew up with Channel
seven and a big fan as well. Well appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Thank you sir. I have a great day, a great
week I We'll check you again. You bet.
Seven ten WR the Voice of New York. I'm sorry
eight oh nine, Ken Rozatto and for Larry. See Larry
can do that transition smoothly, not me, because I don't
do it on a regular basis. But we go to
the phone right now. Rick Climb from my old alma mater,
ABC News when I was working for Channel seven locally
here in New York. Rick Climb, ABC News, Washington Bureau Chief,
(00:20):
thanks for being on this morning. Good morning, it's youre
a happy weekend to you.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Hey, good morning. Good to do with you.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Absolutely well, look, redistricting, redistricting. What's to stop every darned
state from saying, oh, yeah, well we're going to redistrict too,
and we're going to have more more Republicans. Oh, we're
going to have more Democrats. Is this going to just
go on and on?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah? What an extraordinary thing. I mean, You've got the
two biggest states in the country in Texas and California,
that have gone toward major revamps of their maps literally
halfway through the decade. You're supposed to do this right
after the TENTSUS, so do it in the middle of
the decade is extraordinary. Trump started it with his calls
for Texas. Texas's map now very close to becoming the
(00:58):
new law of the land. If it is so, Republicans
can expect to pick up as many as five new
seats in the state of Texas. But Gavin Duson responded
to California Democrats there, if the voters approve of the
plan this fall, will have a chance to counter those
five with five Democratic seats. There's a bunch of other states,
including New York, that have talked about doing it, but
there aren't. There's a lot of deuce to sweeze, and
(01:20):
in New York it's probably not going to happen until
at least twenty twenty eight. So I think the net
event effect of this is probably the Republicans pick up
a couple of state seats. But keep in mind, you know,
it's so narrow right now in the House Representatives that
a wave election is going to kind of blast through
any of those any of those eventuality, so I don't
know if it's going to end up controlling or dictating
(01:40):
control of the House.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
And Rick, the interesting thing is, just because the new
districts in Texas are leaning Republican, that doesn't mean that
it's guaranteed it's not a slam dunk, because you could
very well have a great Democrat editor come out who
could squash it and end up winning for the Democrats. Right,
it's a.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Terrific point, and it looks the history of gerrymandering is
filled with untended and you could easily draw a districts
that we've got to put those voters somewhere else, and
so you can endanger a different Republican or a different
Democrat in a different district because you've changed the line
all of it. By the way, all these assumptions are
based on the votes on the voting patterns for the
last election, and we're not going to do that again.
Trump's not going to be on the ballot again and
(02:18):
is standing among younger voters, mail voters, Latino voters. All
of that could change. So it's all exampled. And you know,
if you're a very tight control the race for control
of the House like we were last time, it might
be a gamble that's worth it. But you're one hundred
percent right that voters actually have to vote at the
end of the day, and you could easily see a
scenario where all of these efforts in a red stater
(02:41):
or a blue state actually end up backfiring on the
on the governor, on the legislate, turn on the president.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
And you always have the possibility that Republicans get complacent
in a district like or a state like Texas where
they think, oh, everybody's a Republican here, and then boom
you have the Democrats squeaking right through. It could very
well happen. So when I keep hearing that these are
five guarantees Republican seats, I'm like, not so much. You know,
it could go either way. It's still as you said,
it's up to the voter at the end of the day,
(03:06):
and voters often surprise people, as we've seen the history
point out. The other thing, though, is Texas does not
have a law in the state. The state legislature, or
should say, the state law for Texas simply says that
the legislature proposes the districts and the governor signs them
into law. It doesn't say how often. So yes, though
they tend to do it when you have the results
(03:28):
of the census, it is not something that's required only
at that point, right, They could technically redistrict although it's expensive,
but they could redistrict every couple of years if they
wanted to. But if you start this process, then it
keeps going.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah, in every state has different laws around this. In California,
this is all supposed to be in the hands of
an independent commission, and that's why Governor Newsom has to
take it to the voters this fall. In New York,
there's no way to do it functionally in time. In Florida,
there's a law that said you have to do it
once a decade unless there's a significant and changes some sorts.
So Governor Defansers is looking at that. So it is
(04:03):
an absolute legal mess. But redistricting generally is left to
the states, and it's been clear that with the you
know the things you can't do in terms of discrimination.
But this new uh, the new conservative majority of Supreme
Court is given a wider leeway to a political rationale
for punishing or or targeting or trying to enhance the
(04:25):
value of one or the other. They've given less it's
too race based or ethnicity based redistrict thing, but they've
given quite quite a wide birth for states to try
to to try to run through.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah, when you look at a state like California, where
you have so and such a huge state, high population,
you have so many US Congress members there, but the
majority of them, the vast majority of the members of
Congress are Democrats already. So, as you alluded to before,
even if they redistrict a little bit to give some
advantage to the Republicans, it's not like they're going to
gain a whole lot of Republican seats because the aren't
(04:58):
that many Republican members of the House of Representatives from California.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah, I'm forgetting the numbers off him, but it's something
like forty four to nine right now, right so, you know,
and yeah, and some of those are pretty red places,
so you got to put them somewhere. And that's what
that that's going to limit this is. It's not like
gerrymandering just got discovered that it's been going on literally
since the beginning of the republic and and a lot
of states have already done this quite a bit, and
(05:25):
they've tried to go as far as they could. So
you know, once you get fast the big delegations like
the Texas and the Californias and the Florida's, it's really
hard to see how you get a lot of extra traction.
I've heard talk about Indiana, I've heard talking about Missouri.
I think both of those states only have two Democratic congressmen.
Now they do it out of one. So it's you know,
we're we're talking about things that are sort of tinkering
(05:47):
over the edges, and as you've wint out, it can
create competition in places that isn't hard. You know, they're
not currently thought of as.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Being on the back, you know all the years. By
the way, I'm just going to stay in a side
because i have admired you forever, Rick when I worked
I worked for Channel seven WABC TV in New York
for twenty years, and I used to always scream when
it was political season, why don't we have Recline on?
Why don't we have Recline on? And it used to
drive me nuts because we hear you everywhere else but
on the O and o's and whatnot in all the
(06:15):
big cities. But you are just a treasure. They are
very lucky to have you. I'm sorry I had to
say that, just had to fan a little bit while
we had John Recline, ABC News Washington Bureau Chief. Always
awesome to have you on. Thanks for joining us. Have
a great weekend.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Thank you. And you know I grew up with Channel
seven and a big fan as well. Well appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Thank you sir. I have a great day, a great
week I We'll check you again. You bet.
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