GOP senators push for challenge to House maps in Democratic states

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Roll Call

Posted May 19, 2026 at 5:46pm


Senate Republicans used a hearing Tuesday to push the Trump administration to file lawsuits challenging congressional maps in California, Illinois and other Democrat-controlled states in the wake of a Supreme Court decision rolling back the Voting Rights Act. The hearing comes weeks after the Supreme Court’s six-justice conservative majority in Louisiana v. Callais overturned a Louisiana congressional map with a second Black opportunity district drawn to satisfy the Voting Rights Act.

The decision supercharged a nationwide redistricting arms race. Experts and members of Congress have said the decision changes long-standing redistricting standards and makes discrimination in redistricting harder to prove.

At the opening of the hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution, subcommittee Chair Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., urged the Justice Department and any possible private litigants to challenge maps in states such as California and Illinois, arguing that efforts to have the maps maximize minority representation violate the Constitution.

“These maps do not become constitutional because they’re already in use; they do not survive because politicians call them voting rights maps, and they will not disappear on their own,” Schmitt said.

Read more: https://rollcall.com/2026/05/19/gop-senators-push-for-challenge-to-house-maps-in-democratic-states/

[AZJonnie]

1. Whereas, naturally

efforts to have the maps maximize MAJORITY representation are perfectly in line with it.

I guess that might make sense, given that people who didn't own land, and/or were black, and/or were women were not even entitled to vote at all per that Constitution.

[AZLD4Candidate]

2. As per the article: Democrat-controlled states? This Lee Atwater bullshit needs to die

[SSJVegeta]

3. That would ultimately create more dem seats

Not sure they know what they are doing

[Multichromatic]

4. Democratic states should follow the supreme court directive and gerrymander harder.

Illinois and California should just redraw their maps so there are ZERO Republican house seats.

[SamuelAdams]

5. My understanding of the SC decision was politics is an acceptable reason to discriminate.

Can't Illinois and CA just just claim their maps are maximizing Democrats seats?

[BumRushDaShow]

6. That's what Jeffries was suggesting

and that included NY.

The thing is, a number of states (and that includes some red states) have state Constitutional requirements for districts to be "compact and contiguous". PA's is like that and that is how in 2018, we were able to ungerrymander the (R) skew here and go from -

13(R)s - 5 (D)s

to

9(D)s - 8(R)s (after PA lost a seat after the 2020 census).

So in order to draw (R)s out of existence, the state Constitution would need to be changed to allow it.