'I think it’s wrong': Mike Lawler defies Trump over GOP's election-rigging scheme
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) came out against Texas Republicans' effort to redraw their congressional map to give themselves five extra seats in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on Friday.
Lawler, a swing-district Republican who has largely backed President Donald Trump's agenda, would likely be on the chopping block if Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) followed through on her threats to redraw the state's map in retalation — though, he noted on CNN, state law already makes the process to redistrict mid-decade so lengthy it would be nearly impossible for New York to do so by the 2026 midterms.
"So if you look at the map ... most of the worst offenders when it comes to gerrymandering are Republican states such as Texas," said Tapper. "And what's going on here is President Trump is worried about what happens with almost every president, midterm election losses in the House. And to offset that, he looks at Texas and says, 'Oh, we can gerrymander. We can gerrymander five Republican seats there in the middle of the decade.'"
"My question for you is ... what's going on now is this there's about to be an eruption of this, because not only are California and New York, Democratic states, threatening to do it, Trump is trying to push Missouri and Ohio as next states, Republican states, to try to squeeze out a few more Republican seats," said Tapper. "Wouldn't you like it all to stop?"
'Well, let's be clear," said Lawler. "This has obviously been happening for decades. It's why in last November's elections, only 35 seats were decided by five points or less ... so the problem is, across the country, gerrymandering has been happening after each successive Census. And it has created less competitive districts. And so there's very little room in terms of trying to pick up seats."
That being the case, he continued, "Yes, I think it's wrong what Texas is doing. I don't support it. I think it is wrong."
He added that he plans to introduce legislation "to outright ban gerrymandering, let alone during mid-decade redistricting, but to not allow it at all. This is fundamentally why Congress is broken. You do not have competitive districts, and so most members are focused on primaries and not actually engaging in a general election."
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