The last time House Democrats held the majority, they made a sweeping package of good-government reforms — including an attempt to end partisan gerrymandering — a centerpiece of their legislative agenda.
“The people should choose their politicians,” then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in 2021, moments before the House passed the bill that would later die in the Senate. “Politicians should not be choosing their voters.”
Now, as President Donald Trump pushes Republicans in red states to redraw congressional district lines to their benefit, some Democrats are abandoning their past push for reforms. Instead, they’re cheering on leaders like California Gov. Gavin Newsom who say their party must fight fire with fire.
Pelosi, in a statement to POLITICO, said she backs Newsom’s effort to overrule a bipartisan California map and counter GOP attempts to “rig the elections in their favor.”
Her U-turn is emblematic of the larger rethinking underway within the Democratic Party, where leaders who once embraced anti-gerrymandering initiatives and feared a race to the bottom in partisan warfare between red and blue states are now increasingly willing to set aside their lofty goals — at least temporarily.