National political leaders are making frantic, last-ditch efforts in multiple states to redraw more US House districts ahead of next year’s midterms.
But their ambitions face big political and procedural obstacles and in some cases, open rebellion from state lawmakers pushing back against pressure from the top leaders in their own parties.
Consider Kansas, where Republican lawmakers are trying to force a special session and join the wave of states undertaking once-rare, mid-decade redistricting to gain an edge in the 2026 congressional elections. GOP leaders this week were working to secure the signatures from two-thirds of lawmakers in both chambers needed to bypass the state’s Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and proceed. On the line: the US House seat currently held by four-term Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids.
“I think it’s terrible for democracy,” said Kansas state Rep. Mark Schreiber, one of the remaining Republican holdouts, in an interview with CNN. “It’s fairly simple: Redistricting was meant to accommodate changes in the population, based on the decennial census, and that’s it.”
“This mid-cycle redistricting is being done only for political purposes, in this case to maintain a Republican majority in the US House,” Schreiber added.
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