During an appearance on “Meet the Press” this morning, Representative Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) defended his party’s recent redistricting wins, telling moderator Kristen Welker that Democrats will not stop redrawing maps as long as the practice remains legal and utilized by Republicans.
The discussion centered on a recent redistricting referendum in Virginia. The move has put Democrats in a position to potentially flip up to four Republican-held seats.
Welker questioned Khanna on whether these tactical gains contradict past statements from prominent party figures, including former President Barack Obama and Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger, who have previously labeled gerrymandering as “detrimental to our democracy” and a “warp” on representative government.
Khanna rejected the idea that the Democratic victory in Virginia comes at the expense of a healthy democracy, instead framing the situation as a necessary response to a lack of national reform.
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“The Democrats, including President Obama, supported the John Lewis Voting Rights Act,” Khanna said. “That would have ended gerrymandering across the country. Not a single Republican supported that bill.”
Khanna pointed to comments from Donald Trump as evidence that Republicans intend to use partisan map-drawing to their advantage in upcoming elections. He argued that it would be politically non-viable for his party to stop the practice while their opponents continue to use it.
“The Democrats are not going to unilaterally disarm,” Khanna stated. “And a game that the Republicans started, they’re actually losing. They’re down a seat.”
While the California representative maintained that his party remains open to a national ban on gerrymandering through independent commissions and federal legislation, he made it clear that such a shift would require bipartisan cooperation that he claims is currently missing.
“The Democrats still would welcome an effort to ban gerrymandering, to go and pass the Voting Rights Act, and have independent commissions,” Khanna added. “But what we’re not going to do is watch a unilateral disarmament and just Republicans get to gerrymander and we don’t.”
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