Texas Republicans, at the request of President Donald Trump, are in the process of redrawing voting district lines to make it easier to elect more Republicans to Congress.
Democrats in California and New York are vowing to fight back and redraw their political boundaries to negate any GOP gains.
It's threatening to turn into a full-on, nationwide cascade of voter disenfranchisement, as state leaders in a half dozen other states (mostly Republican) across the country have begun discussing how to make it easier to elect their political brethren.
Could Washington join in?
Washington, after all, has the raw ingredients to make quick changes to state law: one-party control of state government, from the Legislature to the governor's mansion.
But the answer is almost certainly no, for two reasons.
One, it would be much harder to redraw the lines here than in other states. And two, there's less to gain for the controlling party (in Washington, the Democrats) than in other states.
Redistricting, or redrawing political boundary maps, normally happens once a decade. After the census is released, states redraw their political lines to ensure that each district has a similar population. States completed their redistricting a couple of years ago, following the 2020 census.
The Texas Legislature can change the maps just by voting to do so. Texas currently has 25 Republican U.S. House members and 12 Democrats. By redrawing the maps, Republicans hope to squeeze five or so Democrats out of their seats.
We are entitled to five more seats," Trump said of his push to redistrict in Texas.
Democrats in California have promised to counterattack if Texas Republicans go through with their plan, although it's a little more complicated.
Redistricting in California is handled not by the Legislature but by an independent commission, and it would require a constitutional amendment to change that. Democratic leaders there announced they'll seek such an amendment in November.
In California, too, there is much to gain: The state currently has 43 Democratic U.S. House members and nine Republicans. Democrats hope to take five or so Republican seats through redistricting.
Like California, Washington draws its maps with a commission created by a voter-approved constitutional amendment. It is appointed by the Legislature, with two Democrats and two Republicans as voting members. It takes three votes to approve the maps.
And it would take a new constitutional amendment to change that, requiring two-thirds approval by the Legislature and a vote of the people.
Democrats don't have a two-thirds majority in either the state House or the state Senate, so it's essentially a nonstarter. At least one member of the most recent redistricting commission thinks Washington should try nonetheless.
"In a perfect world, I think we’d have nonpartisan commissions, but that’s not the world we live in," said Brady Walkinshaw, a Democratic member of the last redistricting commission and founder of Noisy Creek, the parent company of The Stranger. "I’d encourage Gov. (Bob) Ferguson to follow (California Gov. Gavin) Newsom’s lead and jump in."
Legislative leaders in both parties have said they have no interest in redrawing the state's districts.
“There’s literally no way to get the results they are talking about before the 2026 election,” Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, told the Washington State Standard last month. “We have already done our share to get Democrats in the House. There’s no juice to squeeze in the lemon here.”
“This is not a serious proposal,” House Minority Leader Drew Stokesbary, R-Auburn, told the Standard. “I hope Democrats try so the rest of us can have a good laugh.”
Ferguson said he supported Democratic redistricting efforts in California to counter Texas, but that a similar move is impossible in Washington because they don't have the votes in the Legislature.
“What President Trump is asking for is deeply undemocratic and wrong," Ferguson said in a prepared statement. "It says a lot about his policies that he believes they need to rig the system in order to maintain their majority in Congress."
Democratic advocacy groups said they've not discussed any sort of redistricting push in Washington.
"No one is proposing to do it in Washington, there's not even murmurs or anything, it's not going to happen here," said Andrew Villeneuve, director of the Northwest Progressive Institute and a member of the state Democratic Party executive committee.
"I haven't heard of any conversation," said Aaron Ostrom, director of Fuse Washington, a Democratic advocacy group. "It would definitely be a nuclear option."
Shasti Conrad, chair of the state Democratic Party, said the time for taking the high ground, for unilateral disarmament, has passed.
"We all stand with the Democratic governors who are recognizing the authoritarian crisis that the Republicans are putting this country through," said Conrad. "We have to lean in and fight fire with fire."
But even if, for argument's sake, Democrats were able to push through an effort at redistricting this year, there's not a lot to gain. Democrats control the state's U.S. House delegation 8-2. It's possible they could draw a map to make a 9-1 or 10-0 split, but it would be difficult.
"Unless you wanted to draw a map that had (Seattle's) Capitol Hill somehow districted in with Yakima," said former state Sen. Joe Fain, one of the Republican members of the state's last redistricting commission.
Because Washington is a smaller state, and because it is already dominated by Democrats, there are simply fewer seats to try to pick up by redrawing the maps than in California or Texas. Any redrawn map would also have to survive likely challenges in state court.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in 2019, essentially gave the green light for states to redistrict for purely political purposes when it ruled that "partisan gerrymandering" is "beyond the reach of federal courts."
For what it's worth, good government groups generally approve of Washington's congressional maps as they are. The state has two competitive House districts — the left-leaning 8th District, which spans both sides of the Cascades, and the 3rd District in Southwest Washington, which leans Republican. Both just happen to be represented by Democrats at the moment.
Extreme gerrymanders — where congressional districts look like exclamation points or are called "Goofy kicking Donald Duck — can be found all over the country. But the Princeton Gerrymandering Project found Washington's districts are compact, competitive and not rigged to overtly favor one party, giving the state an A for its map.
But in times of ever-heightening partisan warfare and democratic breakdown, that and a nickel (actually, more like 5 bucks now) will get you a cup of coffee.
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