NY Gov. Vows Retaliation If Texas ‘Rigs’ Midterms With ‘Legal Insurrection’
Professor Jacobson vigorously defended his blog and rejected the allegations.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is one of several blue state governors to welcome Texas Democrats who fled their state to deny a quorum in the Texas House of Representatives ahead of a redistricting vote. Addressing the recent developments in a Monday speech, Hochul delivered a message to “Republicans in Texas: this is no longer the Wild West. We’re not going to tolerate our democracy being stalled in a modern-day stagecoach heist by a bunch of law-breaking cowboys.” And she vowed to retaliate.
In its coverage of the speech, RealClearPolitics ran the headline: “Gov. Hochul: If Texas Republicans ‘Rig’ 2026 Election With ‘Legal Insurrection,’ New York Will ‘Do the Same.’”
Professor Jacobson vigorously defended his blog and rejected the allegations in a social media post. He wrote: “We deny trying to rig any elections, that’s not something WE do.”
We deny trying to rig any elections, that not something WE do. pic.twitter.com/eLGTQGYlII
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) August 4, 2025
Republicans are rewriting the rules to give themselves an advantage.
The gloves are off. Bring it on. https://t.co/jCg094Q2wP
— Kathy Hochul (@KathyHochul) August 4, 2025
On a more serious note, even as both sides dig in, the hypocrisy from the Left has reached a fever pitch. The reality is that both parties, when given the chance, have used gerrymandering to maximize political power in states they control. In fact, Republicans are relatively late to the game. It’s also worth remembering which party has been the most aggressive.
Democrats are angry for two reasons. First, five new Republican districts could make all the difference in next year’s high‑stakes midterms. And second, the Democrats have already squeezed most of the juice out of the gerrymandering lemon.
Just as Democratic lawmakers beclowned themselves this spring over “Maryland Dad” Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s “due process” rights, they’ve gone hyperbolic over redistricting in Texas. In a Tuesday appearance on MSNBC, Eric Holder, who served as attorney general during the first half of the Obama administration, claimed that Republicans aim to keep control of the House so that, if a Democrat wins the White House in 2028, they can refuse to certify the results.
Former Obama AG Eric Holder says Democrats in the House might refuse to certify the 2028 presidential election because of the redrawn maps in Texas.
Good luck with that. pic.twitter.com/0RsE8Fp90r
— ♡Land Of ILLUSION♡ (@Landofillusion1) August 5, 2025
Perhaps the most vocal Democratic critic has been Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a billionaire, whose state has welcomed the largest contingent of Texas Democrats and who is now pledging revenge if Texas proceeds with its redistricting plan. Given that Pritzker governs one of the most gerrymandered states in the country, his indignation rings hollow.
Below, investor Mike Cernovich points out that while President Donald Trump won 45% of the vote in 2024, Republicans won only 3 seats out of 17, or less than 18%. (Such lopsided representation exists in many states.)
Illinois is the most gerrymandered state in the country.
Republicans won 45% of the vote in Illinois in 2024.
Republicans were only able to win 3 seats out of 17.
Democrats kept 14 seats while only winning 55% of the vote. pic.twitter.com/qJdmVMgkA1
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) August 4, 2025
Buzz Patterson, who served as a top military advisor to former President Bill Clinton, noted the hypocrisy from leaders of the three most gerrymandered seats in the US.
The 3 most gerrymandered states in the US are California, Illinois, and Hochul’s New York. Not surprisingly, all are Democrat-controlled. It’s so absurd it’s funny. https://t.co/TwNuaDGOi4
— Buzz Patterson (@BuzzPatterson) August 5, 2025
The map below of Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District shows just how far state lawmakers were willing to contort boundaries to keep the seat safely blue.
This is a map of Maryland's 3rd congressional district where gerrymandering is obscenely made obvious. pic.twitter.com/5Xq9vRvhG8
— GDPops (@gdpops1950) August 2, 2025
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has vowed to retaliate even though the “California Supreme Court has interpreted the state Constitution to prohibit redrawing congressional districts between the decennial census, a process known as mid-decade redistricting.”
Newsom published a list of states that Republicans have already gerrymandered on X.
Oh cool I can do that too.
Red states with ZERO Dem house seats:
Oklahoma
Arkansas
Iowa
Utah
Nebraska
Idaho
Montana
West Virginia
Alaska
North Dakota
South Dakota
WyomingRed states with just ONE Dem house seat:
Mississippi
South Carolina
Tennessee
Kentucky… https://t.co/OHjtq3w3bQ— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) August 5, 2025
One X user was happy to point out that four of those states have only one congressional district.
Bro thinks North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, and Wyoming are gerrymandered even though they all only have one congressional seat lmfao https://t.co/XbNIpNBaVf
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) August 5, 2025
Texas’s Constitution expressly allows mid-decade redistricting. And, opportunistic or not, the state’s population has surged over the past five years as residents have fled blue states for the freedom — and lower taxes — of red states.
Although the standoff continues, eventually the Texas Democrats will be forced to return. And the result of their theatrics will likely be the same as it was when they fled to Washington, D.C., in 2021 over legislation to enact voting restrictions: it will only delay the inevitable.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
as others have pointe dout
oohhh the irony as texas dems ran to IL which is a huge hub of gerrymandering
The small map of Illinois Congressional districts shown in the article fails to show Illinois’ districts in the greater Chicago area.
This is a much better map, which shows details of Northeast Illinois. https://www.ilsos.gov/publications/illinois_bluebook/congressdistricts.pdf
For example, IL district 1 starts in densely populated Chicago, then extends in farmland.
Also, there are other Chicago districts that also have farmland.
Perhaps Madam Governor should try minding her own state’s business instead of opining on what’s going on elsewhere. New York is circling the drain and all she can think of is partisanship.
Clown…
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is a dip s..t in a cesspool state. All hot air, no substance.
There’s plenty of substance: silicone, botox, lipid, hyaluronic acid, etc.
Or, as they say in Texas, “All hat, no cattle.”
More to the point, when Illinois lost 3 congressional seats due to population loss, when the new district lines were drawn they picked up 5 Democrat congressmen. Interview Joe Walsh about it.
so shes going to use THIS SITE
hmmmmm
////s
Clearly, visiting this site was traumatic, such a strong does of truth for a bald faced liar.
Hey Kathy, do something unexpected – Resign.
You forgot to mention that Holder was the first Attorney General of the United States to be held in contempt of Congress for refusal to turn over documents concerning the Fast and Furious scandal. Of course, nothing happened to him as he just ignored it and went on about his business as usual.
Politico: Holder Held In Contempt
But I was told that the Obama admin didn’t have any scandals.
If a scandal happens in a Democrat admin and the news media won’t report it did it really happen?
I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
Your
winningsupvote, sir!Republicans would win a gerrymandering war big. About all the gerrymandering that can be done has been done on the democrat side already. Republicans have room to grow in the other states.
Paraphrase by Paula:
“If Texas, being a red state, attempts to elect mostly Republicans, NY, being a blue state, will elect mostly Democrats.”
NY is ‘Blue’ because of a few large cities. Aside from them, the state is pretty conservative.
“Legal Insurrection”
Free advertising.
Priceless. Seeing as how the first result for the Google search of “legal insurrection” (without quotes) is legalinsurrection.com I’d say the advertising is priceless. Top result in a google search can’t get any better than that. And even better, as you say, it’s all free advertising.
No publicity is bad publicity!
OMFG! Is that going to be the hysterical new democrat talking point? That if Republicans manage to keep control of the House they won’t certify the next presidential election? Where do they get this stuff. Is there some secret democrat committee that comes up with these talking points that then quickly communicates them to their operatives to disseminate to the ignorant, unwashed democrat masses to stir up the outrage? Just how does it all work, exactly.
Fox News’ Dana Perino calls it the “bat signal.” Word goes out from on high, and suddenly every Democratic politician and cable news host is uttering the same words – almost verbatim. I don’t know how it happens. Maybe the DNC disseminates a bulletin with talking points! … All I know is it happens all the time and it can’t be a coincidence.
“Just as Democratic lawmakers beclowned themselves this spring over “Maryland Dad” Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s “due process” rights, they’ve gone hyperbolic over redistricting in Texas.”
“When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream, and shout.”
It seems this has percolated up to page 1 of the Democrat playbook, perhaps because they were forced to rip out so many previous pages as they cratered their own power base.
https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/42710i19FE66C36C945050?v=v2
Made me laugh.
Naturally. Leftists tend to be thieves and plagiarists by their nature – which is a good part of why they are on the left, to begin with. They copy what others are doing just by their own twisted instincts and lack of critical thinking ability. They are natural sheep.
Should be the “bat guano signal.”
My hunch is that, at least going back to the 2014 Mike Brown Hoax, the DNC has been running the show, probably via mass emails to its operatives. I have communist activist relatives who would say word-for-word what people like Robert Reich were saying (that Antifa is a figment of Trump and his supporters’ imaginations, and that riots committed by white anarchists/communists were false flag attacks by “white supremacists.”
“OMFG! Is that going to be the hysterical new democrat talking point? That if Republicans manage to keep control of the House they won’t certify the next presidential election?”
Isn’t that PRECISELY the “insurrection” Democrats jailed J6ers for “plotting?”
Poor, poor Democrats…going away like Whigs.
Were that it were so.
If Texas goes ahead and “gerrymanders” its congressional districts, this will only be the opinion of Dem governors and other leaders. But, having announced that they will retaliate, any action taken by Newsom, Hochul, or others will self-admittedly be gerrymandering, as they are literally threatening to redistrict specifically to alter the outcome of their own elections in order to reduce or eliminate any advantages that the Rs may get from Texas’ redistricting. Their threats are setting up slam-dunk suits against any redistricting they might undertake in (admittedly) political retaliation.
One of the ironies of the retribution talk is that while Texas law allows for the “mid-decade” redistricting to accommodate population changes, California law does not. In fact in 2008 CA voters took the assigning of district boundaries away from the legislature and created a bipartisan commission (so called) to handle that task following the national census. The state SC ruled that no mid-decade redistricting was allowed.
The instant dust-up in CA is for the legislature to pass a law modifying the rules so that the legislature can usurp the commission for 2026, ’28, and 30. Newsom wants to change the law to allow something that is, as it stands now, illegal. The defenders of democracy do not want the will of the people to prevail when serious issues arise.
The collective hyperventilating response by d/prog is stupidly funny by itself. What’s really gonna be funny is when the d/prog figure out this redistricting has become a tar baby that they’ve all willingly jumped onto.
How many average voters/folks are just now paying attention to the outcomes of redistricting? How many are looking at blue States like Illinois where the GoP got 44% of the Presidential vote but only 17% of the CD? How many are now discussing other aspects of redistricting such as ‘minority majority’ CD? How many are learning that CD aren’t apportioned by # of US Citizens or that CD have vast differences in # of eligible voters?
This response by d/prog is foolish. They can’t do jack in CA without changing the statute to strip out power from the ‘nonpartisan’ redistricting commission. How much leeway do other deep blue States have to act…tough for Massachusetts to do much as there’s ZERO GoP CD despite getting 36% of the Presidential vote. In fact hasn’t been a single GoP in HoR from Mass in …30 years…that’s some pretty effective gerrymandering for 3 decades.
In sum the d/prog are filing up their base with BS promises to ‘fight, resist and punish’ …but can’t deliver b/c they’ve already shot their wad and gerrymandered the States they control. They’ve hyped up the issue and many more people are figuring out how redistricting is done and some, perhaps many people will begin demanding some changes from political leadership or through the Court. Be a real shame if this resulted in the GoP picking up seats closer to their % of the Presidential vote in deep blue States like CA, IL, Mass, Maryland, Connecticut and NY.
tar baby
Oh noes! DAS RACCCCISSSS!
Throwing out a movie about tales told by a black man, from his heritage, with common sense morals, is really ironic. Because, if they instead listened to the stories, they might actually learn some things to their benefit. like how to avoid tar babies.
Indeed ironic that the d/prog have turned the folklore of the tar baby into a tar baby itself.
She mentioned you!
Woohoo!
I’d say go ahead, you’ve got no more seats to squeeze that way. If you try to gerrymander any further you’ll probably lose Democrat seats
Democrats are angry for two reasons
1. They are not in the majority, but they expect to have to their own way.
2. They are not in the majority, but they expect to have to their own way.
Impeach Hochul.
Huh? Whom are you asking to impeach her? Her own party? Why would they want to do that?
And what has she done to deserve impeachment? Nothing she said in this context is wrong. Pathetic, but not wrong.
If NY law allowed her to gerrymander the state she would already have done it, and she’d have been right to. We would have complained, but we would have known that we had no legitimate grounds for it.
In fact she did try a gerrymander the last time around, and the courts threw it out. The court-ordered redistricting was also later thrown out, so now there needs to be a new one, and the Dems will naturally try to influence it as much as possible in their favor, but it’s not in their hands.
Blue states CA and IL are gerrymandered for one party rule, but dems get free pass on that?
Dems cry rules for thee, but not for me.
Free publicity. I just hope you all can fan off the riff raff that come with it.
Illinois is the most gerrymandered state in the country. Republicans won 45% of the vote in Illinois in 2024.
Correctly quoted, but the tweet was, I believe, referring to the Presidential vote.
The tweet also had a screenshot of a Wiki article,2024 United States House of Representatives elections in Illinois , which pointed out that Republicans won 46.97 % of the Illinois vote for Congress in 2024.
47% of the popular vote for Congress got Republicans 18% of the Congressional seats in Illinois in the 2024 election.
If that were possible, they’d be welcome to try. But it’s not possible, and it’s the NY Dems’ own fault.
Here’s the thing: As far as federal law is concerned, each state is free to draw its boundaries however it likes, for maximum political advantage to the majority party, so long as it isn’t on racial grounds. So Texas is free to squeeze as many R seats out of its allocation, and NY is free to do the same for the Ds.
But state laws matter here, and about ten years ago Dem-controlled NY voluntarily changed its constitution to put districting in the hands of a bipartisan commission. Furthermore, it explicitly banned political gerrymandering. No one asked them to do that. They did it all themselves.
Then when the new census came out, and the commission couldn’t come up with a map that would satisfy both parties, the legislature took over and in 2022 imposed a blatant and astonishingly bold gerrymander for the Ds. Naturally the Rs sued and won, and the court appointed an independent expert to draw a map on nonpartisan grounds for the 2022 elections.
Later the Ds appealed that map and won, so the commission had another try, still failed, and in 2024 the legislature came up with a far less blatant gerrymander. It was still designed to illegally give the Ds an advantage, but it wasn’t so blatant that a court would overturn it, so the Rs decided not to bother suing.
Now they’re done. Nothing more is available to the Dems until the 2030 census. Hochul is now proposing a constitutional amendment, but that can’t be done in a day. The earliest an amendment could possibly be made is 2028, so the first election affected would be 2030.
Also, the amendment currently being proposed leaves intact the ban on partisan gerrymandering. So even if it passes, and the Dems invoke it for the 2030 election, if they’re too blatant the Rs will sue and almost certainly win. And since their most recent map that they drew last year stopped just at the edge of blatancy, anything they do to “improve” it in 2030 will likely be blatant enough to justify a challenge.
Arguments on these lines don’t really work. In a system of single-member districts, as we have, there is no expectation that a party’s percentage of the total vote should be reflected in the number of seats it gets. There’s a system that does that, but it’s not the one the USA has chosen. And while I’d be for it (on a per-state basis) most people here would vigorously oppose it. So it’s hypocritical to complain about an outcome like that now.
Suppose a party had 47% support in a state, but it was spread completely evenly. Wherever you looked, you’d find that 53% supported one party and 47% the other. There is no map you could draw in such a state, without being consciously partisan, that would not give the majority party 100% of the seats and the minority nothing.
Now the IL map is heavily gerrymandered to benefit Ds; there’s no question about that. But the disparity between total support and number of seats doesn’t prove it. That’s all.
True to an extent about comparing statewide totals v CD…though I suspect that a neutral redrawing of Illinois would create more balance. I am 100% sure that a partisan redrawing of the Illinois CD to benefit GoP candidates would succeed and probably be no more outrageous than the current map drawn to benefit d/prog.
The other issue with rejecting statewide stats is that it would eliminate ‘majority minority’ CD. This is especially perilous after the recent 5th Circuit ruling that eliminated the notion of standing under VRA for ‘coalitions of multiple minority groups’ to band together and demand creation of a ‘majority minority’ CD. There something like two dozen of these CD nationwide most in deep blue States. NY has maybe 9, NJ has 5. CA has 4 Maryland 2, PA 2, TX has 3. Obviously the 5th Circuit doesn’t extend to the North East but this does create a circuit split and SCOTUS might be inclined to rid us of the coalition grouping as a first step to eliminating the ‘majority minority’ concept altogether as illegal racial categorization and discrimination.
Yes, the IL map is gerrymandered. All I’m saying is that the disparity people point to as proof doesn’t actually prove it. We know it’s gerrymandered from other sources, not from that.
Just as most of the arguments people advance as proof that the Dems cheated at the 2020 election don’t actually work. The best evidence that the Dems cheated then is that they have a long history of cheating at all elections, and in 2020 they went all out to make cheating as easy as possible, so how can anyone imagine that they were suddenly stricken with an inconvenient attack of honesty, and chose that one election not to cheat?! Of course they cheated, and if we can’t find direct evidence it’s because they deliberately made that almost impossible to find.
As for “majority minority” districts, they’ve been on the endangered list for many years now, and we’re slowly moving to them being banned.
“Direct evidence” … how about common sense. Lackluster candidate, campaigning from his basement, Biden’s vote total was vastly more than any other Dem presidential vote total before or since.
That’s not direct evidence.
Milhouse,
Agreed that the % doesn’t definitively ‘prove’ bad faith redistricting. It is a very solid indicator that shenanigans are afoot and deeper inquiry is justified to explain why a State like Mass where GoP routinely garners 1/3 ish statewide doesn’t have a single CD and hasn’t for 3 decades.
Pointing out these disparities in deep blue States is also useful to rebut the arguments raised by Newsom and other d/prog Gov who are bemoaning the TX redistricting proposal. Especially since these d/prog didn’t have the same reaction to race based discriminatory redistricting lawsuits outside the standard redistricting process to grab more political power. After all if the normal redistricting process is ‘sacred’ as they argue and must not be altered or deviated from then where was their same outrage when their d/prog peers were doing it?
Even though states like California which do have Republican competitive districts that win on election night somehow mysteriously wind up losing over a span of four weeks after the polls close when Democrats “keep finding” ballots that somehow mysteriously are 99.9% marked democrat.
The D states have already squeezed pretty much all the blood out of the turnip, so there is more in this for Rs than for Ds. Hochul sounds like the opposing ballplayer in the 1950s who told Yogi Berra that the other team’s pitcher could throw at him, to which Berra answered, “And our pitcher will do the same to your team, and you know our guy throws a lot harder than yours.”
This effort will squarely bring to the Supreme Court the issue of causation versus correlation: if a state documents that districts were drawn for the purpose of advantaging Rs over Ds with no reference whatsoever to race, are the districts nonetheless invalid because blacks are, say, 20% of the population but are so overwhelmingly Ds that there are few or no black-majority districts?
Republicans pay attention. If any democrat state does jerrymandering after Texas someone in Texas FILE A CLASS ACTION LAW SUIT in a conservative district court complaining that the democrat state (whoever they are) jerrymandering effort is capricious and a knee jerk reaction to a Texas law.
Not possible. The Texas voter would have no standing. How is a Texas voter affected by how NY or IL divide up the seats those states are allocated?
And where could they even file it? Even if they had standing they certainly couldn’t file the case in a Texas court! It wouldn’t have jurisdiction. So in which “conservative district court” could they file it?
As an upstate New Yorker, I’m well aware that my state has been heavily gerrymander for the Democrats already. Nor much moire they can do here. But Republicans have more opportunities and the more the Democrats protest and whine the more likely it seems red states will join with Texas in between censuses redistricting. IN, MO, and OH come to mind.
The best line in “Animal House.” “They can’t do that to our pledges, only WE can do that to our pledges.” The Left gets really bent out of shape whenever anyone else does exactly what they have been doing for years. Whatever one thinks of Musk, taking Twitter away from them was one of the great moves. The apoplexy was palpable.
Sounds like NY would do much better if DEI bimbo Horchul vowed resignation.
“Gov. Hochul: If Texas Republicans ‘Rig’ 2026 Election With ‘Legal Insurrection,’ New York Will ‘Do the Same.’”
Is she promising to un-gerrymander New York State?
Or does she think we are all really stupid?
Guess she forget her states maps were thrown out by their liberal Supreme Court