Redistricting chaos becomes a nasty habit

The bitterly divisive ground war between the Republican and Democratic parties continues to escalate state by state. As accelerated by the White House, the redrawing of state congressional district maps — meant to occur uniformly once a decade — has become a series of ad hoc battles in this 10-year cycle.

Hard-fought reforms in different states to stem gerrymandering and minimize the consideration of incumbency and partisanship in redistricting are now suspended in the fog of electoral war. Fairness to all communities and regions takes a backseat to the battle over who can better manipulate the playing field. In New York, that gamesmanship is going on, again, right at the cusp of the nominating process for this year’s House midterm races.

This vexes informed voters who reject the disingenuous claims of President Donald Trump that our electoral system in America is unreliable and not secure. Trump, who infamously tried and failed to alter the 2020 national election results after the fact, prodded Texas and other red states last summer to change their maps to harvest more House seats, fearful that a Democratic majority could rein in his overextended executive powers.

Every seat counts big. New York’s dominant Democrats, unwilling to disarm, are going all out to purge New York City of its single Republican seat, held by Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, in its smallest, reddest borough. Democrats who won the first round of a lawsuit filed in state court claim the existing 11th Congressional District dilutes the voting power of Blacks and Latinos on Staten Island. Republicans have filed an emergency petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. If they lose, that would mean a remarkable fourth iteration of New York’s map in four years. The GOP, however, tried but failed to get the high court to counteract a bigger gerrymander in California earlier this month.

Given his partisan role, Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn, the House Democratic leader, cannot or will not take the high road of restraint. Mirroring Trump’s will to meddle in a state’s prerogatives, Jeffries is vowing to spend millions to push through an April ballot initiative in Virginia that could yield Dems four seats. In Maryland he’s putting the screws on the Democratic Senate leader who refuses to carve up the state’s only GOP-tilted seat.

Jeffries and other top Democrats for now avoid addressing how to build a nonpartisan peace after the war. “[Trump] wanted to rig the midterm elections, and for whatever the reason, didn’t think that Democrats were going to forcefully respond. He got that wrong,” Jeffries said.

Once this game is decided, the players in Washington shouldn’t be planning their next power fix. For the people’s sake, we’d best find our way back to the constitutional and traditional position that states run their own election systems — and in an honest and objective way.