House Republicans claim blatant Trump power grab is beyond their control

Donald Trump is hoping that aggressive gerrymandering in GOP-controlled states will prevent Democrats from flipping the U.S. House of Representatives in November and spare Republicans a major blue wave like the one he witnessed in the 2018 midterms during his first presidency. According to NOTUS reporters Manuela Silva and Em Luetkemeyer, U.S. House Republicans are sending out a message: This is Trump's doing, not ours.

"House Republicans say they have little to do with the planning to redraw congressional lines across the South ahead of this year's midterm elections," Silva and Luetkemeyer report in NOTUS. "The decisions around that, they say, are owned by the White House and state legislatures. President Donald Trump's push to create new, Republican-friendly congressional districts could determine whether the party controls the House of Representatives. Many of the members who already hold seats say they are leaving the gamesmanship to state-level party heads and are figuring out their new districts on their own."

One of those U.S. House Republicans is Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tennessee).

DesJarlais told NOTUS, "I had been campaigning and going to diners and things in eight counties I no longer represent. It's just out of my hands, and so, I just have to deal with what it is…. If the president hadn't asked that to happen, it probably wouldn't have."

Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Alabama) told NOTUS, "Our hands are tied because it's all done at the state level" — and similarly, Rep. Richard Hudson (R-North Carolina) recently told reporters, "No one asked my opinion on redistricting. It wasn't my idea."

Silva and Luetkemeyer note that while some U.S. House Republicans' districts "are getting safer under redistricting," others "are having to give up reliably Republican parts of their districts to create the new maps."

"As Republicans take steps to make districts favorable for their party," the NOTUS reporters observe, "Democrats are beginning to campaign against the power grab. They are mobilizing voters who are dissatisfied with the changes to head to the polls and planning their own redistricting efforts…. Even in districts that stay solidly red despite line changes, or even ones becoming more Republican-friendly, they'll still have to meet new voters."

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tennessee) told NOTUS, "The state legislature exclusively controls this, so we really have no say. We're either the beneficiaries or the victims of that."

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