Senators blast White House and DOJ for pressuring Texas and other states to redraw congressional districts to protect Republican House majority
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and U.S. Senators Alex Padilla (D-CA), Adam Schiff (D-CA), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) demanded the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) investigate potential Hatch Act violations committed by senior Trump Administration political appointees at the White House and Department of Justice (DOJ) regarding their partisan redistricting efforts in Texas and other Republican states.
The Hatch Act bars executive branch officials from using their public office for partisan political activities, which could include a partisan mid-cycle redistricting effort to advantage a political party.
“While the President may not be subject to the Hatch Act’s restrictions on political activities, his senior officials at the White House and the U.S. Department of Justice are subject to its legal requirements. Multiple reports indicate that White House officials are involved in a political pressure campaign to convince Republicans in Texas and other states to redraw district lines with the goal of providing an advantage to the Republican party in the 2026 midterm elections. We believe an OSC investigation is warranted to determine whether senior White House officials are violating the law’s prohibition on impermissible partisan political activity,” wrote the Senators.
The Senators also cited a DOJ letter that Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon and Deputy Assistant Attorney General Michael Gates wrote to Governor Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton earlier this month showing that senior DOJ officials may also be violating the Hatch Act. The letter purports that DOJ has “serious concerns regarding the legality” of four majority-minority districts represented by Democrats, giving Texas a pretense for their gerrymander to add redistricting to their special session agenda. Texas accepted the claims that its district lines are legally suspect, despite defendingthem last month and arguing for several years that they had used a race-blind process for developing district lines.
“The contradictory legal claims and actions reveal that the DOJ letter is a pretext for the clearly partisan political effort that is already out in the open. The purpose of this redistricting push is to defeat Democratic Members of Congress and elect Republicans to affect the balance of political party power in the 120th Congress,” continued the Senators. “While such goals are appropriate for a political party organization, they are not appropriate for executive branch officials, especially at the Department of Justice which must take greater steps to ensure it acts with impartiality. Given the White House effort, this letter and other potential actions by DOJ that may not be publicly known appear to be directed at the success or failure of a political party and designed to affect the results of upcoming congressional elections.”
Full text of the letter is available here.
The letter comes as President Trump and senior Administration officials have openly pushed Texas to undertake mid-decade redistricting, aiming to redraw new district lines in an effort to unseat five Democratic Representatives. Trump’s public comments follow reporting that senior White House officials, including White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair, met with Texas House Republicans and Governor Greg Abbott “to discuss a White House push to redraw its congressional map ahead of the midterms.” Similarly, Representative Bob Onder (R-Mo.-03) substantiated reporting that the White House is pushing Missouri Republicans to gerrymander district lines to potentially unseat Representative Emanuel Cleaver, II (D-Mo.-05).
Earlier this week, Durbin led all Senate Democrats in reintroducing the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, legislation that would update and restore critical safeguards of the original Voting Rights Act. Additionally, Durbin and Padilla co-led a spotlight forum titled “Protecting the Future of American Democracy: Fighting a Surge in Voter Suppression” to examine topics including the Trump Administration’s efforts to pressure Texas and other states to implement partisan mid-decade redistricting.
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