GOP Rep Mike Lawler introduces invoice to crack down on Democrat election ‘scheme’

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FIRST ON FOX: A battleground district Home Republican is wading into the redistricting warfare that has seized the U.S. together with his personal new proposal to crack down on "partisan gamesmanship."

Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., has launched a invoice known as the Truthful Apportionment and Unbiased Redistricting for Maps that Keep away from Partisanship (FAIR MAP) Act, which might impose new guardrails on the method of fixing congressional districts throughout all 50 states.

The invoice would bar states from drawing districts for or in opposition to a selected political get together or candidate and ban the creation of recent congressional maps greater than as soon as a decade following the U.S. census.

It comes as election watchers eye Virginia and Maryland as the most recent states whose Democrat-led legislatures may transfer to redraw their congressional boundaries forward of the 2026 midterm elections.

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Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., leaves a gathering of the Home Republican Convention on the Capitol Hill Membership in Washington, July 15, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Name, Inc. by way of Getty Photographs)

Earlier this month, a state Supreme Court docket choose in Lawler's own residence turf of New York dominated that New York Metropolis's lone Republican-held district is unconstitutional and have to be redrawn — handing probably a consequential win to Democrats.

Lawler stated of Democrats' push in his state, "[Gov. Kathy Hochul] and [House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’] scheme to redraw New York’s congressional districts months earlier than an election is a blatant energy seize and misuse of public workplace."

The rising redistricting warfare was kicked off final yr when Texas' GOP-led legislature accepted a brand new congressional map that would give Republicans as many as 5 new seats within the Home of Representatives come the November elections.

Redistricting usually happens each 10 years after the U.S. census is taken to make sure that seats within the Home are reflective of every state's inhabitants. And whereas there is a patchwork of state legal guidelines geared toward blocking these districts from being redrawn alongside partisan strains, there isn't any present federal commonplace.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul speaks at a press convention, July 31, 2024, within the Bronx borough of New York. (Julia Nikhinson/AP Photograph)

Along with banning mid-decade redistricting generally and making a federal gerrymandering commonplace, Lawler's invoice would additionally create a number of recent provisions dictating how these populations are finally counted and the way disputes may be resolved.

The invoice would block state and native courts from authorized redistricting fights, for instance, leaving it to federal judges to weigh in on these fights.

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It will additionally mandate that simply U.S. residents are counted towards state populations when creating new maps — one thing that would take a big quantity of energy away from sanctuary jurisdictions that may presently issue numbers of unlawful immigrants who can not vote when apportioning districts.

The laws additionally consists of new electoral provisions like barring ranked-choice voting in federal elections, requiring photograph ID for voting in these elections, and banning same-day registration in federal elections.

Lawler was among the many Home Republicans who forcefully got here out in opposition to the rising redistricting warfare final summer time, when leaders in Texas and California had been going toe-to-toe with threats to redraw their maps.

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But it surely doesn't seem probably as of now that his invoice will get taken up for a Home-wide vote, given Home GOP leaders' prior insistence that redistricting is a states' subject.

"Voting rights and equal illustration solely work if the system itself is truthful, clear, and trusted. My FAIR MAP Act places clear guardrails round congressional redistricting, ends mid-decade political map rigging, and ensures that federal elections mirror the voices of lawful voters, not partisan gamesmanship," Lawler advised Fox Information Digital. "Each voter deserves confidence that the system is truthful and that their vote counts the identical as anybody else’s."

Elizabeth Elkind is a politics reporter for Fox Information Digital main protection of the Home of Representatives. Earlier digital bylines seen at Each day Mail and CBS Information.