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♪ ♪ >> John: Welcome, America, to "Balancing Act," the show that aims to tame the political circus of two party politics.

I'm John Katko.

This week, gerrymandering.

We'll explore what gerrymandering is, who is responsible for it, and whether it's gone too far.

Joining us in the center ring to enlighten us on the practice is Harvard law professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos.

Then we'll put Micah Beckwith, lieutenant governor, and state Representative Ed DeLaney, both from Indiana, on the trapeze.

Finally, I'll give you my take.

Plus a look at what's happening next week in Washington by Bloomberg's Tyler Kendall.

But first, let's step onto the tightrope.

♪ Every ten years after the census, states are required to redraw congressional district maps to reflect population shifts and ensure a fair appointment of seats to the House of Representatives.

This process, called redistricting, is grounded in the Constitution.

Article 1, Section 4 delegates this power to the states.

And the 14th Amendment requires that each citizen's vote carries roughly equal weight.

In about half of all states, state legislatures draw district maps, roughly a dozen relying on independent commission-based systems to limit partisanship.

Others defer to court order maps when state legislatures just can't agree.

But not all maps are drawn equally.

Gerrymandering is a practice of manipulating district boundaries in a way that benefits one party.

A term coined in 1812 to criticize Jeffersonian Republicans of Massachusetts for their contorted district drawing, resembling a monster nicknamed the Gerrymander.

And though Jeffersonian Republicans in Massachusetts accounted for only 49% of the total vote in the next election, with redistricting, they were able to secure 75% of the seats in their state Senate.

At its core, gerrymandering is a tool used to control political outcomes, quite often at the expense of fair representation.

But how often does it occur, and is it getting out of hand?

Let's take a look at some infamous district drawings pre-2022.

This is the famous Earmuffs District in Illinois from a legislative-controlled map.

Then, of course, there is the Maryland broken-winged pterodactyl, another legislative map.

And who can forget Ohio's district nicknamed The Duck, a third district from a legislative-controlled map.

Contrast this with Iowa.

Their maps are drawn by nonpartisan staff and presented to the legislature for an up or down vote, with no amendments whatsoever allowed.

Redistricting is meant to protect equality and voting.

But when maps are drawn for political advantage, the system can leave many voters feeling sidelined.

And when the very lawmakers who could prevent gerrymandering are the ones who benefit from it, this erodes trust in elections overall.

Ultimately, when it comes to redrawing the maps, one thing is for certain: The lines are blurred.

So let's get some clarity in the center ring.

Joining me in the center ring is Harvard professor of law, Nicholas Stephanopoulos.

Welcome, Nicholas.

>> Prof. Stephanopoulos: Thanks for having me on.

>> John: Well, we got a lot to talk about with gerrymandering, so let's get right to it.

Before we get into the actual term gerrymandering, tell us how districts are set up in this country, political districts.

>> Prof. Stephanopoulos: Yeah, so once per decade, we draw legislative districts all around the country to make sure they all have about the same population.

So the census comes out with new population data at the beginning of the decade, and then, states and cities and counties, all across America redraw their districts to make sure they have about the same population, within each district.

>> John: So if a state like New York, which has been losing population, for decades, every ten years, it seems like we're losing another around district.

I had 45 when I was a kid in New York State about that, and now we're down to 26.

And so who sets who decides where those congressional districts go and the numbers?

>> Prof. Stephanopoulos: Yeah, so usually redistricting is a bill just like any other one, and so elected legislators would be the ones passing a new district map.

That's the norm in most U.S. states.

A few states have commissions drawing district lines instead.

And so commissions are typically made up of non-legislator, non-politician citizens who don't have a vested interest in the results of the redistricting process.

And that's how the lines are drawn in about 10 or 15 states around the country.

Whoever draws the lines, they have to make sure using census data that every district has about the same population.

And they also have to satisfy various other requirements, drawing compact districts or trying not to split up county or municipal boundaries.

>> John: Now, in doing this redistricting, it's pretty clear that there's been some issues lately.

The term gerrymandering has become commonplace.

What is gerrymandering?

>> Prof. Stephanopoulos: So gerrymandering just refers to drawing district lines with the goal, and usually also with the effect, of benefiting the line drawing party and disadvantaging the other party.

And we've had gerrymandering for a long time in the U.S.

The term dates back to the early 1800s, and a particularly aggressive and ugly looking gerrymander that Elbridge Gerry's party, the Democrat Republican Party used to try to handicap the Federalists back in Massachusetts around 1812 or so.

Maybe that was the first, but by no means the last gerrymander.

And so we've had, a long history of aggressive gerrymandering for partisan advantage in many states and throughout many, periods of U.S. history.

>> John: Is it possible to measure gerrymandering?

>> Prof. Stephanopoulos: Academics have been pretty interested in recent years in how best to measure gerrymandering.

There are two basic families of approaches that academics take.

One uses just election results.

So we compare election results under a plan to some arithmetical baseline of fairness, which might be something like proportional representation, for example.

>> John: When you say proportional representation, are you referring to political and racial data?

>> Prof. Stephanopoulos: Right, so, we know from political data, what the party's vote shares are in a state, let's say.

And so the baseline of fairness with proportional representation is that every party should have the same proportion of seats that it has a proportion of the vote.

There's some concerns with it at baseline, but it's one common, well-known baseline of fairness.

So that's one way to measure gerrymandering.

The other increasingly popular way is to program a computer algorithm and tell the computer, give me thousands or millions of district maps that don't incorporate political data but do achieve every nonpartisan goal that is required.

And then you compare the partisan performance of the enacted plan to the partisanship of the thousands or millions of alternative maps, and the gap between the enacted plan and the alternative maps is another measure of gerrymandering.

>> John: So we have the rise of independent commissions as well as the traditional legislative-controlled maps.

What really gave rise to the independent commissions?

>> Prof. Stephanopoulos: What gave rise to commissions was widespread dissatisfaction with redistricting carried out by politicians.

The politicians often drew districts that protected incumbents.

They often drew districts that were heavily skewed in favor of one side or another.

And so commissions were widely seen as, the kind of obvious institutional response to these problems.

With a commission, you don't have legislators drawing lines, you have politically insulated citizens chosen through a process that is meant to exclude politics as much as possible.

So the idea with commissions is if you can withdraw the motivation, for achieving political advantage from districting, you might get fair, better, more reflective district maps.

>> John: So, people seemed like every time there is a new map drawn, there's a lawsuit that follows.

So is there a general legal standard for contesting alleged gerrymandering?

>> Prof. Stephanopoulos: There's an awful lot of litigation about redistricting, but at the federal level, the answer is that there's not currently a standard for curbing partisan gerrymandering specifically.

There was lots of litigation in federal court over this issue.

But then in the 2019 decision, called Rucho v Common Cause, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to take federal courts out of the business altogether of policing partisan gerrymandering.

So since 2019, there's been no more partisan gerrymandering litigation in federal court.

But of course, states have their own constitutions, too.

And so there are a number of states, ten or more states where they've recognized state constitutional standards for stopping partisan gerrymandering.

And usually those state standards require something like partisan intent, a large partisan impact, and there'll be no innocent explanation for the large bias of a district plan.

>> John: Well, I guess I want to finish up here with perhaps the most important question, and that is, what effect is gerrymandering having on voters, real and perceived?

>> Prof. Stephanopoulos: So gerrymandering has an enormous effect on representation which is something voters care a lot about.

So in modern American politics, gerrymandering is basically without equal in its power to affect, to skew representation, you know, to change the number of Democrats and Republicans, Liberals and Conservatives, in a legislature.

And so there's basically no electoral policy today that affects representation or enacted policies as much as gerrymandering, which is why a lot of people care so much about it.

Additionally, gerrymandering can have a kind of deterrent, chilling effect on targeted voters.

You know, if I'm a Republican voter in my state of Massachusetts or if I'm a Democratic voter after the new Texas gerrymander goes into effect, I may well feel deterred from voting, deterred from actively participating in the political process because what's the point?

It's obvious the maps have been rigged in advance to reduce the impact of my vote, of my campaign activity, of my campaign contribution.

So all of these are ill effects of gerrymandering.

>> John: Professor Stephanopoulos, thank you so much.

You've really set the table perfectly for us, and we appreciate your insight.

>> Prof. Stephanopoulos: Thanks for having me.

>> John: For more let's go to the trapeze.

We're using Indiana as a case study this week on the trapeze to talk about gerrymandering and redstricting pressures in Their state.

We have Lieutenant Governor of Indiana Micah Beckwith and Indiana State Representative Ed DeLaney.

Welcome, gentlemen.

>> Thank you.

>> John: Lieutenant governor, let's start with you.

Briefly, what is the parameters of the redistricting rules in Indiana?

>> Well, the legislature has the authority to do it.

The governor would have to call the legislature back into a special session.

And then, per their authority given to them by the Constitution, they could they could do that.

They would obviously have to follow the Supreme Court guidelines when it comes to demographics and making sure that they're counting from a demographic perspective fairly, but they can do it.

I mean, it is certainly within their purview to make it happen.

>> John: Now, Representative Delaney, generally speaking, the rule of thumb is that you do redistricting once every ten years after the census, but it seems like there's pressure being brought to bear in Indiana right now to do a redistricting.

What are your thoughts on that?

>> Well, the greatest pressure possible.

The White House is demanding that we do it.

They sent the Vice President here to engage what I call shoplifting, stealing not candy bars but stealing congressional districts.

So the pressure is all from Washington.

There is no internal call for this.

There's no tradition of doing it midterms.. We don't do it, we're not used to it, and obviously the Republicans are having stomach pains over it.

They don't want to do it, that's why they keep dragging it out.

There is no motivation to do it other than what the guy in the White House wants.

>> John: Lieutenant Governor, the pros and cons of doing this redistricting outside of the 10-year window.

Talk to to me.

>> So I think the pros are is that we will have an accurate count of people who are not supposed to be counted.

So what I've said is Indiana has to compete with states like California who are counting illegal immigrants in their census which is unfairly bloating their representation in Congress.

And then you have Illinois and Massachusetts and Connecticut that have gerrymandering through the nose.

There's no Republican or very little Republican representation in those states.

And Indiana has to compete on a federal level with those states that are not playing fairly.

So what I said, let's follow President Trump's leadership on this.

I supported his call for this right away.

I was the first statewide official to do so because he's teaching us how to fight fire with fire.

And I think Indiana really, really should listen to what the White House is saying.

>> John: So gentlemen, it seems like for every action there's a reaction with respect to gerrymandering these days.

And if one state is a Democratic state decides to do it, then a Republican state, is going to try and respond and try and justify it.

But I got this one question from both of you, and it should be a pretty simple question.

Representative Delaney, I'll start with you.

If you could get rid of gerrymandering, ensure that it doesn't happen nationwide, would you do so?

>> Absolutely.

I think it would require a national solution, and it wouldn't be simple because there are a lot of factors to be considered.

But we had a halfway decent system until the Supreme Court walked away, washed his hands of it and said they couldn't deal with it.

So yeah, but I think we need Congress to lead us into a nationwide system.

Until then, I, in Indiana, and other Democrats here are pushing to have our own system of neutral outside commissioners to do this.

By the way, I'm sorry to hear that apparently for 20 years, Indiana has been counting illegal immigrants.

I guess that's why we're doing this.

The Republicans have run this show for 20 years.

They've made the laws tighter and tighter every year to vote, but apparently we have a burgeoning problem of illegal voters in Indiana.

Go for it, Lieutenant Governor.

Deal with it, will you.

>> John: Lieutenant Governor, I take it, would you be for, I shouldn't assume -- would you be for getting rid of gerrymandering nationwide if you could?

>> Absolutely.

If we could trust that, you know, Democrat-run states like California and Illinois would play fairly, Indiana would absolutely love to play fairly.

But unfortunately, Democrats have been screwing the system, for many decades.

And Republicans, you know, we try to play according to the game that was set out.

But we realize the rules are being changed right underneath our feet, our nose.

And we've got to actually fight fire with fire.

And so, again, President Trump is teaching the Republican Party how to fight again.

And Democrats like my friend Ed Delaney, they don't like it because we're now playing by the rules they themselves have been playing by for many decades.

>> John: Lieutenant Governor, I will stick with you for a moment.

It's clear you have very different views of what's going on in Indiana nationwide.

And you're kind of a microcosm in my mind of the problem nationwide.

For every action, there's a reaction.

Lieutenant Governor, tell me how would you fix it, and what you think it would take to fix it?

>> Well, I think Rep. DeLaney is actually correct.

It would be a very complicated nationwide solution.

So all the players would have to come to the table in good faith.

That means all 50 states would have to actually have a desire to see it operating fairly.

I just don't know if we're going to get there, unfortunately.

The Supreme Court can weigh in on it, absolutely.

They've done that in the past.

But even still, we've seen the Supreme Court weigh in on it, and states still don't play fairly.

And so, I mean, again, it would take a national solution.

But until then, unfortunately, this is, you know, we've been bringing knives to a gunfight for a long time.

I think President Trump is saying, hey, Republicans, stop doing that, the Democrats are beating us through these, these tactics, we've got to start playing by their rules that they've been instituting for the last two or three decades.

>> John: So when you say a national solution, what does that look like, Lieutenant Governor?

>> I think the Supreme Court would have to weigh in on this and say here are the parameters.

I think Congress really needs to Do their job.

And again, I agree with what, Ed said, Congress really is the most powerful branch of government.

And, typically they abdicate their responsibility to agencies or to the judicial branch or the executive branch, and what they should do is grab the reins and say, this is how we're going to do it on a national stage, this is how it's going to be fair for everybody involved, and I think that would be a great solution.

But until then, I'm thankful for President Trump and his leadership.

>> John: Rep. Delaney, what are your thoughts on what the actual solution would look like nationwide?

>> The actual solution will be completely eliminated as a possibility if they play this trick, because once they steal enough seats to lock in their control in Washington, they're not going to change.

So there'll be no congressional solution if this year's shoplifting of congressional districts continues.

California had a neutral law, and they preserved it.

If Texas does not redistrict, California will stay with their neutral law.

That's a rational system.

But the attempt to have state by state solutions is over because of this trick.

This trick being the Trump trick.

So it's over, we can't do this, so we will have to do congressional, and we won't if they win this time.

>> John: So the congressional action you think is what happens should happen, Rep. DeLaney, what would it look like for Congress?

What what kind of bill would it be?

>> You got to get into some gentle consideration.

So I'll give you a simple example.

Sometimes we pay attention to putting three members in the same district, three incumbent members.

We don't want to do that.

Can Congress say, well, you can't shove people in the same district to get rid of them?

These get to be very difficult questions.

But you could have a check that if the state's voting population is 20% Democrat, then they get at least ten and not more than 30.

You get what I mean.

You can set some parameters, but to shut us out, which is the tactic in Indiana.

Pastor Beckwith wants to get up in front of his churchgoers and tell them you can't vote for Democrats without going to hell.

And by the way, you don't have to worry about it because we fixed all ten seats.

Excuse me, all nine seats.

There will be no Democrats.

Thank you, Lord.

Okay, people are serious about this.

>> John: We have a minute left so just a very brief answer.

Lieutenant Governor, I ask you first, is it fair to say you think voters ultimately suffer when there's gerrymandering going on?

>> Yeah, that's I think that's fair to say.

And again, like I said earlier, I wish we could get rid of gerrymandering everywhere.

But like my friend Ed over there, the Democrats have taught us how to gerrymander.

And unfortunately, Republicans are just now catching up, and and they don't like that we're playing by the same tactics that they've been doing for many years.

And I think Indiana's doing the right thing by following President Trump's lead here.

>> John: You have 30 seconds to respond.

>> All I have got to say is, I've seen that the lieutenant governor has his prayer wall prominently displayed behind him.

I hope to God he puts my name up there, and I hope he gets more sense.

And I hope he prays for his sense and my salvation.

Thank you.

>> I'm praying for you every day, Ed.

>> There we go.

>> John: There we go, we ended on a high note there.

Thank you very much, gentlemen.

♪ ♪ >> John: Here is my take on how to address the gerrymandering problem.

First, let's acknowledge the problem.

As you saw from today's show, if you're a Democrat, it's all the Republicans' fault.

If you're Republican, it's all the Democrats' fault.

And never the twain shall meet.

So that's why we can't decide and rely on state and local governments to set up some sort of standard that works and is fair.

We need a federal solution, and that will be tough, but it can be done.

We've done it many times in our past before with such contentious issues as discrimination, interstate commerce and many other things that triggered all kinds of federal laws from them.

So Congress has to act.

Congress has to set up a standard that courts interpret nationwide that helps us tease through what's fair and what's not fair with respect to gerrymandering.

That's our only hope; we can do It.

We've tackled big, tough problems in the past nationwide when the time is, requires it.

Now is one of those times.

It requires that please Congress Act, set up a standard for gerrymandering that courts can use, whether you're a Republican or whether you're Democrat, whether you're an independent.

That's my take.

♪ ♪ Joining me now is Bloomberg's Tyler Kendall for a look at what's happening next week in Washington.

Welcome, Tyler.

So what is going on next week?

>> John: Well, lawmakers are back in town here in Washington after an extended August recess.

And the first matter of business is going to be trying to avert a government shutdown ahead of an October 1st deadline.

And our analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence put the chance of a shutdown at around 40%.

Instead, they say it's much more likely that we're looking at what's known as a continuing resolution.

Essentially, lawmakers are going to kick the can down the road, potentially to December or March, but it really remains to be seen because there is a lot more negotiating that has to be done.

And we know the efforts are getting complicated by the White House's push for about $5 billion rescissions package related to foreign aid, and that's upsetting Democrats, not to mention they're already raising concerns here about what the future to Medicaid is going to look like.

And they want to make some changes to already the changes that we have seen in place so far this year.

So that could all really complicate matters for lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

And I have to say, I spoke to a few different House Democratic members over the August recess on Bloomberg Television who told me that they are planning to risk a shutdown if that means that they could get some leverage here in a Republican-controlled Congress.

since we know that it could cost them some political points considering we are already thinking about the 2026 midterms.

Also put on your radar that I'm watching some developments around two different court cases.

One has to do with Fed governor Lisa Cook who is suing President Trump over his attempts to out of the her as a Fed governor.

We could get some updates in that case.

And the second case has to do with the tariffs after an appeals court ruled President Trump overstepped his authority when invoking International Emergency Economic Powers Act, i.e., power to impose his broad-based universal tariffs.

John, the White House says that they will fight this to the end, and that it was well within President Trump's scope of power.

>> John: What's your take on what's going to happen to those two cases?

>> Well, we're watching really closely.

If these cases do reach the Supreme Court.

And when it comes to the case, around Fed Governor Lisa Cook suing President Trump saying that he does not have sufficient cause to fire her, there's a few different threads that we could pull on here.

First is that Lisa Cook is seeking what's known as a temporary restraining order, which would essentially allow Her to keep her job while the broader case of her firing makes its way through the legal system.

And Cook's lawyers have filed new complaints related to this case, perhaps putting a little bit of a finer point on the details that we're expecting them to argue when it comes to the broader issue of whether or not President Trump is allowed to fire her over these allegations of mortgage fraud, and that really outlined to us how they're preparing to take on the administration.

While this White House has repeatedly said that they think that this is well within President Trump's scope of authority to remove her as a Fed Governor.

Now, when it comes to the tariffs, this is going to be a really interesting case to keep your eye on because essentially, an appeals court has ruled that President Trump overstepped his authority when he invoked IEEPA, he had to declare a national emergency in the case of the so called reciprocal tariffs.

That has to do with citing persistent global trade imbalances, and in the case of the tariffs related to Mexico, Canada and partly on China, that has to do with concerns around the border as well as fentanyl.

And that's really going to be one of the key issues that we're watching out for here, whether or not President Trump was able to invoke this authority to put into place these tariffs.

And, John, I have to say, historically, the courts have actually been rather deferential to presidents and their abilities to enact national emergencies.

But this is the first time that we've ever seen IEEPA used to impose tariffs, let alone such broad ranging ones.

>> John: Tyler, so much to talk about.

Thanks for the great summary.

Thank you for joining us.

Remember America, in the circus that is politics, there's always a "Balancing Act."

I'm John Katko.

We'll see you next time.

♪