Washington Times Weekly: Where partisanship rules

Hi, I’m George Gerbo, and welcome to Washington Times Weekly, where we get a chance to sit down with our reporters and talk about their coverage of the latest news and events. 

Joining me today, once again, is talented national politics reporter Seth McLaughlin. 

[GERBO] You’ve got everything covered in terms of the politics world, the things that affect Washington, but are going on outside of Washington. And so that’s a good starting place for us in Texas, where state Democrats in the Texas House had left the state in an attempt to delay proceedings there. The Republicans have moved to redraw the state’s congressional district lines, which usually only happens every 10 years after a census, but Republicans are trying to net more seats in advance of what they believe will be a potentially tough reelection bid for many House members during the midterms coming up next year. Democrats tried to delay that process the best they could, but it appears they’ve returned to Texas and that process is going to carry itself out now.

[McLAUGHLIN] We’re looking at hard-nosed politics one-on-one. Democrats have kind of portrayed it as a power grab or rigging the system or whatnot, but you know, when you have majorities in both chambers of a state house, you can make moves like this. Usually, the census happens and then the district is redrawn in some way or shape or form by a state legislature. Different states have different rules. Some use independent commissions. But I think there’s the Texas angle where they are trying to maneuver to get five or six seats to help buffer their chances of keeping the U.S. House in the midterm elections and allowing the Trump agenda to kind of keep moving forward, with them calling the shots in the lower chamber. 

But broadly, we’re seeing other states jump on board. California and Gavin Newsom, they are pushing now to have their state legislature pass a ballot measure that will go to voters this fall, that it’s a countermeasure at the end of the day, that they want to pick up five seats, maybe even more, depending on what the final map looks like, to level out what Texas did. But beyond that, we have efforts in Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, where lawmakers are talking about — these Republican states — are talking about following the lead of Texas. And then you have people like Newsom encouraging Democratic leaders in places like Illinois, Maryland and Jersey to do the same. So, you know, it’s a sign of the times in a lot of ways, where partisanship rules and, you know, forget about working across the aisle here and there, and try to improve your numbers as much as possible at the end of the day in order to move your priorities here in Washington. 

[GERBO] Another sign of the times, it’s never too early to start talking about reelection campaigns and election season ahead of those midterms. And some of these battles that are actually starting to intensify and ramp up in Virginia. It’s a state that is term-limited. Its governors only can serve one term. They can’t serve consecutive terms. We’ll see what current Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin chooses to do in terms of his political future, whether that’s a White House run or not down the line. But in the meantime, for next year’s gubernatorial elections in the Old Dominion, former Democratic Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger is facing off against current Lieutenant Governor Republican Winsome Earle-Sears and recent polling shows Spanberger’s got the advantage there so far. 

Watch the video to see the full conversation, including the president’s meeting with the CEO of Intel, the National Firearms Act and more. 

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