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An essential morning newsletter briefing for leaders in the nation’s capital.
with research by Tobi Raji
An essential morning newsletter briefing for leaders in the nation’s capital.
Good morning, Early Birds. Today’s moment of Zen. Tips: earlytips@washpost.com. Thanks for waking up with us.
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In today’s edition … Harris’s visit to Philippine islands could raise tensions with China … What we’re watching: Sen. Graham will appear before a grand jury in Fulton County, Ga., today … … but first …
When Democrats recaptured the House majority in 2018, they were aided by legal victories in the preceding years that produced more favorable maps for the party in Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
Days after losing the majority this cycle, Democrats are eyeing a similar strategy to help them retake the House in 2024 — and this time redistricting lawsuits alone could put them in a position to erase Republicans’ fragile majority.
Democrats are suing to overturn congressional maps in six states they weren’t able to undo before the midterm elections: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Ohio and Texas. If courts side with them, Democrats believe it could be the difference between the majority and the minority.
Marina Jenkins, the NDRC’s director of litigation and policy, estimated Democrats could pick up nine to 13 seats if they prevailed in all six cases — enough seats to flip the House.
Republicans say the strategy is doomed, especially after voters elected conservative state Supreme Court justices in Ohio and North Carolina.
“It makes total sense that Democrats would try to bring back their ‘sue-to-blue’ strategy, because it did work for them in the middle part of the last decade,” said Adam Kincaid, the president and executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust. “But it failed in 2022. It was the first time the NRRT was around to push back against these liberal lawsuits.”
Democrats started the NDRC in 2016 to exert greater control over the once-a-decade redistricting after Republicans dominated the process following the 2010 Census. Republicans countered in 2017 by forming the NRRT.
In interviews, NDRC President Kelly Burton and Holder credited the group’s efforts with helping to limit Republicans’ gains in the House.
“Our redistricting strategy worked,” Holder said.
But Marc Elias, a leading Democratic election lawyer, said it’s misleading to think of redistricting as something that happens once a decade. Instead, it’s a never-ending legal battle.
Redistricting lawsuits helped Democrats gain nine House seats between 2010 and 2020, Elias said. If Democrats hadn’t brought those suits, the party might not have held onto its House majority in 2020.
Here are the six battlegrounds where Democrats’ most important redistricting lawsuits are being fought:
Kincaid doesn’t expect the maps in Ohio — where Democrats picked up a seat in the midterms — will get any better for Democrats if they’re redrawn. He defended the maps in the other states and warned that any victories Democrats win in court could backfire on them.
If Democrats prevail in Texas, he added, “they could open up the map for a more Republican-friendly map than we currently have.”
Michael Li, a senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice who is an expert on redistricting, agreed that Democrats could pick up as many as a dozen House seats if they prevailed in all six states. But he also agreed with Kincaid that Texas Republicans might draw a map that’s worse for Democrats that the current one if plaintiffs win there. The same is true in North Carolina, he added, where the current map must be redrawn before 2024 and where Republicans this month gained control of the state Supreme Court.
Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.), one of two lawmakers vying to lead the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said he suspected Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), the incoming chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, would take a special interest in his home state’s maps.
“We’d better be fighting tooth and nail and using whatever legal tools we can use, but also getting our candidates ready to defend themselves,” Bera said.
Vice President Harris concluded her week-long trip through Asia today in the Philippine island of Palawan.
The trip brought Harris to the edge of the disputed South China Sea and could raise tensions with Beijing shortly after President Biden met recently with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia.
“China has staked a claim on a majority of the South China Sea, and the Philippines has lodged diplomatic protests against China’s maritime activities in the region, as local fishing communities have reported dwindling fish availability and displacement from their traditional fishing grounds amid hostilities from the Chinese coast guard,” our colleague Meryl Kornfield, who is on the trip, reports.
Harris has used the trip to reaffirm strong ties between the United States and the Philippines and signal support for the country in its disputes with China.
“So, to all of you here today, I say: The U.S.-Philippines Alliance is strong. We are committed to you. We are committed to your success. And to all the lives and livelihoods that rely on your work,” she said Tuesday in remarks delivered aboard a Philippine Coast Guard vessel.
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) will appear before a grand jury in Fulton County, Ga., today regarding his phone conversation with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R). Graham asked Raffensperger about “reexamining certain absentee ballots” in the state to “explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome” for former president Donald Trump after he lost to Biden, per the subpoena.
The long-awaited testimony comes after Graham, who called the conversation “legislative fact-finding,” made multiple attempts to block the subpoena. Jurors have already heard from Rudy Giuliani and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former House speaker Newt Gingrich have also been ordered to testify but are pushing back.
Hundreds of mass shootings in 2022, visualized: “There have been more than 600 mass shootings so far this year in the United States, according to the Gun Violence Archive,” per our colleagues Júlia Ledur and Kate Rabinowitz. “At least five people were killed and 18 more injured in a shooting at Club Q, an LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs, this weekend. It comes less than a week after a shooting at University of Virginia in Charlottesville left three dead.”
Early reeeads
From us:
From across the web:
There was a ROAST session at the White House ?
Pres. Biden busts out the jokes during the traditional turkey pardon ceremony:
'The votes are in… there’s no ballot stuffing, there’s no ‘fowl’ play — the only ‘red wave’ this season is going to be a German Shepherd, Commander, that knocks over the cranberry sauce on our table’ pic.twitter.com/XKucVuJGcR
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