President Donald Trump asked Texas Republicans in July to take the unprecedented step of redrawing five state congressional maps to favor the GOP. They complied the next month, followed by legislatures in Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio. California countered with a successful ballot measure to redraw five GOP seats to favor Democrats.
Today, a federal judge ruled the Texas redistricting effort unconstitutional.
Brett Fairchild
Meanwhile, Republicans in Indiana and Kansas, two deep red states, are pushing back against Trump’s gerrymandering plan, with some calling it immoral. Brett Fairchild, a Kansas state representative and lifelong Baptist, rejected the plan as immoral and unethical, as he told The New York Times.
“I would rather just stand on principle and stand on my morals and ethics,” he said. “That way I can actually look at myself in the mirror and sleep at night. It’s not all just about getting reelected.”
In a Friday phone interview with BNG, Fairchild said his Christian faith and biblical values left him no choice but to reject Trump’s plan, which he thought “was a bad idea” as soon as he heard about the effort in Texas.
“I want to be faithful to my values, and that outweighs loyalty to party,” said Fairchild, a farmer and lifelong member of Calvary Baptist Church in Stafford, a congregation affiliated with the North American Baptist Conference of churches.
“This has a lot to do with my faith and with verses in the Bible that teach that ends don’t justify means.”
“This has a lot to do with my faith and with verses in the Bible that teach that ends don’t justify means,” he said. “We’re not to do things that are wrong, immoral or unethical so something good or great can result.”
Hatred of Democrats is a hallmark of the Trump-era GOP, but Fairchild, who was elected in 2020 as “a pro-life Christian who will fight for those values in the state legislature,” says partisan hatred also is against his principles.
“I see conservative activists on Facebook and on social media and all they seem to care about is defeating the Democrats, hating the Democrats, hating the other side,” he said. “I don’t think that’s what we’re supposed to be like as Christians.”
GOP leaders in Kansas and Indiana were gung-ho to support Trump’s redistricting push, but they’ve had trouble corralling their fellow legislators to back the plan.
In Indiana, Vice President JD Vance’s two visits to the state to push Trump’s redistricting plan failed to generate support for a special session to redraw the maps, which has been voted down twice. On Sunday, Trump branded state leaders as “RINO senators,” meaning they’re insufficiently loyal and “Republican In Name Only.”
In Kansas, some of the Republican legislators who opposed redistricting received angry calls from the White House and were removed from their committees. Fairchild hasn’t suffered yet, but he doesn’t care if his position invites a more pro-MAGA candidate to run against him next year.
“I’m not the type of person who is going to vote a certain way to be reelected.”
“I wouldn’t regret it,” he said. “I’m not the type of person who is going to vote a certain way to be reelected. Some politicians only care about themselves, staying in office, winning and getting reelected. They don’t actually care about doing what’s right or doing the moral ethical thing. I try to stay away from all of that.”
States typically redraw their voting maps every 10 years to comply with U.S. Census data, but Trump wanted to give Republicans an advantage in next year’s midterms. They may need it. Trump is historically unpopular, with a 39% approval rating, down 18% from the beginning of his second term.
Republicans say their redistricting plan is similar to what Democrats have done in the past. Fairchild disagrees. “I don’t buy into this whole idea,” he said. “I think the facts show that both sides have gerrymandered over the years.”
Fairchild’s family farm, where he worked alongside his grandfather in the 1950s, grows wheat and corn. Like many farmers, he has suffered due to Trump’s erratic tariffs.
“Everyone who’s farming has suffered from that a little bit,” he said.
CNN has a map showing which red and blue states are working on redistricting.