The debate over partisan gerrymandering has intensified this week. Texas Democrats ended their blockade of a session to redraw the state’s maps in favor of Republicans. California Gov. Gavin Newsom pledged to amend the state’s constitution to respond in kind. House Speaker Mike Johnson pledged to fight California’s efforts to combat Texas’ electoral machinations.

This situation appears to be escalating with no clear resolution.Experts in election law and constitutional law believe they have a potential solution to de-escalate the conflict.

It’s helpful to view the gerrymandering disputes as a conflict. Imagine leading a nation and discovering a hostile state plans a devastating attack.how would you prevent it?

The Cold War offers a lesson. the United States and Soviet Union used the threat of retaliation to prevent nuclear war. President Donald Trump initiated the current partisan conflict by calling on Texas lawmakers to gerrymander the state’s maps, bringing American democracy to a similar standoff.

California’s threats of retaliation have been ineffective.Despite Newsom’s public threat to retaliate with a redistricting plan to neutralize Republican gains, Texas lawmakers are proceeding with their gerrymandering. This contrasts with the Cold war, where retaliatory threats had an impact. Why?

The problem With Tit-For-Tat

the issue is credibility. A threat is only effective if the other party believes it. During the Cold War, the threat of nuclear retaliation was credible because both sides had the capacity to inflict unacceptable damage. California’s threat lacks this credibility.

Texas Republicans may doubt that California Democrats will follow through on their threat. Even if they do,Texas Republicans might believe they can gerrymander more effectively,resulting in a net gain for their party. This is why Texas is not deterred.

California’s threat is also challenging to implement. It requires California Democrats to embrace gerrymandering, which is seen as hypocritical. It also requires them to accurately assess the national partisan consequences of their actions, which is challenging.

“California can guarantee that no state-neither it nor Texas-gets caught unilaterally disarming in the partisan gerrymandering wars.”

A Principled, Automated Solution

Rather of tit-for-tat retaliation, California could adopt a principled, automated redistricting process. This process would have national partisan balance as a strict goal. This would ensure that neither California nor Texas is unilaterally disarming in the gerrymandering wars.

This approach wouldn’t require Texas to agree to a truce. adding national partisan balance as a required factor in redistricting may be more palatable to California voters than embracing gerrymandered maps.

Important technical details need to be addressed to make this system work. How will national partisan balance be measured? When will maps be issued after the census? Will it wait for all states or just traditionally red states like Texas? The constitutionality of this response shouldn’t be a concern. The Supreme Court has stated it won’t undo even the most extreme partisan gerrymanders. While a different decision would have been preferred, in the current legal landscape, a principled counter-gerrymander should be upheld.

Even if California adopts this system, Texas may still gerrymander. However, this approach offers something that political retaliation cannot: the potential to end partisan gerrymandering.