Gerrymander Oregon: If you can't beat them, join them, part two.

I consider the map below of the partisan makeup of the U.S. House to be an image of democracy on its sickbed.

But not hospice.

It is the image of Democrats facing reality and taking strong medicine temporarily to cure an illness.

It is a realistic image of the future.

 

What we see here is a map in which every red state is doing the extreme gerrymandering that Trump demands. The map depicts a future in which Democrats didn't act like passive victims; they responded in kind.

California set the way forward for Democrats. California Governor Gavin Newsom described California's action as reaction and temporary. California's goal is national reform for fair districting. Congress has the power to require states to establish nonpartisan district-forming commissions. Republicans oppose the law. They think they are advantaged by hyperpartisan districting. Appeals to higher goals like "democracy" or "fairness" or "representation" have no effect. Democrats need to make Republicans see the advantage to ending hyperpartisan districting. Some Republicans need to feel the pain. 

Cliff Bentz, Oregon's sole Republican House member, needs to lose his job.

In an August 7, 2025 post I posited that Oregon might redistrict. The world has changed dramatically in the past nine months. Trump's hints became plans of action, now underway.

Oregon's own districting was partisan, but by the standards of the current era, far too reasonable and fair to Republicans. Here are the congressional districts as they stand today:One of the six congressional districts was designed to give the very sparsely-populated portion of Oregon its own district. To get the population up to 725,000 people, the  2nd district needed to extend west to include my own area, the Interstate-5-linked Jackson and Josephine counties west of the Cascades.

This districting pattern created two districts that are very contestable "swing" districts. In fact, one of them elected a Republican, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, in 2022, who then lost her seat after one term. Oregon Democrats did not need to be so generous in their districting. They were operating under old rules of fair play.

There are 988,000 registered Democrats in Oregon and 737,000 Republicans. Democrats in charge of redistricting could allocate those Democrats approximately evenly, assigning an extra 42,000 Democrats to each reconfigured district. Under the current map, Democrats wasted their advantage, giving a Portland-centered 1st district a whopping 109,000 Democratic lean, with 189,000 Democrats and 82,000 Republicans. Was that reasonable in light of what Trump has initiated? No, alas. It creates a district so blue that its representative risks being out of touch with the state. Worse, it makes Oregon a patsy. Oregon isn't playing the game as Trump has revised it. And it fails as policy leverage; it doesn't incentivize Republicans in Congress to establish a nationwide reform of districting.

But didn't Democrats pack Republican voters into the red 2nd district? Yes, they did, creating a supposedly-safe seat for Bentz, who sits quietly as fellow Republicans gerrymander themselves into majorities in red states. He has no incentive to complain.

A map that creates a Columbia-River-adjacent district, one that includes Portland, the ports in Hood River and Wasco plus the wheat-growing farmland of Eastern Oregon would be logical, connected, and have a common interest. It would divide Bentz's comfortable district into two, and it would create a 40,000-voter Democratic majority. Bentz would need to stop being an obedient Trump tool and would need to represent the district. Realistically what would happen is that he would lose, and the district would elect a Democrat who would oppose tariffs and cuts to the Medicaid subsidies that keep the district's hospitals open. That sounds to me like democratic government at work.

Above is a draft map of Oregon with six Democratic-majority districts. I am not saying this configuration is a final one. Map makers would create a map looking closely at existing county lines and natural features. But this sketch shows that a new map can be drawn that divides Democrats approximately evenly. There is commonality of interest in an Oregon district that includes the coast plus the western coast-oriented suburbs of Portland. And commonality in districts that include suburban Portland and the wine country to its south. And a district that is centered on the college towns of Eugene and Corvallis that then includes the Interstate-5- connected cities of Medford and Ashland. 

Because of the already-established election calendar, it may be impossible for Governor Tina Kotek to call a special session to redistrict Oregon with representatives elected into new districts in 2026. Oregon would be two years behind Texas, Florida, and the others, with new seats established for the 2028 election, but better late than never. A proposal to establish new districts could be included in her re-election campaign now. Make it an issue. She could call it a first item of housekeeping in the legislative session to begin next year. It would send a message to Bentz and to the GOP nationally, that Republican representatives in blue states are subject to the same punitive redistricting they are dishing out.

And in Oregon, I suspect this would be a good campaign issue for Kotek. She would look feisty and smart. Democrats would like seeing that she is fighting Trump. I assume her Republican opponent would need to oppose her redistricting plan, and do so while failing to condemn Trump for doing the same thing elsewhere, an embarrassing bit of hypocrisy. Issues that force Republican candidates to defend Trump's worst excesses against the interests of Oregon (end mail balloting, closing Oregon's rural hospitals, cuts to Forest Service research, tariffs that damage wheat exports) are good issue for Kotek. Issues that tie Republicans to Trump, especially the need to resist Trump's aggressive partisanship, remind Democratic voters of the stakes of this election.

Last August I floated redistricting as an improbable, half-serious idea. Times have changed. Events have made it plausible, and indeed necessary.

The political peril for a Democrat with the power to act has reversed. Now a Democrat who accepts the status quo and is passive in the face of Trump's initiatives is the one at political risk -- another feckless, worthless Democrat. 

Democratic voters don't want a patsy. 

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