SACRAMENTO, California — Rep. Kevin Kiley (I-CA) is fighting a political battle on two fronts: one, in Congress and the other, in his West Coast home state.On Capitol Hill, Kiley has emerged as one of the loudest critics of California’s mid-decade congressional remap, accusing Democrats of redrawing the map to weaken GOP incumbents. He has also voiced frustration with House leadership — including Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) — for failing to advance federal legislation to curb partisan redistricting.After months of being ignored, a frustrated Kiley is now forcing the House to confront his proposal to prohibit mid-decade congressional redistricting, deploying a discharge petition to bypass leadership and bring the measure directly to the floor. The maneuver, though rarely successful in Congress, reflects growing concern among lawmakers over increasingly aggressive partisan mapmaking. He’s disappointed in Johnson but frustrated by Jeffries, he told the Washington Examiner.
“I want to take him at his word,” he said of Jeffries. “He said just last week, or I guess it’s two weeks ago now, he said that the only reason he’s going on this gerrymandering spree is that there isn’t a national standard for redistricting. He said we’re going to keep doing this until there’s a national standard for the mid-decade re-instruction. So I said, I’ll take your word. Here’s your opportunity, right now, to make good on that, and to establish a national standard to end mid-decade redistricting. All he has to do is endorse the proposal. Several members of his caucus have already done so, but if the minority leader gives it his blessing, then we’ll quickly get the signatures that are needed to bring it to the floor.”
