Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) took to X this week to blast Virginia’s proposed redistricting plan, calling it a “brazen abuse of power & an insult to democracy.” However, for anyone on the sidelines, Cruz’s outrage rings hollow given his home state’s own track record of aggressively drawn congressional maps.
In his post, Cruz accused Virginia Democrats of manipulating district lines for political gain, framing the proposal as an assault on fair representation. The Texas senator did not, however, acknowledge the controversies surrounding redistricting efforts in his own state—efforts that have repeatedly been challenged in court and criticized as some of the most aggressive partisan gerrymanders in the country.
Texas Republicans have benefited from maps that federal courts have found to discriminate against minority voters. In multiple rulings over the past decade, courts determined that certain Texas districts were drawn in ways that diluted the political power of Black and Latino communities. Despite these rulings, GOP lawmakers continued to defend the maps and push forward with similar proposals in subsequent redistricting cycles.
The most recent round of redistricting in Texas also drew widespread criticism, prompting California to come up with their own redistricting plan. At the behest of President Donald Trump, Texas Republicans crafted maps that created new districts favorable to their party while disenfranchising communities of people of color. Voting rights advocates and Democratic lawmakers argued the maps were designed to entrench Republican power rather than reflect demographic realities.
Cruz, who has consistently supported his party’s redistricting efforts in Texas, made no mention of those controversies in his post attacking the bill as Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger signed it. Instead, he framed the issue as though partisan gerrymandering were a problem unique to Democratic-led states.
The contrast highlights a frequent theme seen in Trump’s MAGA/Republican Party: hypocrisy. Republicans under Trump have consistently accused their Democratic colleagues of doing the very things they themselves have committed or remained complicit in. In Cruz’s case, condemning Virginia’s new congressional map as an “insult to democracy” while remaining silent about Texas’ record on redistricting highlights the hypocrisy oozing out of the GOP.
