As Republicans’ mid-decade gerrymandering efforts push our increasingly fraught democracy through its latest stress test, it raises the very real question: do desperate times require desperate measures in response — as California voters decided by passing a gerrymandering ballot proposal this November?

Although exceptions to the long-established tradition of post-census redistricting are exceedingly rare, the scourge of gerrymandering itself is hardly new, with roots tracing back to America’s slavery era. But though racial discrimination in redistricting was deemed illegal under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court determined in 2019 redistricting purely for partisan reasons is not illegal — despite, in the words of the court, being “incompatible with democratic principles.”

That decision — likely to go down as one of the worst in the court’s history — removed a critical structure from our system of checks and balances, pulling up the drawbridge over the legislative moat.

The systematic mid-decade manipulation of congressional district boundaries currently driven by President Donald Trump for the explicit purpose of preserving a Republican majority has nothing to do with improving representation of constituents or redressing some sort of injustice. It’s a naked power grab by the party’s proclaimed emperor that amounts to politicians picking their voters, rather than voters picking their politicians. And it’s unacceptable.

I have been working on the issue of gerrymandering since 2006 and take pride in having been one of the leaders in fighting it in both California and Colorado through voter-approved initiatives that establish independent redistricting commissions.

In Colorado, we’ve gone so far as to enshrine into our Constitution “the power of political gerrymandering, whereby legislative districts are purposefully drawn to favor one political party or incumbent politician over another, must end.” In California, state leaders took extreme measures in response to the Republican power grab and asked voters this November to temporarily lift their gerrymandering guardrails by adopting a new map favoring Democrats prior to the 2026 election. The proposal was emphatically approved.

Regardless of party affiliation, large majorities of Americans oppose the practice of gerrymandering and think it should be illegal. But that hasn’t stopped bad actors in states without the reforms from gerrymandering without regret. When one side manipulates the rules so flagrantly, the idea of fairness through independent voting commissions becomes difficult to defend.

Gerrymandering is a cancer that must be cured in order to sustain a healthy democracy. Unfortunately, the systematic mid-decade gerrymandering has put the patient in the emergency room, so every treatment must be considered in order to save it.

During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln went so far as to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, the constitutional right that ensures the government cannot detain someone without timely judicial review. He did so as a matter of national security, to preserve the Union.

From a policy perspective, blue states like California similarly argue a mid-decade suspension of independent redistricting commissions is necessary when the party currently in control of our federal government continues to dismantle the democratic process as multiple states systematically coordinate their gerrymandering. The move, Democrats say, is necessary to preserve our democracy, if not the union.

California voters expressed their agreement by passing Proposition 50, and similar measures are in different phases of discussion in Virginia and other states, even Colorado. As one of the leaders of gerrymandering reforms in California and Colorado, I cannot endorse a permanent rollback of independent redistricting commissions in the states where they’re already established.

But if mid-decade redistricting in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Indiana and other like-minded GOP-controlled states survives legal challenges and persists, it is such an extreme situation — and brazen attack on our democracy — I can support the idea of fighting fire with fire via counter-efforts, so long as there is reversion back to the exact measures that previously existed in each state.

Of course, crooked politics are not unique to Republicans or specific to gerrymandering. Democrats in Colorado have used underhanded tactics to railroad legislation that preemptively undermined ballot initiatives on property-tax relief and ranked-choice voting after intentionally deceiving fellow legislators on the latter measure; and have invested significant resources to support “extreme” candidates in GOP primaries in hopes of making the path to victory easier for their candidates in the general election. If President Donald Trump had done these things the far left would be screaming with self-righteous indignance.

Such unethical actions by both parties are already stripping the majority of voters in the middle from attaining the proportional representation they constitutionally deserve, rendering Capitol Hill dysfunctional. They’re also the driving force behind more and more disgusted voters identifying as independents.

Yet, what the Republicans are doing now is distinctively heinous because it attacks the democracy process itself. It harkens back to George Washington’s foretelling farewell address:

“However (political parties) may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

Ultimately, this is a national issue that requires congressional resolution in order to preserve a system American voters can continue to trust and believe in. As our elected representatives, their duty is to serve the people, not a political party or a temporary tenant of the White House. Otherwise, they too must go.

We are in an ugly place, where voters suffer and our democracy is at high risk. There have been times in our history when the people were forced to defend our democracy over and above their traditional participation, and that time has come again. This is our country, our democracy — not the political parties’ — and if we hope to keep it, we must put an immediate end to the unnecessary and harmful practice of gerrymandering.

Kent Thiry was co-chair of Colorado’s Amendment Y&Z Campaign, which established the state’s independent redistricting commission, and a co-author of what became California’s Voters First Act, which established independent redistricting for legislative seats in 2006.