'Total failure': Republican blasts Johnson for backing 'utterly foolish' gerrymander

After a panel of federal judges struck down Texas' new gerrymandered Congressional redistricting maps, one Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives is turning his outrage toward House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) for giving them his blessing.

Punchbowl News' Laura Weiss reported Tuesday that Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) denounced both Texas' mid-decade redistricting push as well as House Republican leadership for what he viewed as a major strategic blunder. Kiley lobbed criticism at Texas Republicans' praise of the maps as being advantageous for Republicans, and argued that the effort to force new redistricting boundaries ahead of the 2026 midterms for partisan advantage was doomed from the start.

"To the extent there was any point to begin with — which I don't think there was — I don't think even if you've got a partisan advantage on this it in any way shape or form justifies it," Kiley told Weiss. "But that's not even gonna happen it looks like. And with this court decision, it's even more in doubt. So it's just utterly foolish."

In the 2-1 decision by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, judges appointed by President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama ruled in the majority that the new maps were illegal as they were drawn to disenfranchise racial minorities. A judge appointed by former President Ronald Reagan was the lone dissenting vote. Legal journalist Chris Geidner wrote on Bluesky that the decision was made under a law in which any appeals go directly to the Supreme Court of the United States, and that the Western District of Texas' ruling will not impact the new Democrat-friendly maps overwhelmingly approved by California voters earlier this month.

Kiley specifically called out Speaker Johnson for not using his influence to speak out against redistricting efforts earlier this year, and said he should have sought out a truce with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) to head off Democratic responses, like California's Prop 50.

"It was a total failure of leadership to let this happen in a way that is going to be bad for our own members, bad for the House, bad for representation across the country, Kiley said.

Kiley is one of the California Republicans likely to lose their seat next year, with Prop 50 creating new boundaries designed to disadvantage the GOP in the 2026 midterms. Democrats are expected to win as many as five new seats in California as a result of Prop 50.