Trump admin is hosting state leadership conference, but political aides are likely to discuss redistricting, too
By:Juan Salinas II
Nebraska Examiner
LINCOLN – A handful of Nebraska lawmakers are set to travel to Washington, D.C., this week for a “state leadership conference” at the White House’s invitation.
But, if what happened with delegations from other red states is an indication, another reason for the trip might be for President Donald Trump and his team to lay groundwork for asking another red state to redistrict congressional boundaries to Republican advantage before the 2026 election.
At least four Nebraska lawmakers confirmed with the Examiner that they are headed to Capitol Hill on Tuesday. The official reason is the leadership conference organized by the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.
Nebraska and Iowa lawmakers are scheduled to “hear firsthand how President Trump is implementing the America First Agenda,” and how to “advance it at the state and local level.”
Late Monday afternoon, Gov. Jim Pillen’s office confirmed that it is aware of the meeting with lawmakers.
The four-hour conference could be an opportunity for Trump’s team to discuss possible mid-decade redistricting with Nebraska lawmakers, according to Axios and other political news outlets. National politics website Punchbowl News had already reported Nebraska as a possible target for such a redistricting push. The Axios article mentioned Kansas as well.
The White House pressed Indiana lawmakers about redistricting during a visit last month to the nation’s capital. Indiana Gov. Mike Braun is widely expected to call a special session this fall, but he has said he wants to hear first from statehouse leaders whether they want to move forward with redistricting.
Last month, retiring Nebraska GOP U.S. Rep. Don Bacon confirmed to the Examiner that preliminary discussions had begun about the Legislature perhaps redrawing the Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District to make it harder for Democrats to win.
While Republicans hold all of Nebraska’s congressional seats, political experts see the now open-seat 2nd District race as a possible pickup for Democrats in 2026.
After the most recent census, when the GOP-led majority in the officially nonpartisan Nebraska Legislature redrew the state’s congressional maps, it did so in a way that shored up the 2nd District by swapping some Democratic-leaning residents in suburban Sarpy County with more reliably Republican residents of rural Saunders County. The changes helped maintain the swing district’s slight Republican lean.
The latest White House push in GOP-led states is part of a national redistricting tit for tat Trump helped start when Texas approved a new map designed to give the GOP up to five additional seats in the U.S. House in next year’s midterms.
California is trying to combat Texas’s new map with potential changes of its own, as Californians could vote to suspend the state’s current congressional districts, which were drawn by an independent commission, and replace them with a map intended to help Democrats win back the five seats Texas swung the GOP’s way.
The Missouri statehouse also is moving toward a new congressional map that targets its Kansas City-based seat, which could swing it from a heavily Democratic district into a GOP-leaning seat. Ohio is required to redraw its maps this year, which could help the GOP gain two or three seats. Florida recently announced a congressional redistricting committee.
Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker said redrawing districts is “on the table,” and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat leading a Democratic-led state, has said, “we are at war” earlier this year as she explores her own response to Texas.
The Nebraska Constitution requires redistricting legislation to come after each census, but the language doesn’t specify whether lawmakers can revisit the maps before the next census. Some have argued that language in the constitution will allow the Legislature to redistrict at different times. Others have argued any effort to redistrict mid-decade would face legal challenges.
Nebraska lawmakers might lack the numbers needed to make the change. A key indicator: Pillen has failed to pressure enough state lawmakers to alter how the state awards Electoral College votes for president, even with help from Trump, earlier this year. This, despite Republicans holding a thin supermajority.
Nebraska 1st District U.S. Rep. Mike Flood, a former speaker of the Legislature, told Axios he thinks Republican lawmakers lack the votes needed to get redistricting past a filibuster because they lacked the votes to pass the shift to winner-take-all from awarding some electoral votes by congressional district.
One Nebraska GOP state lawmaker questioned privately whether a mid-decade redistricting effort would have 25 votes. State Sen. Merv Riepe of Ralston has said he’s “not a big fan of changing the rules in the middle of the game.”
Examiner Reporter Zach Wendling contributed to this report.