Congressional Black Caucus fears GOP redistricting will shrink its numbers [View all]

Source: ABC News

November 29, 2025, 5:07 AM


President Donald Trump's redistricting push to preserve a Republican majority in Congress and allied voting rights cases in Texas and Louisiana could wipe out nearly a third of the 62-member Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) if all the electoral and judicial dominoes fall his way.

Missouri Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, who has served 11 terms in the House, called the efforts as "blind, and sometimes even mean-spirited, political decisions that those who perpetuate it could easily deny it." Cleaver's district is one of those in the crosshairs of Trump's march to enlist statehouses and the courts to increase Republican seats in Congress at the expense of Democrats -- many longstanding, dozens of them Black and Brown.

"There are probably some good and decent people who, but for their cult-like political attitudes, would not like something like this to happen," Cleaver added as he tried to make sense of how he and his district are threatened by what he says is a double-barreled salvo aimed at the Voting Rights Act and state legislatures.

Cleaver's senior colleague from South Carolina was more blunt. "These are people who are trying to rig the system, making it very clear that there are certain people who will not be represented in Congress," said Democratic Rep. James E. Clyburn, who has worn multiple House leadership titles along with being a Presidential Medal of Freedom holder. He has represented the Palmetto State since 1993 and, like Cleaver, once led the CBC -- a staple of Capitol Hill politics since 1971.

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/congressional-black-caucus-fears-gop-redistricting-shrink-numbers/story?id=127777319