Sen. Mike Lee Points to Obama's Post for a Reminder About What Dems Call Gerrymandering When THEY Do It

Doug P. | 3:15 PM on August 06, 2025

Over the weekend many Texas Democrats decided to "fight for democracy" by attempting to prevent the democratic process from playing out in their state. In doing so they fled to the occasional home state of former President Barack Obama, who had this to say about the situation:

We can’t lose focus on what matters – right now, Republicans in Texas are trying to gerrymander district lines to unfairly win five seats in next year’s midterm elections. This is a power grab that undermines our democracy. https://t.co/lBGo5aNbyp
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 5, 2025

A "power grab that undermines our democracy"?

As was pointed out in an earlier story, a 2012 story in The New Yorker about Obama pointed out how his national political career was launched in part with the assistance of gerrymandering that Barack had a personal hand in helping with:

In 1996, during his first run for office, in the Illinois State Senate, Obama defeated his former political mentor Alice Palmer by successfully challenging her nominating petitions and forcing her off the ballot, effectively ending her career. A few years later, Illinois Democrats, after toiling in the minority in the Senate, gerrymandered the state to produce a Democratic majority. While drafting the new political map, Obama helped redraw his own district northward to include some of Chicago’s wealthiest citizens, making the district a powerful financial and political base that he used to win his U.S. Senate seat, a few years later.