Our Work
The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, chaired by the 82nd Attorney General of the United States, Eric H. Holder, Jr., is the first-ever strategic hub for a comprehensive redistricting strategy. Together, we will rebuild a democracy where voters pick their politicians—not the other way around.
The system is broken. The fight to fix it is now.
There’s no other way to put it: Republicans are engaging in an unprecedented effort to undermine free and fair elections.
It’s wrong—and we’re going to stop them.
Our Comprehensive Approach
Last decade, Republicans seized control of the redistricting process to create an artificial political advantage for themselves, gerrymandering their way to power in Congress and state legislatures by disenfranchising voters, especially Democrats and people of color. Throughout the decade, Republicans used this artificial power to advance right-wing priorities that are out of touch with the majority of Americans, including limiting access to abortion, blocking common sense gun control measures, failing to curb the impact of climate change, and making it harder for people to vote.
That is why in 2017, Attorney General Eric Holder, with support from party leaders like President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, established the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC), a centralized hub to fight for fair maps. Under Attorney General Holder’s leadership, the NDRC executed a comprehensive redistricting strategy that included shifting the balance of power away from total Republican control of redistricting, raising awareness of redistricting and empowering the public to get involved in the fight for fair maps, and filing lawsuits against gerrymandered, unconstitutional maps.
SOURCE: New York Times, “Gerrymandering Isn’t Giving Republicans the Advantage You Might Expect”
The 2021-2022 redistricting cycle was a success due to that comprehensive strategy. Thanks to our efforts to elect Democrats and support redistricting reforms, Republicans started this redistricting process with 20 percent less control than they had the prior decade. As the redistricting cycle unfolded, we used every tool at our disposal, from grassroots organizing to litigation, and stopped Republicans from creating “durable” congressional and state legislative majorities for their party at the expense of the people. As a result of that work, Americans across the country will vote in much fairer congressional and state legislative districts this fall than they have had in a generation.
But our work is far from done. As we successfully fought off Republican attempts to again gerrymander their way into power, we recognized a larger, alarming pattern unfolding across the country. In addition to gerrymandering, Republicans are working in competitive states to undermine the other structures of our democracy to skew the results in their favor. From backing candidates who pledge themselves to a political party over federal and state constitutions, to threatening to impeach state court justices simply because Republicans do not like their decisions, to nominating candidates for secretary of state who perpetuate the Big Lie – Republicans are politicizing every aspect of our democracy for their own political power.
Our democracy is on the line. Democrats can and must fight back.