WASHINGTON — Lame-duck CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert showed Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker just how gerrymandered the Land of Lincoln is after dozens of Texas Dem legislators stalled redistricting in their own state by decamping to Pritzker’s domain.
The face of “The Late Show” displayed a congressional map of Illinois during Pritzker’s appearance Tuesday night, highlighting one district that he said looked just like “the stinger on a scorpion.”
“If you are considering doing a little more redrawing in Illinois, you already have some crazy districts in Illinois,” Colbert told the governor.
“Take a look at this. Look at [District] 17 here. It does that, then it comes up here and it sneaks around there and goes all the way up here, and then goes right over there like that. And look at this one, kind of goes whoop up there.”
Pritzker had earlier doubled down on talk of further redrawing lines to benefit Democratic congressional candidates.
“It’s possible,” the rumored 2028 presidential contender had said when asked whether Illinois would answer Texas’ redistricting tit for tat.
“As I’ve said, everything’s on the table,” Pritzker added. “Look, we’ve got to fight fire with fire. They’ve frankly tossed the rulebook out. And they’re just acting in an unconstitutional fashion.”
Redistricting, which typically occurs every 10 years after a census is released, allows state legislatures or independent commissions to redraw congressional boundaries that determine the voting groups that will elect representatives to the US House.
Some states — including Texas, Pennsylvania and North Carolina — have convened special sessions before the decennial population count in an attempt to draw up new maps, but those have led to fierce legal battles.
The drawing of congressional districts for political advantage dates back to at least 1812, when the term “gerrymander” was coined after Massachusetts Democratic-Republican Gov. Elbridge Gerry signed off on a partisan map of state Senate districts.
“Is this common for all states to do?” Colbert asked Pritzker at one point.
“We handed it over to a kindergarten class and let them decide,” the Illinois governor joked.
“That’s the nonpartisan group that does this?” an incredulous Colbert inquired.
“That’s our independent commission, yeah,” Pritzker deadpanned.
“So because all states, to a certain extent, do this, why is what Texas doing particularly egregious in this case?” Colbert asked again.
“What the Republicans are trying to do in the — Texas Republicans frankly at the behest of Donald Trump are doing it mid-decade,” Pritzker claimed. “That is extraordinarily rare.”
Colbert added: “That’s a good point because I think he literally called them or wrote them and said, ‘Hey, I need five seats, go redraw this.’”
Illinois currently sends 17 members to the House, just three (17.6%) of whom are Republicans. In 2024, President Trump received 43.3% of the Illinois vote, suggesting that a fair map would have seven GOP House members.
Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott had civil arrest warrants issued for the Democrats who fled to Illinois, Massachusetts and New York, while congressional lawmakers, including Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), urged the FBI to hunt the scofflaws down.
Trump has backed the Texas Republicans and suggested the bureau “may have to” get involved to force the runaway legislators back to Austin.
“We have a wonderful governor in Texas. He feels strongly about it. It’s going to be up to him. I think there’s tremendous support for it,” he told reporters Tuesday at the White House, noting that California and other Democratic states have been broaching the subject of redrawing their own districts.
“They’ll do it anyway. Why? If we stop over there, they would’ve done it anyway,” he said. “Look, a lot of these states I watched this morning as Democrats are complaining and they’re complaining from states where they’ve done it in Illinois.”
