Chuck Todd Confronts Top Democrat on Party’s Redistricting: ‘You Don’t Accept that You’re Gerrymandering?’

MSNBC anchor Chuck Todd pressed Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY), the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee – the Democratic Party’s House fundraising arm – on the party’s apparent hypocrisy when it comes to gerrymandering.

“Let’s talk about redistricting and the New York map and the idea of gerrymandering. The Democratic Party in general is against gerrymandering. HR-1 would like to see it put to an end,” said Todd during Tuesday’s MTP Daily, referring to Democratic House legislation that would overhaul U.S. elections including banning gerrymandering. “But I think you’re for it when it comes to the case of New York in 2022. Try to square that circle for me.”

Maloney replied that “it’s very easy.”

“We won the House races in 2020 by 4.7 million votes, and we lost 12, 13 seats in the House,” he said. The exact number of seats was 13.

Maloney continued:

So you tell me how the House of Representatives that represents the population, one side wins the majority vote and loses seats. If the House doesn’t reflect the majority will, what the heck is it? So that tells you what kind of map we’re dealing with right now. So we can argue for fair districts and pick up Democratic seats because if the Republicans have gerrymandered it all to hell over the last couple of cycles.

And this time in the courts and in the legislatures we are making the case, and in New York, that communities of interest, what the law allows in New York, means that New York, which has been voting overwhelmingly Democratic in recent elections, should have representatives in the House that reflect that.

“We’ll do it straight,” he said. “But why are we losing seats in the House…”

Todd interrupted and asked, “You don’t accept that you’re gerrymandering? You don’t accept that you’re gerrymandering in New York?”

Maloney fired back, “You tell me why … if we win a majority of the votes in these elections, why are we losing seats? And what I’m telling you is that you can have Democratic improvements in these districts and have fair maps. Those things go hand in hand.”

Watch above, via MSNBC.