Fitzpatrick and Suozzi warn redistricting wave could reshape House control

Redistricting is moving fast enough to alter House control before voters weigh in, and two bipartisan lawmakers are warning that the map war is already changing the political math. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Tom Suozzi of New York, the co-chairs of the House Problem Solvers Caucus, said the fight over district lines is no abstraction: CBS estimated the current wave could leave Republicans roughly nine seats closer to keeping the House.

Fitzpatrick called gerrymandering “one of the most, if not the most, corrosive things to our democracy” and said the caucus met that week to discuss countermeasures. He argued that Washington’s main leverage is not a grand federal takeover of redistricting, but money. Because states control election administration and district lines, Fitzpatrick said the clearest federal pressure point is Help America Vote Act funding, the federal stream Congress created after the disputed 2000 presidential election to help states run elections. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission says it has administered more than $4.35 billion in HAVA formula funding since 2003, underscoring that the tool Fitzpatrick described is already a major part of election administration.

Suozzi’s position on the show also reflected the electoral bind facing bipartisan lawmakers. Brennan noted that about 45 members of Suozzi’s caucus may face redistricting, a reminder that the map fight is not just about abstract fairness but about the survival of individual seats. CBS said only seven states use independent citizen commissions with computer-assisted line drawing, a small universe that leaves most of the country exposed to partisan mapmaking and litigation.

The warning comes as Republicans hold a narrow 217-212 majority in the House, with five vacancies, and as several states have already redrawn or advanced new congressional maps between the 2024 and 2026 elections. Those states include California, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas, while litigation has also affected Alabama and Utah. CBS analysis said that in a best-case scenario for Republicans, the current round of redistricting could yield between one and nine additional GOP-friendly seats. Louisiana added urgency to the fight in May 2026 when it advanced a map that could eliminate one of two majority-Black, Democratic-held seats.

The interview, which aired on Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan on May 17, also featured U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, Taiwan’s representative to the United States Alexander Yui, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates and CBS polling on the economy. But the segment with Fitzpatrick and Suozzi stood out for showing where bipartisan problem-solving still exists: in the warning that redistricting has become a structural threat. What it has not yet produced is a clear legislative fix, only a sharper contrast with the party-driven map wars now shaping the next House majority.