There's a slogan used by those who support redistricting reform that is worth starting with today: "Voters should pick their politicians; the politicians shouldn't be able to pick their voters." But the process of designing districts -- for U.S. House of Representatives seats as well as state legislative seats -- has long been a political process. The word "gerrymandering" was coined to describe a Massachusetts governor (Elbridge Gerry) who, while serving in office in 1812, approved a district so convoluted that a newspaper drew it as a mythical lizard with the name "the gerrymander." The name stuck, which shows you this sort of thing has been going on for over two centuries now.

Usually these battles are fought immediately after the decennial Census, as states have to adjust to a new number of House members (whether fewer or more). But it's not illegal for a state to redistrict mid-decade, which has been happening more and more frequently over the past couple of decades.

Right now, Texas is leading the way, as both parties prepare to play hardball on redistricting. The Texas legislature was called into a special session by the governor, to deal with both the aftermath of the recent flooding and to redraw their House districts. When the session was called, there was no real push to do this redistricting (even from Republican legislators), instead the political pressure apparently came directly from the White House. Donald Trump wants more safe Republican districts, and Texas seemed like a good place to achieve this.

This is all due to Republican policies (and Trump himself) getting more and more unpopular over time. Polling shows that a majority of the public is dissatisfied with Trump -- especially his handling of the economy -- and that could very easily translate to big midterm losses for him and his Republicans next year.

The real impetus for the redistricting push is the fact that the House is so evenly divided right now. If the Republicans had a majority of 20 or 25 seats (or even more), they wouldn't be all that worried about the midterms. But the margin of control in the House has been razor-thin for a while, and as it now stands if Democrats flip five seats, they will wrest control of the chamber from the Republicans. That's what has Trump and the rest of the GOP so worried.

So they decided to rig the game in their favor. There is now a push on to redistrict not only in Texas, but in a few other Republican-led states. If they are all successful, they could redraw their maps to create 10 or more additional safe Republican seats. Which they see as possibly the only way of retaining control of the House.

Democrats aren't just sitting back and letting this happen, however. Democratic Texas lawmakers have decamped to blue cities. Their absence has (so far) denied the special legislative session a quorum. Without a certain number of members, the chambers can do no business. Leaving the state denies the Republicans a quorum, which grinds the legislature to a halt.

By doing so, they have broken no criminal law. This is important to point out. They have broken a civil rule of the legislature itself, but that's it. And there's an interesting dynamic at play, because the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, is going to challenge a sitting Republican, John Cornyn, for his Senate seat next year. So currently, they're trying to outdo each other in getting tough on the absent Democrats. Paxton is blustering about sending Texas law enforcement to go arrest the Democrats and haul them back to the state to do their business. This is patently illegal, since Texas law only reaches to the Texas border. The Democrats flew to places like Chicago and Boston, where they are completely safe from any attempts by Texas officers to arrest them. The governor is also threatening to make a decision that the lawmakers have "abandoned their seats," which would kick them out of their elected positions. The state would then have to hold special elections to fill the seats (and all of which would be challenged in the courts, which could slow things down enormously). Not to be outdone, Cornyn has now called on the F.B.I. to go arrest the Democrats and bring them back. The Democrats have broken no criminal law at all (even a state-level one), so it's hard to even see how they would justify such an overreach.

Texas Democrats have had to flee the state before to protest redistricting, although they have never been successful in actually stopping such efforts. Previously, the Republicans passed a fine of $500 for each member who refuses to return to the state in such a situation. The Texas Democrats have reportedly lined up donors who will cover the costs of the fines, which the Texas Republicans are trying to define as "bribery." This is pretty laughable, when you consider all the pay-to-play schemes that Donald Trump has routinely used for his own personal benefit while in office. It's hard to be fine with all of Trump's grifting and then try to get up on your high horse about "bribery" for a donor paying off a fine.

But backing up the Texas Democrats isn't the only thing Democrats outside of Texas are doing. There are a number of Democratic governors who are threatening their own redistricting in retaliation for what Texas is doing. California's Governor Gavin Newsom has been leading this charge. If Texas gerrymanders five more GOP seats, then California may just gerrymander five more Democratic seats in response. And California's not the only state thinking about doing this either -- New York's governor is fully ready to "fight fire with fire" as well. Illinois and Maryland might also follow suit.

This is all somewhat tragic, since it could signal an end (or at least a multi-year setback) to a political effort that had actually been making a lot of progress. Redistricting reform efforts have wrested the drawing of maps away from state legislatures and instead handed it to independent redistricting commissions. These commissions look at things like compactness and geography rather than partisan advantage. Which is a good thing to strive for.

However, redistricting commissions have mostly been set up in blue states (although, to be fair, it has happened in a few red states as well). Not all of them -- there are some blue states that gerrymander for the Democrats just as blatantly and obviously as the Republicans do in their red states. But slow progress was at least being made in the redistricting reform effort.

That may all be at an end, however. California is the biggest state that adopted redistricting reform, which was actually pushed by former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. California's districts have become much fairer and much less geographically convoluted as a direct result. And the measure was passed as an amendment to the state constitution.

Gavin Newsom will have to overcome this hurdle. If Texas is successful in playing redistricting hardball, then California will hold a special election in November which will put on the ballot the question of overturning the redistricting commission plan (perhaps only temporarily, just a "one-time" sort of thing) and may even present a new House district map to the voters (the details haven't really been agreed upon in terms of what precisely will be on the ballot).

This measure will almost certainly pass. California Democrats, like Democrats elsewhere, are incensed at Donald Trump dismantling all sorts of government norms, and this will be the first chance the voters get to show how angry they are. It will be presented to them as: "Stop Texas Republicans from rigging the midterm elections!" which is a pretty powerful message in a very blue state.

So we may be in for a couple of months of tit-for-tat mid-decade redistricting. With the margin of House control so thin, every seat is going to count. Democrats are in no mood to just let Republicans in Texas and other states rig the game against them, even if they previously supported redistricting reform. The Republicans are playing hardball, and control of the House could come down to a handful of seats. Capturing control of the Senate is probably not going to happen, so for Democrats this is really the only chance they will get to rein in Trump for the last two years of his term. The stakes are very high. Which is why everyone's in the mood to play such hardball.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant