On the menu: Awokening again? But it’s still technically a fruit; A disruptor for Democrats in Michigan; Blame Canada?; Stool pigeon

The cry goes up again from Democrats for national anti-gerrymandering legislation as refugees from the Texas legislative session hide out in blue states.

Ending gerrymandering was a core part of their For The People Act, which passed the House but failed in the Senate early in the Biden presidency. Like the rest of the bill, the redistricting part was a big swing at giving the federal government more control over state elections.

Democrats who backed the legislation then should be glad that the Trump administration and the Republican Congress do not have those additional tools available to them now. The Texas grab would look like a League of Women Voters informational session by comparison.

But now that Texas has gone bronco-busting on its congressional map in a bid to hold on to the House of Representatives for Republicans in what is shaping up to be, as usual, a punishing midterm for the party in power, Democrats are back on their anti-gerrymandering platform, but not right away…

The immediate answer from Democrats is to do unto Texans as Texans do unto them. Democrats in California and New York say they will shed their states’ anti-gerrymandering laws, a task that will be tough in California, requiring a referendum be put before voters in a special election this fall. But it is doable and would pretty much wipe out the perceived gains for the GOP in Texas.

New York redistricting, even in the best-case scenario for Democrats, couldn’t be completed in time for the midterm vote. Maryland could target its lone Republican and Illinois might find a way to squeeze out one of the three Republicans in its 17-member delegation, but they’re already pretty well maxed out.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) just got a map drawn to specifications approved last month after a long court battle, so that sounds like some loose talk down in Tallahassee. Missouri and Ohio have some chances to join the counter-counterattack, but it looks increasingly that if Texas and California do go tit for tat, this will mostly be a wash. Maybe by the time the runaway Democrats return to (or are returned to) Texas to allow a vote, the plan will have lost some of its luster.

We should remember here also that both Republicans and Democrats are overstating the power of a Texas gerrymander. One of the few iron laws of politics in the past century has been the strong correlation between a president’s approval rating and the performance of his party in midterms. If President Trump’s job approval numbers are still bouncing around near 40 percent next fall, Republicans will probably lose the House. A midterm is almost always a referendum on the party in power, and voters will be turning in their verdict on two years of unified Republican control, gerrymandering or no gerrymandering.

And there’s also the opportunity cost here for Republicans. The chief combatants for the Republican Senate nomination in the state, incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and his challenger, state Attorney General Ken Paxton, have been trying to outdo each other over who can take the hardest line against the absconded Democratic legislators. Paxton wants criminal charges for their supporters while Cornyn sicced the FBI on the runaways. This is not, to put it lightly, a good general election issue in a race where Democrats have a real chance to pick off a seat that has been in Republican hands since 1961.

The crassness of the power grab won’t be lost on voters, since there’s nothing in all of this for Texas directly. Republicans will like the idea of trying to stick it to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and the Dems in Washington, but it’s hard to see how less-partisan voters will find this episode as anything but grubby. Then there’s the backlash problem.

The midterm electorate is about a third smaller than the quadrennial presidential one. Democrats, who boast an increasing number of high-income, high-propensity voters, already have a built-in advantage over the new working-class GOP in low-turnout elections. Maybe best of all for Democrats, after months of complaining that their party doesn’t do enough to “fight,” they finally are fighting back.

But again, figuring out how the redistricting fight in one state will affect the results of........

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