| This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity. The Early: Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told Politico earlier this month that Democrats are doing "five to eight seats" better than he had anticipated in redistricting. What's your view? Burton: Well, we have been executing a comprehensive strategy for fair maps. We think that if there are fair maps in this country Democrats will do just fine. We want to have elections where voters get to decide the outcome of the elections, and I think by that metric we are certainly in the game. What the Republicans did with redistricting last decade, they have not been able to do this time around. The Early: Can you talk a little more about your decisions to frame the NDRC's efforts as fighting for fair maps rather than maps that give Democrats the greatest advantage? Maloney said he believed "in bringing a gun to a gunfight" when it came to gerrymandering. Burton: The reality of what the Republicans are doing in the Republican states, where they are gerrymandering their way to power regardless of what the census data says, regardless of what the voters want, is different than, I think, what Chairman Maloney is referring to and what you're seeing in the Democratic states. It's a different thing. The reason that we redistrict is to have districts that better reflect the changing demographic and geographic reality of the country over the decade, right? And what the census data showed is that this country is getting more diverse. This country is getting less rural. It's getting more suburban and urban. And I think Republicans know that those demographic trends work against them. And so they are actively trying to use the redistricting process to manipulate the map so that they still stay in power. The Early: There are still eight states drawing congressional maps, with court battles playing out in several more. Which state is the most crucial redistricting battleground right now? Burton: Florida is the most consequential map that is still outstanding, and a fascinating microcosm of the challenges within the Republican Party right now. The way that Governor [Ron] DeSantis has inserted himself into the redistricting process in order to pull the map and pull the process to the right is astounding. He is cutting in half the number of districts that will elect an African-American representative to Congress. So that's one that we're watching very closely. The Early: Who is your closest friend on the other side of the aisle? Burton: I have a lot of Republican friends in my life. My dad is a Republican. My closest friend on the other side of the aisle is probably my dad. The Early: NDRC Chairman Eric Holder has argued that New York's new congressional map — which favors Democrats in 22 of the state's 26 districts — is more defensible than Republican maps in states such as Texas. But Michael Li of the Brennan Center for Justice, which is not a conservative organization, described New York's map as "a master class in how to draw an effective gerrymander." Do you think the New York map isn't gerrymandered? Burton: I think that New York's map follows the trajectory of the census data in New York, and more closely aligns with the geographic and demographic data in New York, than the current map. The map of the last decade was a map drawn by a special master and a court that leaned Republican, and they sort of picked the Republican version of the map. So you were always gonna see Democrats pick up seats in New York, which, again, is different than what the Republicans did in Texas and North Carolina and Georgia and what they're doing in Florida and Ohio. I think it does a disservice to the conversation when people try to equate or draw a moral equivalency between what the Democrats are doing and what the Republicans are doing. The Early: Li's argument was that "a map that gives Democrats 85 percent of the seats in a state that is not 85 percent Democratic — this is not a particularly hard case." Do you think that's not the right framework to use when deciding whether a map is gerrymandered? Burton: There's a lot of ways to measure a map, to measure whether there is gerrymandering. The proportionality that Michael Li is talking about is one way to do that. The New York map is in court right now, so I think you'll see what judges have to say about that. In the cases that we have brought against Republican maps, the reason we are winning is because they are breaking the law. The court is going to interpret whether New York did the same thing but it's just a holistically different thing that the Republicans are doing. The Early: How big of a setback was the Supreme Court's decision in the Alabama case? Burton: Well, functionally, we won that case, right? I mean, we won on the merits, and then the Supreme Court didn't judge it on the merits. It just stayed the decision for this cycle. So we are very much in the game. The remedy of that case will apply to the 2024 election, not the 2022 election. But it is very unfortunate, particularly for the voters in Alabama, that they are going to have to go through even one cycle with a congressional map that dilutes the power of the Black voters in the state of Alabama. The Early: When does the NDRC's work wrap up for this cycle? When can you take a vacation? Burton: There is no vacation in sight. We are finishing up the maps for the cycle, but then we have a very active 2022 agenda even after the maps are passed. There's a lot of work that still has to be done on redistricting reform. There are important elections in 2022 for redistricting that we will be very focused on. We are doing a massive deep dive on our strategy, the lessons learned. And we are still very much in court. There's a lot of litigation that may not apply to this cycle but will be ongoing. So we're very busy. | 
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