It's rare to find a podcast that can actually change your life.

But when the show is called Life Kit, that's kind of the whole point.

I'm Mariel Segarra.

Three times a week on the Life Kit podcast, we guide you through a topic we could all use help with,

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Escucha El Life Kit podcast from NPR.

Hi, this is Emily from Minneapolis, Minnesota, where I'm currently sitting in standstill rush hour traffic.

You're listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.

This podcast was recorded at 141 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday, July 21st, 2025.

Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I'll probably still be sitting in traffic, because everybody knows that in Minnesota there are only two seasons, construction season and winter. Enjoy the show.

There's definitely winter. I feel her pain, man. I cannot stand sitting in traffic. It's terrible. But at least we are there for you. It's a fact of life everywhere, isn't it? Even in the Midwest. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover politics. I'm Hansi Luong. I cover redistricting. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.

Today on the show, several states could get new congressional districts before next year's midterm elections.

And that could end up determining which party controls the U.S. House going forward.

Hansi, we're going to start with Texas, where state lawmakers are meeting for a

special session there. The agenda includes redistricting. Why does the Republican governor,

Greg Abbott, want lawmakers to redraw their state's congressional map? The short answer is Republicans

in Texas are playing pure hard politics. They control the governor's office. They control the state legislature. So they control map drawing. And that is usually a once-a-decade process. It happens right after census results come out. But this month, you have the Republican Party of Texas putting out a statement that says doing another round of redistricting now, five years before the

next census, is, quote, an essential step to preserving GOP control in Congress. And going back to

your question, the longer answer here is that Governor Abbott says he received a letter this

month from the Trump appointee at the Justice Department making claims about four of

Texas's 38 districts that Republican lawmakers drew back in 2021.

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