Lol, this is blatant gerrymandering. Any patently-innatural tweaking of electoral maps for results of any type is gerrymandering, it’s incredible how one could even think of arguing about it.
Also, it’s pointless to look at who proposed it first - what matters is who approved it, and that’s both parties including the senator himself. If the incumbent senator really feels damaged or constricted by this outcome, then he should learn to manage “his” votes in the relevant committees through the party, and oh, what about himself actually voting against?
A state senator who can’t manage his direct affairs sounds pretty unlikely to me; a state senator cooking up a series of excuses to cover a deal he made with “the other side”… much more likely. Among other things, now the party cannot ask him to risk his seat by running in the harder district. As the brits would say, trebles all round!
