The recent push by Republicans to change congressional districts ahead of the upcoming midterm elections has, rightly, drawn wide condemnation — if not for the right reasons.

Critics on the left have attacked it as fundamentally undermining democracy, and they’ve got a point to a certain extent. Although it’s legal for either party to engage in mid-decade redistricting for political reasons, it fundamentally undermines democratic norms and traditions.

What the critics seem to conveniently forget, however, is that both parties have frequently engaged in redistricting designed to benefit them politically: it was simply typically constrained to coincide with the once-a-decade U.S. Census.

Regardless of whether it’s timed to coincide with the census, it’s never right for politicians to draw districts in order to benefit themselves politically. Instead, every state should handle redistricting the way that Maine does, with a bipartisan commission that draws maps in ways that are fair and make sense. California recently implemented a similar system, and now in reaction to Republicans’ redistricting efforts elsewhere, it is attempting to repeal it so that it can implement a map favoring Democrats.

That, of course, is the problem when one party engages in redistricting solely for its own partisan advantage: it encourages the other party to do the same elsewhere. They keep trying to outdo each other, undermining democratic processes all over the country.

It’s embarrassing that either party ever engages in these underhanded tactics, because they’re entirely unnecessary. Rather than trying to create better districts for their candidates, Republicans should be trying to create better candidates for the districts as is. With the district lines as is, either party can win a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives — and that’s exactly how it should be.

The Cook Partisan Voting Index, developed by political scientist Charlie Cook, measures how much more partisan a district is than the country as a whole. So, a district that’s Republican +2 is two points more Republican than the rest of the country.

Today there are 18 U.S. House districts that are +2 or +1 Democratic, nine that are dead even and 13 that are +2 or +1 Republican. Of the 18 narrowly Democratic districts, Republicans hold just two of them. They hold five of the nine even districts, while they hold five of the 13 narrowly Republican districts.

Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, represented by Democrat Jared Golden, is +4 Republican. There are a total of 11 districts held by Democrats that are Republican-leaning or even but less so than Maine’s 2nd District.

On the flip side of that ledger, the most Democratic-leaning district held by a Republican is Nebraska’s 2nd District at D+3; there are 35 districts that are even or less Democratic than Nebraska’s 2nd District. The right Republican should be able to win in any of those districts. They could enjoy a huge majority today if they just did a better job at winning competitive districts.

Furthermore, there are 192 congressional districts that are R+5 or more, while there are 164 that are D+5 or more. Republicans, in other words, already enjoy a massive structural advantage in the U.S. House of Representatives. Redrawing the map to push the institution even more in their favor is completely absurd and totally unnecessary.

Rather than trying to eliminate the solidly Democratic seats in states under their control, Republicans should focusing on winning the 79 districts that are no more partisan than Maine’s 2nd District. Today they only hold 28 of those districts; theoretically, they should be able to win in any of them.

It’s not just that Republicans are trying to rewrite the rules to their advantage in order to maintain their majority, but how they’re doing it. They’re trying to avoid the hard work of recruiting good candidates who can convince Americans to vote for them all over the country. Rather than trying to appeal to the winnable districts in the center, they’re doing everything they possibly can to minimize their number and influence.

The current paralysis in Washington isn’t the fault of centrist members of Congress representing swing districts, but of extremists on both sides who refuse to compromise.

The current redistricting drive will make it even easier for both sides to ignore the center and let their ideological base run things, so we’ll have more pointless confrontations like the current government shutdown. Republicans ought to be trying to win the most seats fair and square, not redrawing maps so they can avoid the hard work.