Why a showdown over Texas congressional districts could shape Trump's presidential future
Democrats have scattered to friendly states across the country and warrants have been issued for their arrest.
At the core of the fight is a map that could be key to Republicans retaining their majority in Congress.
Here's a basic breakdown of the stoush.
In late July, Texas Republicans put forward a proposal to redraw the state's congressional map.
The map lays out the borders of Texas's 38 congressional districts (equivalent to Australia's federal electorates), which each vote for a politician to represent them in the US House of Representatives.
Texas Democrats were quick to point out the new version of the map would result in Republicans gaining five seats.
That's a tactic known as gerrymandering, where districts are redrawn to include more voters in favour of one party to give a political advantage.
Democrats didn't support the proposal, but because they don't hold power in the Texas state legislature, they were unable to vote it down.
So instead, they fled the state to prevent a vote entirely.
Governor Greg Abbott retaliated by ordering the arrest of the Democrats and threatening to have them removed from office.
The battle in Texas holds massive repercussions for Mr Trump's power at a federal level.
Republicans currently only hold the US House of Representatives by a very fine margin of 219-212.
But they are expected to lose seats in the midterm elections next year, when all members of the US House of Representatives stand for re-election.
It means the Republicans are at serious risk of losing their majority.
Redistricting Texas would give them a five-seat cushion, which could be what saves them from losing the majority.
If Democrats take control of the House of Representatives, Mr Trump would need to negotiate with his opponents to get laws passed.
Yes.
The Supreme Court found in 2006 that there was nothing in the US Constitution that prevented Texas from redrawing its districts.
In 2009, the court also found there were no judicial powers to stop districts from being redrawn for partisan advantage.
Mr Abbott argues redistricting is necessary to better reflect voters who supported Mr Trump in the 2024 election, when he easily won Texas.
"Gerrymandering can be done, or drawing lines, can be done on the basis of political makeup, as in Republicans versus Democrats, and there's nothing illegal about that," he said in an interview with Fox News on Monday.
"All of these districts that are being added are districts that were won by Trump."
Republicans hold the majority in the Texas State Legislature, so if the redistricting went to a vote, it would have been passed.
Democrats sized up their limited power and options, and decided their only chance to put the brakes on the redistricting was to block the vote from going ahead at all.
The Texas constitution requires at least two-thirds of the state's House of Representatives to be present when conducting legislative business.
With 150 seats in the House, that means at least 100 representatives are needed, and while they don't have the majority, Democrats do hold 62 seats.
As long as 51 are out of state, the House can't hold the redistricting vote.
It hasn't worked when they've tried it in the past.
They did so twice in 2003 to stop Republicans from redrawing voter maps.
In 2021, Democrats fled for 38 days over an elections bill and new voting restrictions.
These efforts only delayed the measures they were seeking to thwart — all were eventually passed when Democrats returned to Austin.
The current legislature session runs until August 19, but Mr Abbott could keep calling 30-day special sessions until enough Democrats return.
But districts need to be approved before the opening of Texas candidate filing for the 2026 midterms on November 8.
So for Democrats to succeed with their current strategy, at least 51 would need to stay out of the state until then.
Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu says Democrats will do "whatever it takes" to stop the proposal.
Legal experts and even Republican state Attorney-General Ken Paxton say it would be difficult to enforce consequences against the Democrats while they are safely camped out in sympathetic states.
"Until they show up themselves back in Texas, sometimes it's hard to actually execute on that," Mr Paxton said in an interview with conservative podcaster Benny Johnson.
When Democrats left Texas in 2021, the Texas Supreme Court held that House leaders had the authority to "physically compel the attendance" of missing members.
But no Democrats were forcibly brought back to Texas after warrants were served.
While House Speaker Dustin Burrows has issued civil arrest warrants for the missing Democrats, it's unclear whether they can or will be enforced outside Texas's borders.
Mr Abbott has ordered the state troopers to find and arrest the Democrats, threatened to have them removed from office and has officially asked the state's highest court to remove Mr Wu, arguing he has vacated his seat.
The attorney-general said having seats declared vacated could be a long process, and would require individual lawsuits filed against each missing representative.
Still, Mr Paxton said he would press ahead with lawsuits if the Democrats had not returned by Friday.
"We'll see where it goes," Republican state senator Charles Perry said.
The Democrats will likely be hit with a hefty bill, though.
Refusing to show up for a legislative session is a civil violation of legislative rules, and each representative can be fined $500 for every day they are not at the Capitol.
Democratic-controlled states have warned if Texas goes ahead with redistricting, they could so the same.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has asked politicians in his state to find ways for the Democrats to increase their majority.
Governors Kathy Hochul in New York and JB Pritzker in Illinois have made similar calls.
"Everything's on the table," Mr Pritzker wrote in a post on X.
"Republicans are using every method they can, whether it's cheating or breaking the law.
"We've got to do everything we can to stand up and fight back — we're not sitting around and complaining from the sidelines when we have the ability to stop them."
Republicans are looking beyond Texas, too.
Vice-President JD Vance is expected to bring the redistricting fight to Indiana as he meets with Governor Mike Braun on Thursday.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has suggested he may pursue redistricting, too.
ABC/wires
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News.com.au
38 minutes ago
- News.com.au
Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago style renovations to the White House are progressing fast
Donald Trump's renovations to the White House, and changes to its internal decor, have been proceeding quietly but quickly since he became America's President again in January. They drew a bit more attention earlier this week, when Mr Trump was spotted wandering around on the roof of the building, apparently checking out the location for a new ballroom. And now photos of the White House's new, completely overhauled Rose Garden are, as the kids used to say, going viral. The Rose Garden, which is located just outside the Oval Office and has been a frequent site for presidential press conferences, was first created in the early 1900s and has been redesigned a few times since, most significantly during the presidency of John F. Kennedy in 1961. Current First Lady Melania Trump had a go at tweaking it during her husband's first administration, to admittedly quite tepid reviews. This time, the President himself decided to do something more radical, ripping up the garden's iconic rectangular lawn and replacing it with a stone patio. Here are the results. This is a matter of personal taste, of course. To me, the new version of the garden looks like the perpetually empty patio of a three-star hotel in Bournemouth. Or a parking lot with chairs on it. Or perhaps, if I were to be generous, the eating area outside a relatively up-market Pret a Manger. Some critics, reacting on social media, have been harsher. 'Dear God. The Rose Garden renovation looks worse than anyone could have ever imagined,' said Chris Jackson, a Democratic strategist. 'He removed a beautiful piece of the White House and replaced it with concrete crap,' said activist Harry Sisson. I am prepared to acknowledge that some people find what appears, to the eye, to be a flat slab of concrete more appealing than grass. Strange people. Couple of fun facts about the new design: there are little presidential seals at each corner of the patio's border, which is otherwise decorated with grey American flags. And if you thought the outdoor furniture chosen to feature in the garden looked strangely familiar, that is because it's almost identical to the furniture around the pool at Mr Trump's Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago. The White House's sudden resemblance to Mar-a-Lago does not stop in the garden. Mr Trump has left his characteristic mark on the White House in other ways, chiefly by absolutely covering its interior in gold. Gold ornaments, gold drapes, gold picture frames, gold trimming on most available surfaces. Everywhere you turn, the President's favourite colour gleams back at you. Here are some before-and-after photos from the Oval Office, which illustrate the change. One is reminded vividly of the Bond villain Goldfinger: 'This is gold, Mr Bond. All my life I've been in love with its colour, its brilliance.' Or perhaps the character parodying him in the Austin Powers film Goldmember: 'You see Mr Powers, I love gooooooooold. The look of it, the taste of it, the smell of it, the texture.' Mr Trump presumably doesn't put the gold in his mouth, at least. Just everywhere else. One more thing: that new ballroom we mentioned at the start. We don't know how it will end up looking yet, but you could be forgiven for presuming it will resemble the one in Mar-a-Lago, which has hosted so many of Mr Trump's political events over the last decade. The ballroom is reportedly set to replace a section of the White House's East Wing which has previously held the First Lady's offices. The project will cost up to $US200 million, drawn from donors' money, not the public purse. Add up all the renovations and redesigns and you could justify calling this the most significant overhaul to the White House in decades, one that will leave it stamped with Mr Trump's personal style long after he leaves office. 'He has a vision to make the White House as exceptional and beautiful as possible for future presidents and administrations,' a spokesperson for the President told US media. 'He is very hands on and involved in all of this.'
The Advertiser
2 hours ago
- The Advertiser
Armenia and Azerbaijan to sign US-brokered peace deal
The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan are expected to sign a peace deal at the White House that could potentially put an end to decades of conflict, President Donald Trump says. Trump said Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev would also be signing agreements with the US to "pursue Economic opportunities together, so we can fully unlock the potential of the South Caucasus Region". "Many Leaders have tried to end the War, with no success, until now, thanks to 'TRUMP'," Trump wrote Thursday night on his Truth Social site. The prospective agreement could potentially put an end to decades of conflict and set the stage for a reopening of key transportation corridors across the South Caucasus that have been shut since the early 1990s. Three US officials, who were not authorised to speak publicly ahead of the announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the agreements included a major breakthrough establishing a key transit corridor across the region, which had been a hang-up in peace talks. The agreement, according to the officials, would give the US leasing rights to develop the corridor and name it the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity. It would link Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan region, which is separated from the rest of the country by a 32km patch of Armenia's territory. The transit corridor is expected to eventually include a rail line, oil and gas lines, and fibre optic lines, allowing for the movement of goods and eventually people. The deal does not call for the US to pay for the construction of the transit corridor, but instead for private corporations to develop it. The deal was reached after a visit earlier this year by Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff to Azerbaijan's capital of Baku and continued talks between the parties. Armenia and Azerbaijan faced off for nearly four decades of fighting for control of the Karabakh region, which was known internationally as Nagorno-Karabakh. During the Soviet era, the mostly Armenian-populated region had an autonomous status within Azerbaijan. Long-simmering tensions between Christian Armenians and mostly Muslim Azerbaijanis - fuelled by memories of the 1915 massacre of 1.5 million Armenians by Muslim Ottoman Turks - boiled over as the Soviet Union frayed in its final years. Clashes erupted in 1988 when the region made a bid to join Armenia. As the USSR collapsed in 1991 and Armenia proclaimed independence, hostilities escalated into a full-blown war that killed an estimated 30,000 people and displaced about one million. When the war ended with a ceasefire in 1994, ethnic Armenian forces backed by the government in Yerevan not only took control of the region but also captured broad swaths of Azerbaijan. Decades of international mediation efforts failed. In September 2020, Azerbaijan launched an operation to reclaim the region. NATO-member Turkey, which has close ethnic, cultural and historic bonds with Azerbaijan, gave it strong support. In six weeks of fighting involving heavy artillery, rockets and drones that killed more than 6700 people, Azerbaijani troops drove Armenian forces from areas they controlled outside Karabakh. They also reclaimed broad chunks of Karabakh. A Russia-brokered peace deal saw the deployment of about 2,000 troops to the region as peacekeepers. Azerbaijan then reclaimed all of Karabakh in September 2023 in a lightning military campaign. Over 100,000 people, nearly all of Nagorno-Karabakh's ethnic Armenian population, fled to Armenia in a week, fearing Azerbaijani rule. Russia, busy with its war in Ukraine, didn't intervene, angering Armenia's leadership, which responded by scaling down its ties with Moscow and bolstering relations with the West. The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan are expected to sign a peace deal at the White House that could potentially put an end to decades of conflict, President Donald Trump says. Trump said Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev would also be signing agreements with the US to "pursue Economic opportunities together, so we can fully unlock the potential of the South Caucasus Region". "Many Leaders have tried to end the War, with no success, until now, thanks to 'TRUMP'," Trump wrote Thursday night on his Truth Social site. The prospective agreement could potentially put an end to decades of conflict and set the stage for a reopening of key transportation corridors across the South Caucasus that have been shut since the early 1990s. Three US officials, who were not authorised to speak publicly ahead of the announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the agreements included a major breakthrough establishing a key transit corridor across the region, which had been a hang-up in peace talks. The agreement, according to the officials, would give the US leasing rights to develop the corridor and name it the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity. It would link Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan region, which is separated from the rest of the country by a 32km patch of Armenia's territory. The transit corridor is expected to eventually include a rail line, oil and gas lines, and fibre optic lines, allowing for the movement of goods and eventually people. The deal does not call for the US to pay for the construction of the transit corridor, but instead for private corporations to develop it. The deal was reached after a visit earlier this year by Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff to Azerbaijan's capital of Baku and continued talks between the parties. Armenia and Azerbaijan faced off for nearly four decades of fighting for control of the Karabakh region, which was known internationally as Nagorno-Karabakh. During the Soviet era, the mostly Armenian-populated region had an autonomous status within Azerbaijan. Long-simmering tensions between Christian Armenians and mostly Muslim Azerbaijanis - fuelled by memories of the 1915 massacre of 1.5 million Armenians by Muslim Ottoman Turks - boiled over as the Soviet Union frayed in its final years. Clashes erupted in 1988 when the region made a bid to join Armenia. As the USSR collapsed in 1991 and Armenia proclaimed independence, hostilities escalated into a full-blown war that killed an estimated 30,000 people and displaced about one million. When the war ended with a ceasefire in 1994, ethnic Armenian forces backed by the government in Yerevan not only took control of the region but also captured broad swaths of Azerbaijan. Decades of international mediation efforts failed. In September 2020, Azerbaijan launched an operation to reclaim the region. NATO-member Turkey, which has close ethnic, cultural and historic bonds with Azerbaijan, gave it strong support. In six weeks of fighting involving heavy artillery, rockets and drones that killed more than 6700 people, Azerbaijani troops drove Armenian forces from areas they controlled outside Karabakh. They also reclaimed broad chunks of Karabakh. A Russia-brokered peace deal saw the deployment of about 2,000 troops to the region as peacekeepers. Azerbaijan then reclaimed all of Karabakh in September 2023 in a lightning military campaign. Over 100,000 people, nearly all of Nagorno-Karabakh's ethnic Armenian population, fled to Armenia in a week, fearing Azerbaijani rule. Russia, busy with its war in Ukraine, didn't intervene, angering Armenia's leadership, which responded by scaling down its ties with Moscow and bolstering relations with the West. The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan are expected to sign a peace deal at the White House that could potentially put an end to decades of conflict, President Donald Trump says. Trump said Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev would also be signing agreements with the US to "pursue Economic opportunities together, so we can fully unlock the potential of the South Caucasus Region". "Many Leaders have tried to end the War, with no success, until now, thanks to 'TRUMP'," Trump wrote Thursday night on his Truth Social site. The prospective agreement could potentially put an end to decades of conflict and set the stage for a reopening of key transportation corridors across the South Caucasus that have been shut since the early 1990s. Three US officials, who were not authorised to speak publicly ahead of the announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the agreements included a major breakthrough establishing a key transit corridor across the region, which had been a hang-up in peace talks. The agreement, according to the officials, would give the US leasing rights to develop the corridor and name it the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity. It would link Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan region, which is separated from the rest of the country by a 32km patch of Armenia's territory. The transit corridor is expected to eventually include a rail line, oil and gas lines, and fibre optic lines, allowing for the movement of goods and eventually people. The deal does not call for the US to pay for the construction of the transit corridor, but instead for private corporations to develop it. The deal was reached after a visit earlier this year by Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff to Azerbaijan's capital of Baku and continued talks between the parties. Armenia and Azerbaijan faced off for nearly four decades of fighting for control of the Karabakh region, which was known internationally as Nagorno-Karabakh. During the Soviet era, the mostly Armenian-populated region had an autonomous status within Azerbaijan. Long-simmering tensions between Christian Armenians and mostly Muslim Azerbaijanis - fuelled by memories of the 1915 massacre of 1.5 million Armenians by Muslim Ottoman Turks - boiled over as the Soviet Union frayed in its final years. Clashes erupted in 1988 when the region made a bid to join Armenia. As the USSR collapsed in 1991 and Armenia proclaimed independence, hostilities escalated into a full-blown war that killed an estimated 30,000 people and displaced about one million. When the war ended with a ceasefire in 1994, ethnic Armenian forces backed by the government in Yerevan not only took control of the region but also captured broad swaths of Azerbaijan. Decades of international mediation efforts failed. In September 2020, Azerbaijan launched an operation to reclaim the region. NATO-member Turkey, which has close ethnic, cultural and historic bonds with Azerbaijan, gave it strong support. In six weeks of fighting involving heavy artillery, rockets and drones that killed more than 6700 people, Azerbaijani troops drove Armenian forces from areas they controlled outside Karabakh. They also reclaimed broad chunks of Karabakh. A Russia-brokered peace deal saw the deployment of about 2,000 troops to the region as peacekeepers. Azerbaijan then reclaimed all of Karabakh in September 2023 in a lightning military campaign. Over 100,000 people, nearly all of Nagorno-Karabakh's ethnic Armenian population, fled to Armenia in a week, fearing Azerbaijani rule. Russia, busy with its war in Ukraine, didn't intervene, angering Armenia's leadership, which responded by scaling down its ties with Moscow and bolstering relations with the West. The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan are expected to sign a peace deal at the White House that could potentially put an end to decades of conflict, President Donald Trump says. Trump said Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev would also be signing agreements with the US to "pursue Economic opportunities together, so we can fully unlock the potential of the South Caucasus Region". "Many Leaders have tried to end the War, with no success, until now, thanks to 'TRUMP'," Trump wrote Thursday night on his Truth Social site. The prospective agreement could potentially put an end to decades of conflict and set the stage for a reopening of key transportation corridors across the South Caucasus that have been shut since the early 1990s. Three US officials, who were not authorised to speak publicly ahead of the announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the agreements included a major breakthrough establishing a key transit corridor across the region, which had been a hang-up in peace talks. The agreement, according to the officials, would give the US leasing rights to develop the corridor and name it the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity. It would link Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan region, which is separated from the rest of the country by a 32km patch of Armenia's territory. The transit corridor is expected to eventually include a rail line, oil and gas lines, and fibre optic lines, allowing for the movement of goods and eventually people. The deal does not call for the US to pay for the construction of the transit corridor, but instead for private corporations to develop it. The deal was reached after a visit earlier this year by Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff to Azerbaijan's capital of Baku and continued talks between the parties. Armenia and Azerbaijan faced off for nearly four decades of fighting for control of the Karabakh region, which was known internationally as Nagorno-Karabakh. During the Soviet era, the mostly Armenian-populated region had an autonomous status within Azerbaijan. Long-simmering tensions between Christian Armenians and mostly Muslim Azerbaijanis - fuelled by memories of the 1915 massacre of 1.5 million Armenians by Muslim Ottoman Turks - boiled over as the Soviet Union frayed in its final years. Clashes erupted in 1988 when the region made a bid to join Armenia. As the USSR collapsed in 1991 and Armenia proclaimed independence, hostilities escalated into a full-blown war that killed an estimated 30,000 people and displaced about one million. When the war ended with a ceasefire in 1994, ethnic Armenian forces backed by the government in Yerevan not only took control of the region but also captured broad swaths of Azerbaijan. Decades of international mediation efforts failed. In September 2020, Azerbaijan launched an operation to reclaim the region. NATO-member Turkey, which has close ethnic, cultural and historic bonds with Azerbaijan, gave it strong support. In six weeks of fighting involving heavy artillery, rockets and drones that killed more than 6700 people, Azerbaijani troops drove Armenian forces from areas they controlled outside Karabakh. They also reclaimed broad chunks of Karabakh. A Russia-brokered peace deal saw the deployment of about 2,000 troops to the region as peacekeepers. Azerbaijan then reclaimed all of Karabakh in September 2023 in a lightning military campaign. Over 100,000 people, nearly all of Nagorno-Karabakh's ethnic Armenian population, fled to Armenia in a week, fearing Azerbaijani rule. Russia, busy with its war in Ukraine, didn't intervene, angering Armenia's leadership, which responded by scaling down its ties with Moscow and bolstering relations with the West.
Sky News AU
3 hours ago
- Sky News AU
New South Park episode could ‘almost be an ICE recruiting ad'
Sky News host James Morrow reacts to a clip from a new South Park episode, which included a parody of ICE raids. 'It's a bit more fun and games for the South Park boys this week, who have decided that they really, really don't like Donald Trump or his ICE raids,' Mr Morrow said. 'Frankly, looking at this clip from their latest episode, I think this could almost be an ICE agent recruiting ad.'
