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The Guardian
30 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Texas Democrats tear ‘permission slips' imposed by Republican house speaker
Texas Democrats are tearing up 'permission slips' they signed in order to leave the chamber, joining state representative Nicole Collier ahead of Wednesday's vote on the controversial Texas congressional redistricting maps. The slips are part of new surveillance protocols set by Texas Republicans in the house chamber, stating that Democrats would 'be granted written permission to leave only after agreeing to be released into the custody of a designated [Texas department of public safety] officer' who would ensure their return to the chamber. The move follows a two-week quorum break that had delayed Republicans' effort to redraw the state's congressional districts to align with Donald Trump's push to reshape the US House map in his favor before the 2026 midterm elections. On Tuesday, Collier chose to remain confined inside the Texas house chamber until lawmakers reconvene on Wednesday, refusing to comply with what she condemned as a 'demeaning' protocol. Collier was among dozens of Democrats who left the state for the Democratic havens of California, Illinois, Massachusetts and New York to delay the Republican-controlled legislature's approval of redrawn congressional districts sought by Trump. When they returned Monday, Republicans insisted that Democrats have around-the-clock police escorts to ensure they wouldn't leave again and scuttle Wednesday's planned House vote on a new political map. But Collier wouldn't sign what Democrats called the 'permission slip' needed to leave the house chamber, a half-page form allowing Department of Public Safety troopers to follow them. She spent Monday night and Tuesday on the house floor, where she set up a livestream while her Democratic colleagues outside had plainclothes officers following them to their offices and homes. Linda Garcia, a Dallas-area representative, said she drove three hours home from Austin with an officer following her. When she went grocery shopping, he went down every aisle with her, pretending to shop, she said. As she spoke to the Associated Press by phone, two unmarked cars with officers inside were parked outside her home. 'It's a weird feeling,' she said. 'The only way to explain the entire process is: it's like I'm in a movie.' The trooper assignments, ordered by Dustin Burrows, the Republican house speaker, was another escalation of a redistricting battle that has widened across the country. Trump is pushing GOP state officials to tilt the map for the 2026 midterms more in his favor to preserve the GOP's slim house majority, and Democrats nationally have rallied around efforts to retaliate. Gene Wu, the house minority leader from Houston, and Vincel Perez, a state representative of El Paso, stayed overnight with Collier, who represents a minority-majority district in Fort Worth. On Tuesday, more Democrats returned to the Capitol to tear up the slips they had signed and stay on the house floor, which has a lounge and restrooms for members. Cassandra Garcia Hernandez, a Dallas-area representative, called their protest a 'slumber party for democracy' and said Democrats were holding strategy sessions on the floor. 'We are not criminals,' Penny Morales Shaw, a Houston representative, said. Collier said having officers shadow her was an attack on her dignity and an attempt to control her movements. Burrows brushed off Collier's protest, saying he was focused on important issues, such as providing property tax relief and responding to last month's deadly floods. His statement Tuesday morning did not mention redistricting and his office did not immediately respond to other Democrats joining Collier. 'Rep Collier's choice to stay and not sign the permission slip is well within her rights under the house rules,' Burrows said. Under those rules, until Wednesday's scheduled vote, the chamber's doors are locked, and no member can leave 'without the written permission of the speaker'. To do business Wednesday, 100 of 150 House members must be present. The GOP plan is designed to send five additional Republicans from Texas to the US House. Texas Democrats returned to Austin after Democrats in California launched an effort to redraw their state's districts to take five seats from Republicans. Democrats also said they were returning because they expect to challenge the new maps in court. Republicans issued civil arrest warrants to bring the Democrats back after they left the state 3 August, and Greg Abbott, the Republican governor, asked the state supreme court to oust Wu and several other Democrats from office. The lawmakers also face a fine of $500 for every day they were absent. Democrats reported different levels of monitoring. Armando Walle, a Houston representative, said he wasn't sure where his police escort was, but there was still a heightened police presence in the Capitol, so he felt he was being monitored closely. Some Democrats said the officers watching them were friendly. But Sheryl Cole, an Austin representative, said in a social media post that when she went on her morning walk Tuesday, the officer following her lost her on the trail, got angry and threatened to arrest her. Garcia said her nine-year-old son was with her as she drove home and each time she looked in the rearview mirror, she could see the officer close behind. He came inside a grocery store where she was shopping with her son. 'I would imagine that this is the way it feels when you're potentially shoplifting and someone is assessing whether you're going to steal,' she said. Associated Press contributed to this report
Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Texas Republicans set to approve Trump-backed new congressional map after lengthy fight
Aug 20 (Reuters) - Texas Republicans on Wednesday will take up a new state congressional map intended to flip five Democratic-held U.S. House seats in next year's midterm elections, after dozens of Democratic lawmakers ended a two-week walkout that had temporarily blocked its passage. Republican state legislators have undertaken a rare mid-decade redistricting at the behest of President Donald Trump, who is seeking to improve his party's odds of preserving its narrow U.S. House of Representatives majority despite political headwinds. The gambit has triggered a national redistricting war, with governors of both parties threatening to initiate similar efforts in other states. Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom is advancing an effort to neutralize Texas' move by redrawing his state's map to flip five Republican seats, pitting the nation's most populous Democratic state against Texas, its most populous Republican one. The Texas map aims to flip five Democratic seats. Other Republican states including Ohio, Florida, Indiana and Missouri are moving forward with or considering their own redistricting efforts, as are Democratic states such as Maryland and Illinois. Redistricting typically occurs every 10 years after the U.S. Census to account for population changes, and mid-decade redistricting has historically been unusual. In many states, lawmakers manipulate the lines to favor their party over the opposition, a practice known as gerrymandering. Texas' new map was listed on Wednesday's schedule for the state House, though it was not clear how quickly Republicans could move to approve it. The bill is still subject to debate on the floor, and Democrats can also introduce amendments to be voted upon. Democrats fled the state earlier this month to deny the Texas House a quorum. In response, Republicans undertook extraordinary measures to try to force them home, including filing lawsuits to remove them from office and issuing arrest warrants. The walkout ended when Democrats voluntarily returned on Monday, saying they had accomplished their goals of blocking a vote during a first special legislative session and persuading Democrats in other states to take retaliatory steps. Republican House leadership assigned state law enforcement officers to monitor Democrats to ensure they would not leave the state again. One Democratic representative, Nicole Collier, slept in the Capitol building on Monday night rather than accept a police escort. Republicans, including Trump, have openly acknowledged that the new map is aimed at increasing their political power. The party currently controls 25 of the state's 38 districts under a Republican-drawn map that was passed four years ago. Democrats and civil rights groups have said the new map dilutes the voting power of racial minorities in violation of federal law and have vowed to sue. Nationally, Republicans captured the 435-seat House in 2024 by only three seats. The party of the president historically loses House seats in the first midterm election, and Trump's approval ratings have sagged since he took office in January.
The Herald Scotland
7 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
Trump and Putin strike a deal
We can't grow numb to the notion that Trump consistently picks Putin over America. That long-standing resentment of his about accurate intelligence on his presidential election has mutated into a source of looming injustice as Trump's top aides eagerly seek to help him distort that history to comply with Russia's corrupt narrative. It's not enough anymore for Trump to just deny reality. Now he wants to rewrite it so that officials from then-President Barack Obama's administration who correctly identified the 2016 Russian interference are pursued in criminal investigations just for doing their duties. This inversion of justice and intelligence acts as some kind of balm for Trump's constant state of irritated grievance. And it presents an obligatory abdication of truth for Republicans in Congress who now swallow and regurgitate his lies about 2016. Opinion: Midterms are more than a year away, but Trump is already challenging them Trump's only win around Russia is obedient silence That obedient silence about 2016 from Republicans was really the only win Trump logged in Alaska while meeting with Putin about Russia's unjust invasion of Ukraine. Just consider how Republicans in Congress have contorted on this. Trump, standing next to Putin at a news conference in Helsinki in 2018, embraced the Russian president's denials about the 2016 election meddling and rejected the assessment from America's intelligence agencies. It was a strikingly shameful moment from his first term, which had no shortage of shameful moments. Republicans swiftly rebuked Trump, including Marco Rubio, then a senator from Florida, for siding with Putin over America. A bipartisan backlash prompted a rare walk-back from Trump, who, a day later, was forced to say: "I accept our intelligence community's conclusion that Russia's meddling in the 2016 election took place." Opinion newsletter: Sign up for our newsletter on people, power and policies in the time of Trump from columnist Chris Brennan. Get it delivered to your inbox. That was Trump, seven years ago, grudgingly accepting what was obviously true. But now he wants you to forget what he claimed to accept and see it all not just as a "hoax" but as a criminal conspiracy against him. We have to take that sort of nonsense seriously because, unlike Trump's first term, his second administration is politically populated with people who would never dissuade him from his worst impulses. This time around, they're jostling to be first in line to amplify those impulses. Trump and Putin are old hands at rewriting history Rubio, now Trump's secretary of State, was in the front row for the Trump-Putin news conference on Friday, Aug. 15. He clearly no longer has a problem with Trump lying about Russia and 2016. Congressional Republicans kept quiet about it this time, too. In Trump's twisted history, his first term was unfairly hobbled by the investigations of election interference, which he again called "the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax" during the Alaska meeting with Putin. "He knew it was a hoax, and I knew it was a hoax," Trump said as Putin beamed beside him. "But what was done was very criminal, but it made it harder for us to deal as a country, in terms of the business, and all of the things that we'd like to have dealt with, but we'll have a good chance when this is over." Hear the shift there? Trump is saying that attention paid to what Russia did in 2016, when Putin clearly favored him over Hillary Clinton as America's next president, is an abuse aimed at him that needs to be prosecuted. That is the shoddy foundation for Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's director of national intelligence, making the easily debunked claim in July that Obama's administration "manufactured" intelligence about the 2016 election interference, which she handed off to Attorney General Pam Bondi in a criminal referral. Opinion: Gabbard yells 'Russia hoax' to distract MAGA from Epstein for Trump. It won't last. Bondi has set a grand jury in motion on that, not because it serves justice but because it complies with the false narrative Trump and Putin are still pushing. Rubio may be on board with Trump's push for senseless prosecutions to rewrite our history. But his own Senate history is still around for us to read. His party controlled the Senate in 2020 and he was acting chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, issuing a report in August of that year that cited "irrefutable evidence of Russian meddling" in the 2016 election. Special counsel Robert Mueller, appointed by Trump's first attorney general, issued a 2019 report that confirmed the Russian election interference was driven by Putin's desire for Trump to beat Clinton in 2016. Putin declared that in public in 2018, standing next to Trump in Helsinki, saying he thought a Trump presidency would be better for Russia. That turned out to be true. And it might be the only time we hear Putin speak truth, as Trump tries to erase the history of 2016 and replace it with a fabrication that he and Putin prefer. Follow USA TODAY columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan. Sign up for his weekly newsletter, Translating Politics, here.
