Texas Dems leave state to block vote on redrawn House map backed by Trump
The dramatic move could expose Democrats to fines and other penalties — with the state's attorney general having previously threatened to arrest them if they took such an action.
Refusing to attend legislative sessions is a civil violation, however, so Democrats legally could not be jailed and it's unclear who has the power to carry out the warrants.
6 Texas Representative Chris Turner presenting a map of congressional districts during a redistricting hearing.
AP
Democrats have cast the decision to leave the state as a last-ditch effort to stop Republicans who hold full control of the Texas government from pushing through a rare mid-decade redrawing of the congressional map at the direction of President Donald Trump.
'This is not a decision we make lightly, but it is one we make with absolute moral clarity,' said Gene Wu, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, in a statement.
To conduct official business, at least 100 members of the 150-member Texas House must be present. Democrats hold 62 of the seats in the majority-Republican chamber.
At least 51 Democratic members are leaving the state, said Josh Rush Nisenson, spokesperson for the House Democratic Caucus.
'Apathy is complicity, and we will not be complicit in the silencing of hard-working communities who have spent decades fighting for the power that Trump wants to steal,' he said.
The move marks the second time in four years that Texas Democrats have fled the state to block a vote. In 2021, a 38-day standoff took place when Democrats left for Washington, D.C. in opposition to new voting restrictions.
6 'This is not a decision we make lightly, but it is one we make with absolute moral clarity,' said Gene Wu.
AP
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session of the Legislature that started last month to take up the redistricting effort, as well as to respond to flooding in Texas Hill Country that killed at least 135 people in July.
Trump has urged Texas Republicans to redraw the map to help the party net a handful of seats in the midterms next year.
6 Map of proposed Texas congressional districts, Plan C2308.
AP
'For weeks, we've been warning that if Republicans in Texas want a showdown — if they want to delay flood relief to cravenly protect Donald Trump from an inevitable midterm meltdown — then we'd give them that showdown,' Democratic Party Chair Ken Martin said in a statement. 'That's exactly what Texas Democrats did today: blowing up Republicans' sham special session that's virtually ignored the plight of flood victims in Kerr County.'
Attorney General Ken Paxton on X said the state should 'use every tool at our disposal to hunt down those who think they are above the law.'
'Democrats in the Texas House who try and run away like cowards should be found, arrested, and brought back to the Capitol immediately,' he wrote.
6 Colin Allred at a Texas congressional redistricting hearing.
AP
Abbott's office and House Speaker Dustin Burrows did not immediately respond to requests for comment Sunday afternoon.
Texas Republicans last week unveiled their planned new U.S. House map that would create five new Republican-leaning seats. Republicans currently hold 25 of the state's 38 seats.
By leaving the state, Democrats are looking to block Republicans from the needed quorum to hold votes on the map set for Monday. The Texas House has rules to fine lawmakers $500 each day they break a quorum. GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton has said previously that if Democrats break quorum, 'they should be found and arrested no matter where they go.'
6 Texas Republicans last week unveiled their planned new U.S. House map that would create five new Republican-leaning seats.
AP
'My office stands ready to assist local, state, and federal authorities in hunting down and compelling the attendance of anyone who abandons their office and their constituents for cheap political theater,' Paxton said on the social media platform X on July 15.
A large chunk of the Texas Democrats are heading to Illinois, where Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker had been in quiet talks with them for weeks about offering support if they chose to leave the state to break quorum. Pritzker, a potential 2028 presidential contender, has been one of Trump's most outspoken critics during his second term.
Last week, Pritzker hosted several Texas Democrats in Illinois to publicly oppose the redistricting effort. California Gov. Gavin Newsom held a similar event in his own state.
6 Last week, Pritzker hosted several Texas Democrats in Illinois to publicly oppose the redistricting effort.
AP
Pritzker also met privately with Texas Democratic Chair Kendall Scudder in June to begin planning for the possibility that lawmakers would depart for Illinois if they did decide to break quorum to block the map, according to a source with direct knowledge who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Now, with Texas Democrats holed up in Illinois and blocking the Trump-backed congressional map, the stage may be set for a high-profile showdown between Pritzker and the president.
Trump is looking to avoid a repeat of his first term, when Democrats flipped the House just two years into his presidency, and hopes the new Texas map will aid that effort. Trump officials have also looked at redrawing lines in other states, such as Missouri, according to a person familiar with conversations but unauthorized to speak publicly about them.
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Most presidents would not be as blatant in Trump in trying to change the electoral battlefield. Over the same period, Democrats failed to bolster ranks of liberals on the Supreme Court — for instance, by not persuading late Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire when a liberal replacement could be confirmed while the party controlled the presidency and the Senate. In 2024, Democrats initially backed an aging and unpopular President Joe Biden, despite warnings that his candidacy could open the door again to Trump and his anti-democratic project. This loss of power has been disastrous to progressive aspirations and to protecting the liberal victories of the last 50 years, including the nationwide constitutional right to abortion. Some top Democrats see the Texas redistricting showdown as a moment for their party to show more ruthlessness. 'We are at war,' New York Gov. 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We have got to act anew. And we are reacting to the change — they have triggered this response, and we are not going to roll over.' Potential 2028 Democratic primary candidates, including Newsom and Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois — who has also rushed to back the Democratic Texas lawmakers — have compelling personal interests in joining the fight. In two years, candidates will be asked on a debate stage what they did in the battle over Texas. But they're also seeking to revive a national party pummeled by Trump, which lacks leadership and has left its supporters listless. Grassroots progressives have been pining for someone, anyone, to show some stomach for the fight — even though Democrats lack any power in Washington to meaningfully hurt the president. The Texas uproar also coincides with multiple examples of Trump's widening authoritarianism, following his cowing of Congress, crushing of constraints within the federal government, and co-option of the Justice Department and some intelligence services into instruments of his whims. On that score, a source told CNN on Monday that Attorney General Pam Bondi has ordered prosecutors to launch a grand jury investigation into Obama administration officials over the Russia investigation. Given all this, if the Democrats don't fight back now, when will they ever fight? As CNN's Eric Bradner reported Monday, the proposed new GOP maps could force two prominent Democratic lawmakers, Reps. Greg Casar and Lloyd Doggett, into a primary against one another. They'd also merge two other seats and make two south Texas seats held by Democrats more Republican-leaning. 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Hochul admitted that that even if everything goes smoothly, redistricting that would bypass New York's current nonpartisan commission could only be in place for the 2028 election — a lifetime away in Trump-era politics. And attempts by Democratic states to rebalance electoral maps might convince more GOP bastions to do the same. So, if an outside Texas strategy is unlikely to force the Texas Republicans to back down, why are Democrats pursuing it? This may be one of those times in politics when a party can win something by losing. Democrats might not only engage their demoralized partisans by taking the fight to Trump on Texas; they can use the battle to organize and focus their message as they grapple for traction after a grim political year. Defending democracy might be a desirable project in the abstract. But in the past, especially when Biden was warning that Trump imperiled America's 'soul,' the idea felt distant from voters infuriated by high grocery prices and the cost of housing. And impassioned warnings from Democratic leadership about how Trump would threaten democracy didn't stop his reelection. Hochul and other Democrats seemed on Monday to be reaching for a way to connect the democracy question to more immediate voter concerns through the prism of the Texas power grab. She argued that stopping such schemes was critical to charting a path back to power so Democrats could reverse Trump's policies on tariffs and deportations. That will require a toughening of the Democratic approach, one that underscores the distance traveled since former first lady Michelle Obama warned that when Republicans like Trump go low, 'we go high.' 'With all respect to the good governance groups, politics is a political process,' Hochul said, dismissing 'purity tests' that would make electoral maps fair to everyone involved through nonpartisan commissions. 'If Republicans win the legislature, they can have at it. But until then, we are in charge, and we are sick and tired of being pushed around.'
