Texas Republicans approve Trump-backed congressional map

Telegraph

20 hours ago

The Texas House on Wednesday approved redrawn congressional maps that would give Republicans a bigger edge in 2026, pushing through a partisan gerrymander that triggered weeks of protests by Democrats and a national battle over redistricting.
The approval came at the urging of President Donald Trump, who pushed for the mid-decade revision of congressional maps to give his party a better chance at holding onto the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2026 midterm elections. The maps need to be approved by the GOP-controlled state Senate and signed by Republican Governor Greg Abbott before they become official. But the Texas House vote had presented the best chance for Democrats to derail the redraw.
Democratic legislators delayed the vote by two weeks by fleeing Texas earlier this month, returning only after being placed under round-the-clock police surveillance to ensure attendance at Wednesday's session.
The approval of the Texas maps on an 88-52 party-line vote is likely to prompt California's Democratic-controlled state Legislature this week to approve a new House map creating five new Democratic-leaning districts. But the California map would require voter approval in November.
Democrats plan to challenge the Texas map in court, accusing Republicans of prioritising partisan advantage over urgent legislation, such as responding to last month's deadly floods.
Republicans have been open about their political motives. State Representative Todd Hunter, who authored the legislation, said: 'The underlying goal of this plan is straightforward: improve Republican political performance.' After nearly eight hours of debate, he summarised the issue as 'nothing more than a partisan fight.'
Democrats said the disagreement was about more than partisanship. 'In a democracy, people choose their representatives,' State Representative Chris Turner said. 'This bill flips that on its head and lets politicians in Washington, D.C., choose their voters.'
State Representative John H. Bucy blamed the president. 'This is Donald Trump's map,' Bucy said. 'It clearly and deliberately manufactures five more Republican seats in Congress because Trump himself knows that the voters are rejecting his agenda.'
The Republican power play has already triggered a national tit-for-tat battle as Democratic state lawmakers prepared to gather in California on Thursday to revise that state's map to create five new Democratic seats.
'This is a new Democratic Party, this is a new day, this is new energy out there all across this country,' California's Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom said on a call with reporters on Wednesday. 'And we're going to fight fire with fire.'
A new California map would need to be approved by voters in a special election in November because that state normally operates with a non-partisan commission drawing the map to avoid the very sort of political brawl that is playing out. Newsom himself backed the 2008 ballot measure to create that process, as did former President Barack Obama.
But in a sign of Democrats' stiffening resolve, Obama Tuesday night backed Newsom's bid to redraw the California map, saying it was a necessary step to stave off the GOP's Texas move.
'I think that approach is a smart, measured approach,' Obama said during a fundraiser for the Democratic Party's main redistricting arm.
The only way opponents could stop the new Texas map would be to argue that it violates the Voting Rights Act, which requires minority communities be kept together so they can choose representatives of their choice.
Democrats noted that, in every decade since the 1970s, courts have found that Texas' legislature did violate the Voting Rights Act in redistricting, and that civil rights groups had an active lawsuit making similar allegations against the 2021 map that Republicans drew up.
Republicans contend the new map creates more new majority-minority seats than the previous one. Democrats and some civil rights groups have countered that the GOP does that through mainly a numbers game that leads to halving the number of the state's House seats that will be represented by a Black representative.
The GOP used a parliamentary manoeuvre to take a second and final vote on the map so it wouldn't have to reconvene for one more vote after Senate approval.
House Speaker Dustin Burrows announced as debate started that doors to the chamber were locked and any member leaving was required to have a permission slip. The doors were only unlocked after final passage more than eight hours later. One Democrat who refused the 24-hour police monitoring, State Representative Nicole Collier, had been confined to the House floor since Monday night.
Republicans issued civil arrest warrants to bring the Democrats back after they left the state August 3, and Republican Governor Greg Abbott asked the state Supreme Court to oust several Democrats from office. The lawmakers also face a fine of $500 for every day they were absent.