US Democrats decry electoral map ‘cheating' by Republican opponents

The Australian

2 days ago

Democrats in the Texas state House fled the state on Sunday afternoon in an attempt to thwart plans by President Donald Trump and Governor Greg Abbott to redraw the state's congressional districts to add five new Republican seats.
Mr Abbott, a Republican, called a 30-day special session of the state legislature after requests by the White House to change the state's congressional maps. That special session started on July 21, and the new maps were presented last week.
Democrats have argued that the highly unusual mid-decade redistricting amounts to cheating, while Republicans have called it fair game and necessary to hold their national majority. Mr Trump said in July he wanted Republicans to pick up five more House seats in Texas after redistricting.
State Democrats posted photos of themselves boarding a chartered plane to Chicago on Sunday afternoon. They didn't say how many members left but indicated in news releases that it was enough to prevent a quorum in the House, which would be at least 51.
Texan Democrat representative Ramón Romero posted a video on X on Sunday afternoon saying he wouldn't 'help pass a racist map drawn by Donald Trump and Washington, DC, to silence the voices of Texans'. The video showed him in front of a jet with the logo 'CommuteAir'.
Texas Republicans vowed to take action if the House is unable to meet as scheduled Monday afternoon. 'If a quorum is not present then … all options will be on the table,' state House Speaker Dustin Burrows posted.
Redistricting usually happens after the once-a-decade population count by the US Census Bureau or in response to a court ruling. Now, Texas Republicans want to break that tradition – and other states could follow suit.
Texas has 38 seats in the House. Republicans hold 25, the Democrats 12, with one seat vacant after the death of a Democrat.
'There's been a lot more efforts by the parties and political actors to push the boundaries – literally and figuratively – to reconfigure what the game is,' said Doug Spencer, the Ira Rothgerber Jr chair in Constitutional Law at the University of Colorado.
Other states are waiting to see what Texas does and whether to follow suit. The rules of redistricting can be vague and variable; each state has its own set of rules and procedures. Politicians are gauging what voters will tolerate when it comes to politically motivated map-making.
If they are in Texas, House members can be arrested by state police and forced to participate in the legislative session. They also could face the possibility of fines.
'The future of our nation is at stake,' Texas Republican Jared Patterson posted on X. 'We must send more Republicans to congress to ensure that President Trump's America First Agenda is fully enacted.'
Texas Democrats have resorted to quorum-breaks before in an effort to kill bills, most recently in 2021, when they staged a 38-day standoff against a bill to tighten election procedures across the state.
House Democrats then walked out ahead of a voting deadline at the end of the state's regular legislative session and fled the state as a 30-day special session began, waiting it out in Washington DC But Mr Abbott, who has the sole power to call special sessions, immediately began a second one, and Democrats eventually returned.
The Texas politicians this time expect to remain out of state, mostly in Chicago, for 2½ weeks – the end of the special session, said a spokesman for the Texas House Democrats. Some are going to New York, where Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul scheduled a Monday morning event at the State Capitol in Albany in support of the Texas Democrats. One, Vikki Goodwin, said she is joining her colleagues in Chicago after the event.
Ms Goodwin, who represents the Austin area and is running for Texas lieutenant governor, labelled the Republican plan to create new GOP districts a threat to democracy. She said she didn't know how long she would be away from home, or where she would be sleeping.
'There are a lot of people all over the United States who have offered to help us finance this quorum-break. I am not worried about how we'll pay for it.'
Texas Republicans were initially reluctant to begin a mid-cycle redistricting that is set to dramatically alter district lines in Texas and potentially make some seats more competitive for incumbents. But Mr Trump pushed hard for the move to try to add five seats before midterm elections that will affect the last two years of his term.
National Democrats cheered the efforts of their Texas members on Sunday afternoon. 'For too long, Donald Trump and Republicans have tried to get away with rigging the system, breaking the rules and scheming to hold on to power,' Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin said. 'It's time to fight back.'
There is no national bar to a state trying to redraw districts in the middle of the decade, and to do it for political reasons.
'The laws about redistricting just say you have to redistrict after every census,' Professor Spencer said. 'And then some state legislatures got a little clever and said, well, it doesn't say we can't do it more.' Some states do have laws that would prevent mid-cycle redistricting or make it difficult to do so in a way that benefits one party.
Washington representative Suzan DelBene, who leads House Democrats' campaign arm, indicated at a Christian Science Monitor event that if Texas followed through on passing new maps, Democratic-led states would look at their own political lines.
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