Texas Republicans were set Monday to try again to convene the state Legislature and redraw congressional districts to satisfy President Donald Trump, as California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats urged Republicans to stand down and avoid a partisan brawl spanning multiple statehouses.
Texas Democratic lawmakers remain outside of Texas after leaving the state to deny their GOP colleagues the quorum necessary to vote on Trump’s unapologetically aggressive redistricting play. The president's move also spurred Democratic governors, including Newsom, to pledge retaliatory redistricting efforts in their states — setting up the possibility of an extended standoff that could upend the 2026 midterm elections.
The GOP majority in Texas wants to redraw districts so that five more Republicans can be elected. Trump is pushing other Republican-controlled legislatures to follow suit as he tries to avoid a repeat of the 2018 midterms. Those elections during Trump's first presidency yielded a new Democratic majority in the U.S. House that stymied his agenda and twice impeached him. Existing maps nationally put Democrats within three seats of a House majority at a time when there are only several dozen competitive districts out of 435.
Responding to Texas, Newsom and other California Democrats are considering new boundaries to yield a five-seat shift toward Democrats. That would require, however, getting California voters to set aside existing maps drawn by an independent commission. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker have promised similar efforts.
Newsom urged Trump in a letter Monday to abandon his scheme, telling the president he is “playing with fire" and “risking the destabilization of our democracy.”
Newsom said he prefers that independent bodies draw political districts rather than partisan legislatures, as is done in Texas and most GOP-controlled states. But, he wrote, “California cannot stand idly by as this power grab unfolds.”
If Texas and “the other states call off their redistricting efforts,” the governor added, “we will happily do the same. And American democracy will be better for it.”
Dozens of Texas Democratic lawmakers are staying in Illinois, New York and elsewhere, and they say they have no intentions of returning as long as Republicans are intent on mollifying Trump.
“Democrats, especially in Texas, are standing firm,” said Rep. Rhetta Bowers at a gathering of Texas lawmakers Monday in Illinois.
The minority caucus intends to run out the clock on the current special session, which cannot extend beyond Aug. 19. But Gov. Greg Abbott said he'll call lawmakers back to the Statehouse again and again until enough Democrats show up to reach the 100-member threshold required to vote on the bill.
Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a U.S. Senate candidate, want state courts to remove lawmakers, asserting that they have abandoned their posts. Paxton also has asked an Illinois court to enforce Texas civil warrants issued for the absent lawmakers' arrests. For now, the lawmakers who are out of state remain beyond the reach of Texas authorities and the warrants.
“If they show back up in the state of Texas, they will be arrested and taken to the Capitol," Abbott said over the weekend on “Fox News Sunday.”
At the least, Texas lawmakers face $500 daily fines for each absence under legislative rules. But Bowers and others have said they remain undeterred. She compared both the proposed Texas maps, which would disproportionately affect districts represented by Black and Latino Democrats, and Abbott's and Paxton's threats to the Civil Rights Movement in the mid-20th century.
Republicans, she said, are using “the very same tactics used against Black and brown Americans” who pushed for passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. “Their fight is our fight, and just like the Civil Rights heroes of the past, no matter the cost we are prepared to see it through to the end,” Bowers said.
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Associated Press reporter Jesse Bedayn contributed from Denver.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2025/8/1297189