Aug. 23, 2025:
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has promised to sign a new congressional voting map designed to help Republicans maintain their slim majority in Congress. Texas lawmakers approved the map early Saturday, adding five new districts favoring Republicans. Democrats have vowed to challenge it in court. The move is part of a broader national effort, with governors from both parties redrawing maps to gain advantages in the 2026 midterm elections. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom has approved a special election for a redrawn map to help Democrats win more seats.
Aug. 18, 2025:
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Republicans will resume pushing through U.S. House maps that would carve out a bigger GOP advantage in the 2026 elections after state Democrats indicated they were ready to end a two-week walkout. California Democrats are also moving ahead with their own reshaping of congressional districts to counteract Texas. Absent lawmakers signaled they were ready to return to Austin after Republican Gov. Greg Abbott ended a first special session on redistricting and California moved forward with its own plan. Abbott called the session at the urging of President Donald Trump, who wants to shore up Republicans’ narrow U.S. House majority. The Texas House was scheduled to try convening a quorum Monday (Aug. 18, 2025).
Aug. 5, 2025:
UNDATED-AP- Texas Democrats on Monday (Aug. 4, 2025) prevented their state’s House of Representatives from moving forward, at least for now, with a redrawn congressional map sought by President Donald Trump to shore up Republicans’ 2026 midterm prospects as his political standing falters.
After dozens of Democrats left the state, the Republican-dominated House was unable to establish the quorum of lawmakers required to do business. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has made threats about removing members who are absent from their seats. Democrats counter that Abbott is using “smoke and mirrors” to assert legal authority he doesn’t have.
In California, Democrats encouraged by Gov. Gavin Newsom are considering new political maps that could slash five Republican-held House seats in the liberal-leaning state while bolstering Democratic incumbents in other battleground districts. The move is intended to undercut any GOP gains in Texas, potentially swinging House control and giving Democrats a counterweight to Trump on Capitol Hill.
Aug. 4, 2025:
UNDATED-AP- Texas Democrats have left the state in an attempt to prevent the state House from holding a vote Monday (Aug. 4, 2025) on new congressional maps that Republicans hope will net them several additional U.S. House seats in the 2026 midterm elections. The dramatic move Sunday could expose Democrats to fines and other penalties. Democrats have cast the decision to leave the state as a last-ditch effort to stop Republicans from pushing through a rare mid-decade redrawing of the congressional map. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session of the Legislature that started last month to take up the redistricting effort that President Donald Trump has urged.
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UNDATED-AP- Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says he will begin trying to remove Democratic lawmakers from office Monday (Aug. 4, 2025) if they don’t return after dozens of them left the state in a last-resort attempt to block redrawn U.S. House maps that President Donald Trump wants before the 2026 midterm elections.
The revolt by the state House Democrats, many of whom went to Illinois or New York on Sunday, and Abbott giving them less than 24 hours to come home ratcheted up a widening fight over congressional maps that began in Texas but has drawn in Democratic governors who have floated the possibility of rushing to redraw their own state’s maps in retaliation. Their options, however, are limited.
At the center of the escalating impasse is Trump’s pursuit of adding five more GOP-leaning congressional seats in Texas before next year that would bolster his party’s chances of preserving its slim U.S. House majority.
The new congressional maps drawn by Texas Republicans would create five new Republican-leaning seats. Republicans currently hold 25 of the state’s 38 seats.
A vote on the proposed maps had been set for Monday in the Texas House of Representatives, but it cannot proceed if the majority of Democratic members deny a quorum by not showing up. After one group of Democrats landed in Chicago on Sunday, they were welcomed by Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, but declined to say how long they were prepared to stay out of Texas.
“We will do whatever it takes. What that looks like, we don’t know,” said state Rep. Gene Wu, the Texas House Democratic Caucus leader.
But legislative walkouts often only delay passage of a bill, including in 2021 when many of the same Texas House Democrats left the state for 38 days in protest of new voting restrictions. Once they returned, Republicans still wound up passing that measure.
Four years later, Abbott is taking a far more aggressive stance and swiftly warning Democrats that he will seek to remove them from office if they are not back when the House reconvenes Monday afternoon. He cited a non-binding 2021 legal opinion issued by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, which suggested a court could determine that a legislator had forfeited their office.
He also suggested the lawmakers may have committed felonies by raising money to help pay for fines they’d face.
“This truancy ends now,” Abbott said.
In response, House Democrats issued a four-word statement: “Come and take it.”
The state of the vote
Lawmakers can’t pass bills in the 150-member Texas House without at least two-thirds of them present. Democrats hold 62 of the seats in the majority-Republican chamber and at least 51 left the state, said Josh Rush Nisenson, spokesperson for the House Democratic Caucus.
Republican House Speaker Dustin Burrows said the chamber would still meet as planned on Monday afternoon.
“If a quorum is not present then, to borrow the recent talking points from some of my Democrat colleagues, all options will be on the table. . .,” he posted on X.
Paxton, who is running for U.S. Senate, said on X that Democrats who “try and run away like cowards should be found, arrested, and brought back to the Capitol immediately.”
Fines for not showing up
A refusal by Texas lawmakers to show up is a civil violation of legislative rules. The Texas Supreme Court held in 2021 that House leaders had the authority to “physically compel the attendance” of missing members, but no Democrats were forcibly brought back to the state after warrants were served that year. Two years later, Republicans pushed through new rules that allow daily fines of $500 for lawmakers who don’t show up for work as punishment.
The quorum break will also delay votes on flood relief and new warning systems in the wake of last month’s catastrophic floods in Texas that killed at least 136 people. Democrats had called for votes on the flooding response before taking up redistricting and have criticized Republicans for not doing so.
Illinois hosts Texas lawmakers
Pritzker, a potential 2028 presidential contender who has been one of Trump’s most outspoken critics during his second term, had been in quiet talks with Texas Democrats for weeks about offering support if they chose to leave the state to break quorum.
Last week, the governor hosted several Texas Democrats in Illinois to publicly oppose the redistricting effort, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom held a similar event in his own state.
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.
“This is not just rigging the system in Texas, it’s about rigging the system against the rights of all Americans for years to come,” Pritzker said Sunday night.
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.
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