Democratic members of the Texas House left the state on Sunday in an effort to block Republicans from approving a redrawn political map of U.S. House districts in the state this week. The new map, drawn at the behest of President Trump, is meant to flip five seats now held by Democrats in the Republicans’ favor.
Without those Democratic members in attendance, the Texas House would not have a quorum needed to conduct its business and pass the bill to adopt the proposed map. Republicans say that Democrats are shirking their responsibilities as elected officials.
The clash over the issue has been brewing in Texas for months, and it has drawn in other states because of the potential consequences for the entire country.
Here is what we know about the fight.
Why do Texas Republicans want this new map?
Mr. Trump has pushed Texas Republicans to redraw the state’s congressional districts so that Republicans would be likely to win more seats, and thus have a better chance of retaining control of the U.S. House after the midterm elections in 2026. Republicans currently have only a slim majority in the U.S. House, and voters in midterm elections have tended historically to side with the party that is not holding the presidency.
Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas has gone along with Mr. Trump’s request. When he summoned a special session of the Texas Legislature last month, redistricting was one of the issues he put on the agenda.
A bill advanced in the special session would redraw boundaries so that congressional districts now held by Democrats in deeply blue Dallas, Houston and around Austin and San Antonio contain enough Republican voters to flip control. Two more competitive districts in the Rio Grande Valley along the U.S.-Mexico border would be easier for Republicans to capture.
What is the Democrats’ argument against it?
Gerrymandering, the practice of drawing political maps to give one party an outsized advantage, is hardly new in the country. But redistricting is typically done only once every 10 years, after a new census mandates a rebalancing of Congressional seats and districts to match population shifts. Redistricting in the middle of a decade is rare and almost always contentious.
Democrats view the effort in Texas as an outrageous example of the practice, saying that it will heavily tilt the election in Mr. Trump’s favor and illegally dilute the votes of Black and Latino residents in the state.
Mr. Abbott has defended the redrawing by saying that it maximizes the ability of Texans to vote for the candidate of their choice. He also said that a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice argued that several of the state’s districts should be redrawn in light of a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. That appellate court found that the federal Voting Rights Act does not protect so-called “coalition districts,” where minority groups together constitute a majority of voters.
Constitutional law experts have said, however, that the court decision did not mean that such districts, which are common throughout the country, must be redrawn.
How are other states involved?
Because control of the U.S. House is at stake, states controlled by Democrats are looking to fight back with steps that could offset the advantage Republicans would gain in Texas. The governors of California, Illinois, New York and New Jersey are considering redrawing their state’s political maps to flip seats there to Democratic control. In several of those states, though, Democrats would need to rewrite laws or amend their state constitutions to do so.
At the same time, the White House is pressing other Republican-led states to follow Texas, reaching out to legislators in Missouri, for example, to draw new Congressional maps there. States under Republican control that might be targets include Florida, Indiana, New Hampshire and Ohio.
All of the jockeying has made an already fierce hyperpartisan atmosphere even more embittered.
What could happen next in Texas?
The Texas House had been scheduled to vote on the new maps as early as Monday, but with the Democrats now absent, the vote cannot happen.
Democrats say they will stay out of the state for the remainder of the 30-day special session, which began July 21. That could delay or derail action in the Legislature. But comparable past attempts to block Republican legislation and redistricting in Texas have eventually failed.
Republicans have said they would take swift action against the absent Democrats.
That could include issuing civil arrest warrants for violating the rules of the Texas House, as the Republican House speaker did during a previous walkout, or by withholding pay from the members and their staffs. The House adopted rules that impose a fine of $500 for each day a member is absent without permission.
On Sunday night, Mr. Abbott threatened to remove lawmakers from office — by declaring that they had abandoned their seats — if they did not return to their posts by Monday afternoon. Short of that, the Texas House speaker, Dustin Burrows, could move to strip Democrats of what remaining privileges they have in the Texas House, like key roles on committees.
Democratic members have scoffed at the threats so far. Any attempt to remove them from office would have to go through a legal process in court. Mr. Abbott has the power under the Texas Constitution to call an election to fill a legislative vacancy, but not to install a new member of his choice, and most of the absent Democrats are in safe seats.
Mr. Trump remains a wild card.
Many of the Texas House Democrats flew to Illinois, where the state’s Democratic governor, JB Pritzker, has offered them a safe haven. Others went to New York or Massachusetts, both Democratic-run states.
Even so, some Texas Democratic members expressed concern that Mr. Trump would try to use federal agents to round up the legislators and bring them back to Texas. It was not immediately clear whether there would be a legal basis for doing so, since the lawmakers’ absence would appear to violate only state legislative rules and not federal law.
Julie Bosman contributed reporting.
J. David Goodman is the Houston bureau chief for The Times, reporting on Texas and Oklahoma.
Shane Goldmacher is a Times national political correspondent.
Nick Corasaniti is a Times reporter covering national politics, with a focus on voting and elections.
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