Texas House Democrats are rallying in Chicago and New York after fleeing their state to try and block a Republican plan to manipulate the state’s voting boundaries in their favor.
Republicans are pushing to pick up five additional congressional seats in the state, which could help retain control of the House in the 2026 midterms. But Democrats warned that the move could have a domino effect and lead to an all-out redistricting war in red and blue states across the country.
Texas Democrats boarded buses and planes to get out of town on Sunday in a last-ditch attempt to prevent the GOP mid-decade redistricting plan from being carried out at the behest of President Donald Trump.
“What starts here in Texas is not just going to stop here,” warned Texas state Rep. Donna Howard in a video explaining why she was skipping town. “It’s going to affect all of America.”
“The playing field has changed, not just for Democrats but for all Americans,” said state Rep. Mihaela Plesa, speaking in New York alongside the governor. “This does not stop with Texas. If Trump and [Governor] Abbott succeed, it will yeah, give them five seats, but then, where else do they go?”
“It’s about Democracy. It affects every single American,” Plesa said.
The redistricting push started in Texas, but other Republican-controlled states are also considering reexamining their maps.
Blue states like California declared “game on” and warned they would respond to Texas in kind with their own redistricting push to flip more red states.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul on Monday also threatened retaliation, arguing the playing field has changed dramatically.
“Shame on us if we ignore that fact and cling tight to the vestiges of the past. That era’s over. Donald Trump eliminated that forever,” she said.
Rather than vote on the Texas GOP plan, 57 of the 62 state House Democrats left the Lone Star State, denying the two-thirds quorum required for a vote.
Abbott responded late Sunday, warning that any Democrat who had not returned by the time the House reconvened on Monday at 3 pm CT faced being removed from the Texas House.
“He doesn’t know how to read attorney general’s opinions because he used to be attorney general, and, frankly, Democrats say, come and take it,” said Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu on CNN from Chicago.
The governor and close Trump ally also claimed Democratic members may have committed felonies by soliciting money to cover the fines for skipping town.
Each Democrat faces a $500 daily fine for every day they’re absent. The salary for Texas lawmakers is $7,200 per year, so they would erase that salary in two weeks.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also said he supports the immediate arrest of lawmakers “who’ve fled their duties.”
But Texas Democrats are holding their ground. They blasted the GOP redistricting effort as a racist gerrymander meant to rig the 2026 midterms and called the threats “smoke and mirrors.”
“There is no felony in the Texas penal code for what he says, so respectively he’s making up some s–t,” said Texas state Rep. Jolanda Jones. “He has no legal mechanism, and if he did, subpoenas from Texas don’t work in New York, so he’s going to come get us how? Subpoenas in Texas don’t work in Chicago. He’s going to come get us, how?”
In a CNN interview on Monday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who traveled to Texas recently to meet with state Democrats, slammed Abbot, saying: “The Republican Governor of Texas is out of his mind.”
The quorum break is the latest in a longstanding Texas tradition of lawmakers walking off the job as a move of last resort. Most recently, it happened in 2021 when Democrats fled town to protest a GOP bill restricting vote-by-mail.
Another high-profile incident was in 2003, when Democrats also left the state to prevent another mid-decade redistricting effort, but the attempt was ultimately unsuccessful.
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