Democratic state legislators from Texas who fled their state Sunday to try to block the passage of gerrymandered U.S. House maps stood on Monday with Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York with a message: Any notion of fair political mapmaking has ended.
“If Republicans are willing to rewrite these rules to give themselves an advantage, then they’re leaving us no choice; we must do the same,” Ms. Hochul told reporters in Albany.
Flanked by Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie in the ornate Red Room of the State Capitol, Ms. Hochul vowed to pursue every avenue to maximize Democrats’ electoral chances, including amending the State Constitution to kill New York’s independent redistricting commission.
“I’m tired of fighting this fight with my hand tied behind my back,” Ms. Hochul said. “With all due respect to the good government groups, politics is a political process.”
The Democrats’ position was something of a Texas Two Step. Lawmakers are trying to thwart Republican efforts to redraw the House maps in Texas, even as they reserve the right to do it in New York and other states that they control. Ms. Hochul’s comments were the clearest indication yet that Democrats in her state aim to throw out the rulebook in their efforts to counter President Trump.
At the president’s request, Republican leaders in Texas unveiled a new map last week that would redraw five Democratic seats to include many more Republican voters. Democratic members of the Texas House then fled the state to deny the Republican majority the quorum the State Constitution requires for legislation to pass — temporarily at least.
Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas responded shortly after the New York meeting, saying it was “kind of outrageous” that Texas Democrats would protest aggressive Republican redistricting by going to New York and Illinois, where Democratic lawmakers have used their power to draw lines that favor their own party.
He also reiterated his threat to begin a process to remove the absent Democrats from office, which he made hours after they left on Sunday.
“I believe they have forfeited their seats in the State Legislature because they’re not doing the job they were elected to do,” Mr. Abbott said Monday in an interview on Fox News.
The Texas Democrats have so far scoffed at the threat to their seats. “Come and take it,” said State Representative Gene Wu, a Houston Democrat and the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.
On Monday morning, Ms. Hochul hosted some of the fleeing lawmakers for breakfast at the Executive Mansion in Albany. She praised their bravery, calling them “profiles in courage.”
Texas lawmakers were tight lipped about their travel plans but made clear they were not going back to Texas anytime soon.
“My grandmother says this, If you allow yourself to be a rug, people will step on you,” State Representative Jolanda Jones of Houston said. She added, “We ain’t fleeing. We’re fighting.”
Representative Mihaela Plesa, who represents parts of Dallas, Plano and Allen in the State Legislature, said that the stakes of the Republicans’ power grab could not be higher. “The fight isn’t just about lines on a map, it’s about lives on the line,” she said, invoking the state’s inaction on flood relief after the devastation that killed more than 135 people.
In 2011, New York lawmakers tried to remove politics from redistricting, putting the power to draw maps in the hands of an independent commission. But the effort has struggled from the start.
First the commission failed to agree on a set of maps, sending the task back to the Democrat-led State Legislature. A judge threw out the set of maps they passed, saying they were gerrymandered. The current lines were drawn by a court-appointed special master.
Disbanding the commission, as Ms. Hochul is proposing, would require a complicated process of legislating to amend the state’s Constitution.
The soonest Democrats could see changes in New York would be 2027, Ms. Hochul said. But she said that Democrats may also pursue litigation to get the maps redrawn more quickly.
Mr. Heastie, the Assembly speaker, seemed to acknowledge the contradiction between his party’s oft-stated devotion to democracy in the Trump era and its willingness now to bend the rules.
“Democracy should be fair,” he said “It’s very difficult to say play fair when your opponents are playing dirty.”
In a statement, State Senator Rob Ortt, the minority leader, said Monday’s event was “a political stunt” and blasted what he called Democratic hypocrisy. “Voters know what this is really about — political power,” he said.
J. David Goodman contributed reporting from Houston.
Grace Ashford covers New York government and politics for The Times.
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