A Republican-led committee of the Texas Senate voted 8 to 3 on Thursday to advance the state’s new congressional map, drawn to flip as many as five U.S. House seats to the Republicans, pushing President Trump’s gerrymander toward final passage as early as Thursday evening.
Gov. Greg Abbott was expected to sign the new map into law within days.
Lawmakers in Texas and in California were hurtling forward on Thursday with competing partisan proposals to aggressively redraw the political maps for their U.S. House districts in a rapidly evolving clash over redistricting between the nation’s two most populous states. The president said Thursday morning on social media that Republicans in Missouri had agreed to redraw their map as well, aiming to flip a Democratic seat in Kansas City to the G.O.P.
“We’re going to win the Midterms in Missouri again, bigger and better than ever before!” Mr. Trump wrote.
The political competition over redistricting was set off by a push from the president and his political aides to try to stave off Democratic control of the U.S. House after next year’s elections. Indiana and Ohio are also in Mr. Trump’s sights.
The push set off a raw struggle for partisan advantage that has spread across the country as Democratic-led states, including New York and California, scrambled to respond. After the Texas map passed the State House on Wednesday night, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York proclaimed, “Game on.”
Texas was the first to act, and it was the biggest prize for Mr. Trump and his allies, with potentially five Democratic seats that could be redrawn to favor Republicans.
In California, Democratic lawmakers have been rushing to respond to the remapping in Texas with a new congressional map of their own that would be redrawn to flip five seats held by Republicans in favor of Democratic candidates.
But the process is far more complicated than in Texas, where the lawmakers in the State Legislature have control over drawing the state’s political maps. In California, the state’s Constitution requires its maps be drawn by an independent redistricting commission, and any changes must be approved by voters.
Democrats in the State Legislature introduced a package of bills this week that would redraw the state’s districts, but only if voters approved the measure in a Nov. 4 special election.
On Thursday, California lawmakers were expected to take up the bills, which require a two-thirds vote to pass. Democrats, who control more than two-thirds of the California Legislature, expected them to be approved.
For Democrats, time was critical. The proposed map had to pass before the end of this week because of the time needed to prepare for the special election.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who championed the effort as a necessary response to Texas, has already been preparing for what is likely to be a hard-fought and expensive public campaign for and against the new map in California.
J. David Goodman is the Houston bureau chief for The Times, reporting on Texas and Oklahoma.
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