Texas Democrats To Return Home for New Special Legislative Session, Paving Path for Republican Redistricting Plan

Texas Democrats are set to show up for work on Monday as a new special legislative session is called at Austin, where Republicans are now almost certainly going to get approved a redistricting plan that has roiled national politics for weeks. Although the GOP is likely to net five seats from the redrawing, California could negate those gains by changing its maps in the coming months. Democratic state lawmakers fled the Lone Star State earlier this month just as the state house was due to approve the new Republican-drawn maps. They went to deep-blue states like Illinois, New York, and California despite the threat of $500-per-day fines and calls for arrest by Governor Greg Abbott and the state attorney general, Ken Paxton. “Do not go very far, as I believe our governor will be calling us back for another special session very, very soon,” the speaker of the Texas house, Dustin Burrows, told lawmakers on Friday as he gaveled out the first session. The house is scheduled to reconvene on Monday morning. Democrats say they will attend after being out of the state for the last two weeks. President Trump “thought he could easily get his way in Texas with compliant Republicans, but Democrats fought back ferociously and took the fight to Trump across America. We will return to the House floor and to the courthouse with a clear message: the fight to protect voting rights has only just begun,” the Texas house Democratic Caucus said in a statement. Their return home follows a groundswell of protests across the country decrying the Republicans’ attempt to gerrymander Texas. According to Reuters, more than 300 events sponsored by liberal groups and labor unions were held on Saturday across 44 states and the District of Columbia.Texas lawmakers said that they would return to Texas only if California Democrats started their own process for redrawing their maps. On Thursday, Governor Gavin Newsom announced that he would be doing just that. The proposed congressional maps for California, made public on Saturday, would nearly guarantee four or five additional Democratic seats come next year. Several Democrats currently in purple districts would also see their constituencies move significantly to the left. “These are sober times,” the California governor said at a rally last week alongside Democratic members of the congressional delegation and their allies. “We cannot unilaterally disarm, we can’t stand back and let this democracy disappear district-by-district all across this country.”“We need to stand up, not just California, other blue states need to stand up,” he told the crowd. Following Mr. Newsom’s announcement, one of his predecessors, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, said he was prepared to fight the California redistricting by Democrats.“I’m getting ready for the gerrymandering battle,” the former Republican governor, who has been part of the anti-gerrymandering reform effort for years, wrote in a post on X. He included a photo of himself exercising while wearing a shirt that said: “F*** the politicians. Terminate gerrymandering.”California has for years used an independent redistricting commission — which was established via statewide ballot initiative — which is made up of Democrats, Republicans, and independents. Mr. Newsom says he is putting another ballot question to the voters that, if approved, would suspend the use of the redistricting commission so that the supermajority Democratic legislature can draw maps to be used for the 2026, 2028, and 2030 House elections. After the 2030 race, the redistricting commission will again be empowered to draw new maps following the decennial census. The Texas Democrats’ protest over the course of the last two weeks drew national attention to the redistricting fight. President Obama called into a meeting of the lawmakers who had fled the state to tell them that they were doing good work. “We can’t let a systematic assault on democracy just happen and stand by,” Mr. Obama said on a video call which was shared on X by the leader of the Texas house Democrats, Gene Wu. “This precious democracy that we’ve got is not a given. It’s not self-executing. It requires us to fight for it.”Mr. Newsom’s move for new maps may negate Texas Republicans’ gains, though it could backfire on his party. Republican legislators in other deep-red states are considering redrawing their maps as well, in order to help the GOP pick up a few extra seats in next year’s midterms. Missouri, Indiana, and Florida are high on the Republicans’ list of states that could initiate their own mid-decade redistricting processes. Indiana has two Democratic House members, both of whom could hypothetically be drawn into much redder districts if Republicans move forward. A Kansas City-based district in Missouri could also be targeted.

Texas Democrats To Return Home for New Special Legislative Session, Paving Path for Republican Redistricting Plan

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