Electoral redistribution | Texas Democrats leave the state to prevent a vote

The Democrats of Texas left the State on Sunday to try to prevent the House of Representatives from holding a vote which is to take place on the new card of the US Congress on Monday. The Republicans hope that the latter will allow them to win several additional seats in the House of Representatives in the mid-term elections in 2026.

This radical decision could expose democrats to fines and other sanctions; The state prosecutor had already threatened to arrest them if they took such a measure. Refusing to attend a legislative session, however, constitutes a civil offense; Democrats cannot therefore be imprisoned for this, and it is unknown who has the power to execute arrest mandates.

The Democrats presented their decision to leave the State as their final attempt to prevent the Republicans, who fully control the Texan government, from adopting a redistribution of the congress.

“This is not a decision that we make lightly, but it is a decision that we make with absolute moral clarity,” said Gene Wu, president of the Democratic Parliamentary Group of the House of Representatives.

To carry out its official activities, the presence of at least 100 of the 150 members of the House of Representatives of Texas is required. The Democrats hold 62 seats in this room with a republican majority. At least 51 Democratic members will leave the State, warned Josh Rush Nisenson, spokesperson for the Democratic Group of the Chamber.

“Apathy is a form of complicity, and we will not be accomplices of the silence imposed on the communities that have worked hard and have been fighting for decades for the power that Trump wants to steal them,” he said.

It is the second time in four years that Texas Democrats have been fleeing the state to block a vote. In 2021, a 38 -day showdown took place when the Democrats went to Washington DC to oppose new electoral restrictions.

“Flery like cowards”

Republican governor Greg Abbott convened an extraordinary session of the Legislative Assembly, which began last month, in order to look at electoral redistribution and react to floods in the region of Texas Hill Country, who left at least 135 people dead in July. President Trump urged the Texas Republicans to redesign the electoral card to help the party win a few seats in the mid-term elections next year.

“For weeks, we have warned that, if the Republicans of Texas wish a confrontation-if they want to delay the aid to the victims of the floods to loosely protect Donald Trump from an inevitable collapse in the mid-term elections-then we will offer them this confrontation,” said the president of the Democratic Party, Ken Martin, in a statement. “This is exactly what the Democrats of Texas have done today: they have sabotaged the extraordinary bogus session of the Republicans, who practically ignored the fate of the victims of the floods in the county of Kerr. »»

The Attorney General Ken Paxton said on X that the state should “use all the tools at his disposal to track down those who believe themselves above the laws”.

“The Democrats of the House of Representatives of Texas who try to flee as cowards should be found, arrested and brought back to the Capitol immediately,” he wrote.

The offices of Mr. Abbott and the President of the Chamber, Dustin Burrows, did not immediately respond to requests for comments on Sunday afternoon.

Last week, the Texas Republicans unveiled their new seats distribution project in the House of Representatives, which would create five new seats with a republican tendency. The Republicans currently hold 25 of the 38 seats of the State.

Leaving Texas, Democrats seek to prevent them from reaching the quorum necessary for the votes scheduled for Monday. The Texas House of Representatives has a regulation providing for a fine of $ 500 per day of exceeding the quorum. The prosecutor general, a republican general, Ken Paxton, argued that, if the Democrats exceed the quorum, “they should be found and arrested, wherever they go”.

“My office is ready to help the local, state and federal authorities to track down and force the presence anyone who abandons his office and his voters for an easy political spectacle,” Paxton said on X on July 15.

A longtime plan

A large part of the Democrats of Texas headed to Illinois, where Democratic Governor JB Pritzker had been in talks with them for weeks to offer them support if they decided to leave the state. Mr. Pritzker, a potential presidential candidate of 2028, is one of Mr. Trump’s most virulent criticism since his second term.

Last week, Mr. Pritzker welcomed several Texans Democrats in Illinois to publicly oppose the electoral redistribution. California Governor Gavin Newsom organized a similar event in his own state.

Mr. Pritzker also met in private the president of the Texan Democratic Party, Kendall Scudder, in June, to prepare a possible departure of the legislators for Illinois to break the quorum, according to a source close to the file which required anonymity to evoke private conversations.

While the Texan Democrats now leave for Illinois and block the electoral division of the Congress, supported by Mr. Trump, everything is in place for a mediatized confrontation between Mr. Pritzker and the President.

Donald Trump seeks to avoid a rehearsal of his first mandate, when the Democrats overthrew the House of Representatives only two years after taking office. He hopes that the new electoral division of Texas will help him at this level. Mr. Trump’s team also planned to redraw borders in other states, such as Missouri, according to a person aware of discussions.

Nadia Lathan, editor for the Associated Press in Austin, contributed to this dispatch.