(Houston) The Chamber of Representatives of Texas approved a redistribution of his electoral districts wanted by Donald Trump, with the objective, for the Republicans, to garner five additional seats in the Congress in Washington in the mid-term elections in 2026, generally unfavorable to the president’s party.
In a minority in the Texan Parliament, the Democrats fled the state in early August, taking refuge in Chicago or New York, so that a quorum is not reached. Their return allowed the organization on Wednesday of a vote on the text.
The proposal for redistribution was adopted with 88 votes for and 52 votes against by the lower chamber of Texas. It must now be approved by the Local Senate, a majority of Republican, before being promulgated by the Republican Governor Greg Abbott.
Donald Trump praised a “great victory for the great state of Texas”.
“We are on the way to five additional seats in the congress and save your rights, your freedoms, and your country, himself,” said the President of the United States on Wednesday evening, on his social social platform, before adding: “Texas never lets us fall.”
The stakes are big for Donald Trump. If the Democrats take over the majority in the House of Representatives in Washington in the 2026 elections, they will have a free field to launch parliamentary inquiry commissions and poison the end of his second mandate. A majority that sometimes plays with a few seats.
The tenant of the White House again urged “to put an end to the voting by correspondence”, which he accuses of promoting supposed electoral fraud.
“One hundred additional seats will go to the Republicans,” he added, in another message.
Faced with this Texan initiative, elected officials from California, which is governed by the Democrat Gavin Newsom, announced a similar initiative to rediscover the electoral card, which could ultimately allow the party to win five more seats in the Congress, the same number as in Texas.
Gerrymandering
In the latter state, Republican officials have decided to modify the electoral card so that the Democratic vote is diluted, an electoral charcuting technique called “Gerrymandering”. Of the 38 Texas deputies at the Congress in Washington, 25 are currently Republicans. The White House hopes 30 next year.
While the local elected officials of Texas debated this electoral card, the Democratic representative Chris Turner qualified, according to the Texas Tribune website, “clear violation of Voting Rights Act and the constitution ”.
Major law on civil rights adopted in 1965, the Voting Rights Act was aimed at preventing former southern segregationists from depriving African-Americans from the right to vote.
The Democrats, in the minority in the Texan Parliament, notably denounced the will of the Republicans to “silence the voters of the minorities by a racist” gerrymandering “, believing that the new electoral card would dilute the voices of the African-American and Hispanic electorates which, mostly, traditionally vote democratic.
To respond to the Texans Republicans, the Governor of California and parliamentarians presented a bill on Monday to organize a referendum in order to redraw the electoral map of the most populous state in the country.
If Californian voters approve it on November 4, the local parliament, where the Democrats are in the majority, can set up a new card which should ensure five additional seats in the Congress, as in Texas.
“California and the Californians were the favorite target of the Trump administration and we are not going to stay in the arms while it orders Texas and other states to fuel the next election,” Gavin Newsom said in a statement on Monday.
Beyond Texas, the Trump administration would also like to redraw in its favor the cards of Ohio, Missouri, or even Indiana.
“Florida, Indiana, and others seek to do the same thing,” wrote the American president on his social network.
