by After scores of Democratic lawmakers fled the state in a last-ditch effort to thwart President Donald Trump’s desire for new U.S. House districts prior to the 2026 midterm elections, Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott said he will start attempting to remove them from office on Monday if they don’t return.
Abbott’s decision to give state House Democrats less than 24 hours to return home after their revolt, which saw many of them travel to Illinois or New York on Sunday, intensified a growing dispute over congressional maps that started in Texas but has since attracted Democratic governors who have threatened to rush to redraw their own states’ maps in retaliation.But they don’t have many options.
Trump’s efforts to acquire five more GOP-leaning congressional seats in Texas before the end of the year are at the heart of the growing standoff. These seats would help his party maintain its tenuous U.S. House majority.
Five new Republican-leaning seats would be added to the congressional maps created by Texas Republicans. Currently, 25 of the 38 seats in the state are held by Republicans.
The Texas House of Representatives was scheduled to vote on the proposed maps on Monday, but the vote cannot take place if the majority of Democratic lawmakers fail to show up, denying a quorum. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker welcomed a group of Democrats who arrived in Chicago on Sunday, but he would not specify how long they were willing to stay out of Texas.
Whatever it takes, we’ll do it. “We don’t know what that looks like,” stated Texas House Democratic Caucus chairman and state representative Gene Wu.
Legislative walkouts, such as the one in 2021 when many of the same Texas House Democrats left the state for 38 days in protest at new voting restrictions, however, simply serve to postpone the approval of a measure. Republicans eventually passed that proposal after they returned.
Abbott is adopting a much more assertive posture four years later, threatening to remove Democrats from office if they do not return by Monday afternoon when the House reconvenes. He referenced Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton’s non-binding 2021 legal opinion, which proposed that a court may rule that a lawmaker had forfeited their position.
Additionally, by seeking funds to help cover the fines they face, he implied that the lawmakers might have committed felonies.
Abbott said that this truancy was now over.
House Democrats responded with the four-word phrase, “Come and take it.”
The state of the vote
In the 150-member Texas House, legislation cannot be passed unless at least two-thirds of the members are present. According to House Democratic Caucus spokesperson Josh Rush Nisenson, Democrats hold 62 of the seats in the majority-Republican legislature, and at least 51 of them fled the state.
Dustin Burrows, the speaker of the Republican-controlled House, stated that Monday afternoon’s scheduled meeting would still take place.
“All options will be on the table if a quorum is not present,” he wrote on X, quoting recent talking points from some of my Democratic colleagues.
Paxton, a U.S. Senate candidate, stated on X that Democrats who attempt to flee like cowards must to be apprehended, taken into custody, and returned to the Capitol right now.
Fines for not showing up
Texas lawmakers have committed a civil violation of legislative rules by failing to appear. Although the Texas Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that House leaders might physically force absent members to appear, no Democrats were physically returned to the state following the issuance of warrants in that year.Two years later, Republicans pushed through new regulations that allow lawmakers who fail to show up for work to be fined $500 per day.
Following the devastating floods in Texas last month that claimed at least 136 lives, the quorum break will also postpone votes on flood assistance and new warning systems. Before tackling redistricting, Democrats demanded votes on the flooding response, and they have chastised Republicans for failing to do so.
Illinois hosts Texas lawmakers
For weeks, Pritzker, a possible 2028 presidential candidate and one of Trump’s harshest opponents during his second administration, has been in private discussions with Texas Democrats about providing support should they decide to leave the state in order to breach quorum.
California Governor Gavin Newsom conducted a similar gathering in his state last week, and the governor invited a number of Texas Democrats in Illinois to openly oppose the redistricting attempt.
According to a source with direct knowledge who asked not to be named to discuss private discussions, Pritzker also had a private meeting with Texas Democratic Chair Kendall Scudder in June to start preparing for the possibility that lawmakers would leave for Illinois if they did decide to break quorum to block the map.
Pritzker stated on Sunday night that this is not just about manipulating the Texas system; it is about manipulating the system to violate the rights of all Americans for years to come.
Trump hopes the new Texas map will help him avoid a recurrence of his first term, in which Democrats took control of the House barely two years into his presidency. Redrawing borders in other states has also been considered by Trump administration officials.
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This report was contributed to by AP reporters Andrew DeMillo and Nadia Lathan.
