Texas Gov. Abbott threatened Democrats who fled state over redrawn voting maps. In Boston, they got a standing ovation.
'This not only affects Texas, but this affects the nation,' Texas state Representative Ana Hernandez a Democrat from Houston, said outside the Democrat-only lunch at the Westin Boston Seaport.
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'People are aware and watching across the nation,' said Hernandez, who also
When Pritzker recognized Hernandez and the rest of the Texas delegation during the luncheon, attendees in the ballroom erupted in applause and waved white napkins in the air, according to a video viewed by the Globe. Pritzker, who has been the subject of speculation for a presidential run in 2028, did not speak to reporters Monday.
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Texas Republicans began their redistricting effort after pressure from the Trump administration, which demanded state leaders
If passed, the new maps would add five new Republican districts ahead of next year's midterm election cycle. The current action by Democrats effectively blocks voting on the new maps by breaking a quorum, or the minimum number of lawmakers a body's rules require for the measure to proceed. Yet to fully work, the entire Democratic delegation would need to stay out of Texas until at least November.
If Democrats were still in Texas, they could be forcibly returned by Department of Public Safety state troopers. The department doesn't have jurisdiction outside the state.
The quorum break is complicated by the fact that lawmakers also planned to vote on legislation to address the deadly July 4 floods in Texas's Hill Country.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wrote
Several Texas Democrats decamped to Chicago on Sunday and were greeted by Pritzker, who said
Texas state Representative Armando Walle, a Houston Democrat, said his caucus has committed to breaking the quorum through the end of the special session as a way to 'awaken the national public' about the mid-decade move and its broader implications.
'It's a way to cheat the system,' Walle said. 'They are changing the district so they can choose their voters.'
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The US Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that states can draw electoral maps on partisan grounds, but the Voting Rights Act maintains that the map cannot suppress the voting rights of people of color.
The current Texas map, passed in 2021, is being challenged in court on allegations that it violates the act.
Texas Democrats say the maps being proposed during this special legislative session would suppress the votes of people of color.
Texas state Senator Carol Alvarado , a Houston Democrat, said the proposed maps break apart voting blocs 'that go to church together, that go to the grocery store, they go to the taqueria together.' She called the proposal 'a travesty.'
Alvarado, who is the chair of the Texas Senate's Democratic caucus, said her caucus is backing their House colleagues 'to show a unifying front. Texas state Senator Sarah Eckhardt, of Houston, echoed the sentiment, though she acknowledged that Texas Democrats have not always had success when they've used the quorum break maneuver in the past.
'We don't win every battle. We don't know how this comes out, but to not fight this is simply not an option,' she said. 'And fighting inside the building with rigged rules is just conceding.'
Texas state
Senator Royce West, a Democrat from Dallas, said he's committed to backing his counterparts in the House 'to make certain that America is not unraveled based on partisan politics.'
'It's a 12-round fight, and you gotta . . . make certain that you can withstand all of the blows,' he said.
At a meeting of the NCSL's standing committee on redistricting, the issue over mid-decade map changes didn't emerge until the very end of the session when Tennessee state Senator Jeff Yarbro, a Nashville Democrat, raised whether the panel would address it.
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With several Texas lawmakers in attendance, Maryland state senator Cheryl Kagan, a Democrat who sits on the committee, said it wasn't prepared to address the topic because it 'was not anticipated that this would be before us the way that it now is.'
Yarbro said in an interview afterward that NCSL, a bipartisan organization, should be paying attention to 'obviously one of the biggest issues facing legislatures across the country.'
New York Governor Kathy Hochul said she and Democratic leaders are looking at
The developments have created the prospect of 'tit-for-tat' redistricting, Yarbro said.
'All of us have an interest in avoiding a race to the bottom, which feels like where we're heading right now,' he said. 'But, like with so many things in America right now, we may have to touch the hot stove before we resolve to do better.'
Samantha J. Gross can be reached at
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