Texas governor vows to replace Democrats absent at Monday redistricting vote
The more than 50 Democratic members of the Texas legislature left the state on Sunday to deny Republicans the quorum necessary to vote on the redistricting plan, which President Donald Trump has championed, and which he and his Republicans hope will protect the party's narrow U.S. House majority in next year's midterm elections.
Republicans hold a 219-212 majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, with three Democratic-held seats vacant after deaths, and one Republican hold vacant after a member resigned. A stronger Republican majority in the House would enable the president to further advance his agenda.
Abbott in a statement late on Sunday cited a Texas attorney general opinion that district courts may determine whether legislators have forfeited their offices "due to abandonment," saying that empowered him to "swiftly fill vacancies."
The governor said in the statement he would use that power against any Democrats who were absent when the Texas legislature reconvenes at 3 p.m. Central Time (2000 GMT) on Monday.
In addition to acting on the redistricting plan, Abbott called the special legislative session to address funding for flood prevention and relief in the wake of the deadly July 4 flash flooding that killed more than 130 people.
Upon arriving in Chicago on Sunday evening with several other Democratic lawmakers, Gene Wu, the chair of the Texas House Democratic Caucus, slammed his Republican counterparts for pushing the redistricting plan alongside a flood-related bill.
"Governor Abbott has used this tragedy, taken these families who are grieving... and used them as hostages in a political game," he said at a press conference, flanked by Democratic Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. Other Democratic lawmakers went to New York and Massachusetts.
Wu called the redistricting plan "racist," saying it sought to dilute the voting power of racial minorities in the state. "Abbott is doing this in submission to Donald Trump, so that Donald Trump could steal these communities' power and voice," he added.
Abbott in a Monday morning appearance on Fox News' "America's Newsroom" said Wu's accusation was "bogus". He said the redistricting would expand the number of Hispanic-majority districts and that it was necessary to give Trump voters in Democrat-majority districts the ability to elect Republican U.S. representatives.
A White House official told Reuters that Trump supports Abbott's threat to remove absent Democratic lawmakers and wants "whatever is necessary" done to get the new map passed. Trump has told reporters he expects the effort to yield as many as five additional House Republicans.
States are required to redistrict every 10 years based on the U.S. Census, but the current Texas map was passed just four years ago by the Republican-dominated legislature. While mid-cycle redistricting occasionally takes place, it is usually prompted by a change in power at the legislature.
Leaders of Democrat-led states such as California and Illinois have recently raised the idea of redistricting their own U.S. congressional maps to boost the number of Democratic seats in response to Abbott's push in Texas.
Under Texas' current lines, Republicans control 25 out of 38 seats, nearly two-thirds of the districts in a state that went for Trump last year by a 56% to 42% margin.
Texas Democratic lawmakers have before tried the strategy of leaving the state to block a redistricting plan. Some fled in 2021 in a similar bid to deny Abbott the quorum needed to pass a voting restriction measure. That bill passed after three of the lawmakers returned, saying they had achieved their goal of bringing national attention to the issue.
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Yahoo
26 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Wesley Hunt tests waters of a Senate bid, setting up possible heavyweight primary with Cornyn and Paxton
WASHINGTON — Groups affiliated with Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Houston, have poured more than $3 million into advertising across the state as the second-term congressman explores a potential dark-horse Senate bid. Ads introducing Hunt to voters are running far beyond his political base in Houston, which runs from the wealthy parts of western Houston that serves as a base for the oil-and-gas industry to western and northern suburbs like Tomball and Cypress. Voters in Dallas, San Antonio and Waco, among other places, are seeing television ads from Hunt's campaign and PACs supporting him. The already-crowded Senate primary in Texas would be an uphill climb. Incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton are both well-known figures among Republican primary voters across the state. Cornyn has appeared on statewide ballots dating back to his election to the Texas Supreme Court in 1990 and has the backing of Senate leadership and its deep-pocketed donor network. Paxton, who quickly emerged as a favorite on the right after his elevation to statewide office in 2014, has further burnished his reputation among hardline conservatives by surviving a series of political and legal scandals. Hunt, by contrast, has been part of Texas' 38-member congressional delegation for less than three years. The list of House members from Texas who have gone on to win a Senate race in the last century is as short as it is memorable: longtime Sens. Lloyd Bentsen and Phil Gramm, and President Lyndon B. Johnson. No U.S. House member from Texas has gone on to win any statewide elected office this century. Political operatives and strategists have mixed opinions about the viability of a Hunt Senate campaign. His case is predicated on the notion that Cornyn, who has trailed in primary polls, cannot win a Republican primary and that Paxton, dogged by scandals, could jeopardize Republicans' chances in the general election. If Hunt runs, he would offer an alternative palatable to both the MAGA wing and Republican establishment — in his and his allies' estimation. 'Wesley Hunt wins a primary and he wins a general,' said an unaligned Republican operative who has worked on Senate campaigns in Texas and believes Hunt has a pathway to winning. 'And frankly, it doesn't break the back of the Republican fundraising apparatus to get there.' But Hunt, who declined to comment for this story, lacks the institutional support Cornyn has consolidated in Texas and Washington and the statewide grassroots loyalty garnered by Paxton. If he runs, his biggest challenge would be generating enough name recognition outside Houston — in time for a primary where voting begins in about six months — to reasonably challenge two of the biggest names in Texas GOP politics. Half a dozen operatives said Hunt's best bet would be to siphon off enough votes to keep Paxton under 50 percent and finish second in the March primary, forcing a May runoff with the attorney general. Paxton has routinely led Cornyn by double-digit margins in public polls. 'Realistically speaking, unless [Hunt] can vault himself to the level of name recognition statewide that both General Paxton and Senator Cornyn have, then he's not going to win the primary,' said Shelby Williams, the former state GOP party chair in Collin County, the most populous Texas county won by Sen. Ted Cruz in 2024. 'He's going to maybe force a runoff at best.' Hunt will need to make a decision by Dec. 8, the filing deadline for next year's primary ballot. The Senate contest is scheduled for March 3. Operatives cautioned that the timeline to make a decision is approaching. The longer he waits, the more frustrated the GOP political apparatus becomes, one Republican strategist warned. Unpacking Hunt's spending If he runs, Hunt would need to make up ground financially, having raised just over $400,000 in the latest fundraising quarter — spanning April through June — and reporting a $3 million war chest. By contrast, Cornyn and Paxton, who are reaping the fundraising advantage of their already declared candidacies, hauled in about $800,000 and $2.9 million, respectively, during the three-month span, which Cornyn ended with $5.9 million cash on hand. Hunt's most prolific donors, writing checks for tens of thousands of dollars, point to his dual appeal among traditional and Trump-aligned Republicans, which his supporters say could elevate him in a potential Senate bid. Hailing largely from the oil and gas, private equity and legal sectors, Hunt's donors include some longtime backers of the Republican Party. Chemical business tycoon Peter Huntsman and investment manager executive Christopher Sarofim have backed Republican presidential candidates dating back to George W. Bush. Huntsman appears to be less committed to the MAGA cause, having made large donations to several Democratic candidates last election cycle and none to any of President Donald Trump's campaigns. But several of Hunt's other funders, including oil titan Javaid Anwar and energy investor Robert Sweeney, have been prolific donors to Trump's campaigns. Across the state, Hunt's team has used the money to start making ad buys, peppering the airwaves with videos introducing him to the electorate outside his district in west and northwest Houston. Earlier this month, Hunt's campaign made a six-figure ad buy on the conservative cable channel Newsmax in the Dallas, San Antonio and Houston areas. With clips of Hunt's time in the military and ample footage of Trump, the ad appeared aimed at introducing unfamiliar voters to Hunt's MAGA bona fides. He has also made several media buys in Washington and Florida seemingly targeted at an audience of one — Trump — whose endorsement is seen as the holy grail for any candidate in the race. Hunt was also the only member of the U.S. House to fly from Washington to Texas with Trump during the president's visit to Hill Country sites hit by the deadly July 4 floods. Beyond amplifying his own brand, Hunt has also begun taking not-so-subtle stabs at his prospective opponent. Days after Paxton's wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, filed for divorce on "biblical grounds' — citing alleged adultery in her divorce filing — Hunt stood up an ad replete with images of his family and repeated overtures of 'faith.' Much of the pro-Hunt spending on the airwaves has been from Standing for Texas, an independent group. Hellfire PAC, a committee supportive of Hunt's prospective Senate bid, has raised more than $1 million this year, but multiple GOP operatives said they thought he would need to raise more money to his main campaign account to compete with Cornyn and Paxton. Advertisers charge lower rates to campaigns than they do to PACs or other outside groups in the run-up to elections, meaning campaign funds stretch further — especially in Texas, an expensive state for politicians by virtue of the number of media markets across the state. 'He's not going to have party committee support, so he'll have to do it all on his own,' a GOP strategist familiar with the race said. 'I think that's a very big if, if he can.' But the operative who thought Hunt could emerge from the primary said the financial picture could change if Cornyn is unable to lift his polling numbers and drops out of the race — though Cornyn has said he has no plans to do so. 'If this experiment doesn't work for Cornyn … those donors will be looking for a way to stop Paxton,' the operative said. Is there a path for Hunt? Hunt met with members of Trump's political team and the National Republican Senatorial Committee — Senate GOP leadership's campaign arm — in the spring to discuss a potential bid. But the White House has thus far kept its powder dry, and the NRSC has vigorously lined up behind Cornyn — which operatives from the Washington-based group told Hunt when they met, according to a source familiar with the discussions. Public polls of the primary have routinely shown Paxton leading. When Hunt is included, Paxton still leads but typically falls short of the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff. Polling averages using surveys from May show Hunt in third, 17 points behind Cornyn and 24 points behind Paxton. But a more recent statewide poll, conducted by pollster G1 Research in late June and obtained by The Texas Tribune, found Hunt beginning to close the gap, with 17% support to Cornyn's 28% and Paxton's 41%. It also found that Hunt would beat Cornyn in a head-to-head race but trail Paxton — unless he received a highly coveted endorsement from Trump, in which case he would leapfrog the attorney general. The poll also underscored Hunt's biggest weakness — 63% of primary voters were unfamiliar with or unsure of him. Brendan Steinhauser, a GOP strategist who ran Cornyn's 2014 campaign, said any candidate running for U.S. Senate from Texas will face an uphill battle as they try to break through to voters in a vast and diverse state — especially in a compressed time frame. 'It's years and years and years of doing things, meeting people, getting media attention in the state, doing local TV interviews, local newspaper interviews, going to the county fair,' Steinhauser said. One Republican operative speculated that Hunt would ultimately need $20 million to get his name identification high enough to be credible. But Steinhauser warned that ads will not be enough to comfortably position Hunt against two Texas Republican stalwarts. That Hunt would enter the race as a relative unknown could be an opportunity to win favor among a primary electorate that could be receptive to an alternative to the two existing options, argued the unaligned operative who is bullish on Hunt's chances. 'The real challenge for both Paxton and Cornyn in this situation is that they're already defined,' the operative said. 'Wesley isn't, and he's already beating Cornyn head to head.' Hunt's window to enter the race is fast closing, with the December filing deadline and the time-consuming task of introducing him to the electorate. And he is not the only House member from Texas taking a look at the race. Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Amarillo, met with White House officials including deputy chief of staff James Blair to discuss the Senate primary, according to two sources familiar with the meeting, which was first reported by Semafor. The lineup for The Texas Tribune Festival continues to grow! Be there when all-star leaders, innovators and newsmakers take the stage in downtown Austin, Nov. 13–15. The newest additions include comedian, actor and writer John Mulaney; Dallas mayor Eric Johnson; U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota; New York Media Editor-at-Large Kara Swisher; and U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso. Get your tickets today! TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.
CNN
28 minutes ago
- CNN
ICE follows starkly different playbooks in how it's arresting immigrants in red and blue states, data shows
The Trump administration is apprehending hundreds of immigrants every day across the country – but there's a stark split in where Immigration and Customs Enforcement makes those arrests in blue states and red states. In states that voted for President Donald Trump, ICE agents are far more likely to arrest immigrants directly from prisons and jails, a CNN analysis of data from the agency found. In Democratic-leaning states, by contrast, ICE is frequently arresting immigrants from worksites, streets and mass roundups that have sparked protests and intense backlash in cities such as Los Angeles. Most of those arrested don't have any criminal record. The ICE data shows that overall, more immigrants are being arrested in red states than blue states – both in the community and, especially, in prisons and jails. But there is a clear divide in where ICE is apprehending people: 59% of arrests in red states took place in prisons and jails, while 70% of arrests in blue states took place in the community. That partisan gap between red and blue states existed before Trump's second term began – but it has widened since last year. Trump officials say the differing tactics are simply a downstream effect of sanctuary policies in many Democratic-controlled states and large cities, which can limit prisons and jails from cooperating with ICE. In many of those states, local authorities can't hold immigrants in custody based on ICE orders alone – so they're often released before immigration officials can arrest them. 'Sanctuary cities are going to get exactly what they don't want, more agents in the communities and more worksite enforcement,' Trump border czar Tom Homan told reporters last month. 'Why is that? Because they won't let one agent arrest one bad guy in a jail.' But advocates for immigrant rights say the community arrests – from raids at factories and restaurants to surprise detentions at ICE check-ins – are punitive measures aimed at instilling fear in blue states and cities. The aggressive tactics reflect 'a deliberate federal strategy to punish Massachusetts and other immigrant-friendly states for standing up against Trump's reckless deportation machine,' argued Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, the executive director of Lawyers for Civil Rights, a Boston-based nonprofit that represents immigrants in court. An ICE spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment on CNN's analysis. The divide is especially dramatic in Massachusetts, where 94% of immigrants arrested by ICE were apprehended in the community, and 78% of them had no criminal record. The state has a court decision and local policies that limit law enforcement from cooperating with ICE. The agency's regional office was also led until March by Todd Lyons, who is now the acting ICE director, and who has described the focus on community arrests in Massachusetts, his home state, as a direct response to sanctuary policies. 'If sanctuary cities would change their policies and turn these violent criminal aliens over to us, into our custody, instead of releasing them into the public, we would not have to go out to the communities and do this,' Lyons said at a press conference in June. Regardless of the cause, the varying local laws and ICE tactics are creating a 'patchwork system' across the country, said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a lawyer and policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute. Immigrants are facing 'really divergent outcomes based on where people live,' she said. CNN's analysis is based on ICE records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Deportation Data Project, a research group associated with the UC Berkeley law school. The analysis covers the period since Trump took office through late June. In its annual reports, ICE defines arrests in two categories: those that happen in prisons and jails, and 'at-large' arrests in the community. In prisons and jails, ICE typically sends a detainer request to corrections officials for undocumented inmates, and then agents come to the facilities to arrest them before they leave custody. Community arrests, by contrast, include everything from workplace raids to teams trailing and apprehending immigrants. In 2024, under President Joe Biden – whose administration said it was prioritizing arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants with criminal records – about 62% of ICE arrests were from prisons and jails, while 27% were in the community, the data shows. So far in Trump's term, arrests overall are up, and the balance has changed: 49% have been in prisons and jails, and 44% in the community. But those percentages diverge widely between the 31 states won by Donald Trump and the 19 states won by Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, which have similar total undocumented populations, according to 2023 estimates from the Center for Migration Studies, a nonprofit. In the Trump-voting states, ICE is not only more likely to arrest immigrants already in custody, but they're also more likely to have a record: 41% of those arrested in red states had a prior criminal conviction, compared to 36% of immigrants arrested by ICE in Harris states. Most prior convictions are for lower-level crimes like traffic offenses, immigration violations and other non-violent charges, a CNN analysis of internal ICE data found earlier this summer. In part, that disparity comes from how states and cities without sanctuary policies respond to ICE detainer requests. In most red states, those detainers are honored, allowing ICE to pick up thousands of undocumented immigrants directly from jail or prison. But in many blue states and cities, sanctuary policies direct officials to refuse ICE detainer requests without a court warrant. Some states go further in limiting local police's collaboration with ICE: Boston prevents officers from even asking about immigration status, for example. The ICE data suggests that some sanctuary policies are blocking the agency from arresting immigrants – to a point. In Mississippi, for example, which has banned the establishment of sanctuary policies in the state, 87% of immigrants ICE filed a detainer request for through the end of May were later arrested by the agency in prisons and jails. In New York, which has state and local policies limiting cooperation with ICE, only 4% of the immigrants that ICE had requested detainers for were arrested in prisons and jails. So in blue states, the Trump administration has instead relied more on a different policy: immigration raids and community arrests. In Los Angeles, where those raids sparked unrest earlier this summer, Trump deployed the National Guard. The administration later sued the city for its sanctuary policies, saying the city was contributing to a 'lawless and unsafe environment.' Many activists, though, say the nature of those blue-state raids – and especially ICE's efforts to promote and publicize them – show they serve a broader purpose beyond just evading sanctuary policies. Those aggressive tactics are 'shocking and they're such a departure from the norm,' Bush-Joseph said. 'But their intent might be more so about deterrence and trying to dissuade people from coming to the US-Mexico border, as well as trying to get people to self-deport.' Overall, ICE's arrest and detention machine may just be ramping up. The recent budget reconciliation bill signed by Trump includes billions in new funding for the agency. And a growing number of local and state law enforcement agencies – largely in red states – are signing up for an ICE program that allows them to help enforce immigration laws. ICE's embrace of public arrests is particularly pronounced in Massachusetts. While Massachusetts doesn't have a formal sanctuary law at the state level, a 2017 state supreme court ruling bans law enforcement from holding anyone beyond the time they would otherwise be released on the basis of an ICE detainer request. Boston and several other cities also have policies that go further, preventing law enforcement from coordinating with ICE more broadly. Lyons, the acting ICE director, led the Boston ICE office – which is responsible for arrests in Massachusetts and five other New England states – before being elevated to his current role. In interviews and statements, he's decried sanctuary policies in the state. 'Boston's my hometown and it really shocks me that officials all over Massachusetts would rather release sex offenders, fentanyl dealers, drug dealers, human traffickers, and child rapists back into the neighborhoods,' he told reporters this summer – without addressing the fact that a large majority of immigrants arrested in the state this year had no criminal convictions. In May, ICE carried out what officials described as the largest enforcement operation in the agency's history, arresting more than 1,400 people in communities across Massachusetts. Around New England, other high-profile cases have included ICE officers detaining a Tufts PhD student who co-wrote a student newspaper op-ed critical of Israel and smashing the window of an immigrant's car and yanking him out of the passenger seat in front of his wife. ICE's aggressive tactics in the region have been defined by 'a general level of mean-spiritedness and brutality,' said Daniel Kanstroom, a Boston College law professor who founded the college's immigration and asylum law clinic. 'We've never seen masked agents before. We've never seen students arrested for writing op-eds before. We've never seen people dragged out of immigration court before.' Stepped-up community arrests are having a marked impact on immigrant-heavy neighborhoods in the Boston area, local advocates say. In suburbs like Chelsea and Everett, which have large Salvadoran and Central American communities, some immigrants are staying home out of fear of ICE raids. 'We're seeing people not going to their doctor's appointments, kids not going to school, folks not going grocery shopping,' said Sarang Sekhavat, the chief of staff at the Massachusetts Immigrant & Refugee Advocacy Coalition. 'You're seeing a lot of businesses in some of these neighborhoods really suffering because people just don't want to leave home… bustling, active neighborhoods that have become very quiet now.' ICE's dragnet has picked up people like Geovani Esau De La Cruz Catalan, who was arrested by immigration agents on the street outside his Chelsea home in June – just days after he crossed the stage at his high school graduation. The 20-year-old, who has no criminal history, came to the US from Guatemala in 2022. He told CNN his hopes to build a new life in America were dashed when he was detained. 'I thought they were going to take away all the dreams I had,' De La Cruz said in Spanish. 'I was in shock.' De La Cruz spent two weeks in ICE custody before being released with a future immigration court date. His stepmother, Mayra Balderas, said he has a work permit, but it's unclear whether he'll be allowed to stay or deported back to Guatemala. Balderas, an American citizen who immigrated to the US more than three decades ago, said ICE agents were frequently patrolling her Chelsea neighborhood, something she'd never seen before Trump took office. 'Since I've been here, I never have any experience like that – going into the neighborhoods and pulling people and doing what they're doing,' Balderas said. 'They are scaring people.' Methodology CNN analyzed data on ICE arrests and detainers published by the Data Deportation Project, a research group associated with UC Berkeley law school. The data includes administrative arrests, in which immigrants arrested face deportation, not criminal arrests for human trafficking or similar crimes. For data that was missing information about the state where an immigrant was arrested, when possible, CNN inferred the state based on which ICE field office conducted the arrest, using areas of responsibility described on the ICE website. A state could not be identified for about 11% of arrests, and those are not included in state-by-state totals. Based on information in ICE annual reports and interviews with policy experts, CNN defined arrests in jails and prisons as those with an apprehension method described in the data as 'CAP Local Incarceration,' 'CAP State Incarceration,' or 'CAP Federal Incarceration' (referring to ICE's Criminal Alien Program) and arrests in the community as those listed as 'Non-Custodial Arrest,' 'Located,' 'Worksite Enforcement,' 'Traffic Check,' or 'Probation and Parole.' About 7% of arrests were listed as 'Other Efforts' or didn't fit clearly into either category.
Fox News
29 minutes ago
- Fox News
Newsom vows to fight back over Texas redistricting plan: 'Fight fire with fire'
Political analyst Tiffany Marie Brannon joins 'Fox & Friends First' to discuss the latest on the redistricting feud in Texas and her reaction to a House Democrat saying she is a 'proud Guatemalan' before she's an American.
