Texas Republicans push ahead with redistricting after Democrats flee state

CNN

5 hours ago

Update:
Date: 10 min ago
Title: Analysis: Chief Justice John Roberts' opinion helped facilitate GOP gerrymandering efforts in Texas
Content:
The brazen partisan redistricting underway in Texas, with Republicans attempting to entrench themselves in office and Democrats weighing a counter-offensive in blue states, was greenlit by the US Supreme Court six years ago.
Chief Justice John Roberts, in an opinion for a 5-4 court, declared that federal judges could not review extreme partisan gerrymanders to determine if they violated constitutional rights.
Roberts' opinion reversed cases that would have allowed such districts — drawn to advantage one political party over another irrespective of voters' interests — to be challenged as violations of the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech and association and the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection.
The justices split among the familiar ideological lines, with the five conservatives ruling against partisan gerrymanders and the four liberals dissenting.
'Of all times to abandon the Court's duty to declare the law, this was not the one,' dissenting justices warned in 2019, 'The practices challenged in these cases imperil our system of government. Part of the Court's role in that system is to defend its foundations. None is more important than free and fair elections.'
That decision in Rucho v. Common Cause has generated a new era of partisan rivalry with vast repercussions for American democracy. The decision resonates as profoundly as the Roberts Court's decision last year in Trump v. United States, which granted presidents substantial immunity from criminal prosecution (also delivered among partisan lines).
Trump has taken the 2024 ruling as a blank check, tearing through democratic norms.
Read more about the impact of the Supreme Court's decision.
Update:
Date: 37 min ago
Title: US Rep. Greg Casar plans demonstration outside Texas governor's mansion
Content:
Democratic US Rep. Greg Casar of Texas said he will host a demonstration outside Gov. Greg Abbott's office today, as Democrats nationwide push back on the controversial GOP-led redistricting plan in the Lone Star State.
Casar's office said he would 'lead an emergency march and picket' at 5:30 p.m. CT (6:30 p.m. ET) outside the governor's mansion, a response to 'Abbott threatening to remove nearly every Texas Democrat from office.'
'Wannabe Dictator Abbott is threatening to unilaterally remove nearly all Texas Democrats from office,' Casar wrote on social media, promoting the protest.
Abbott said during an interview on Fox News earlier Monday that he believed Democratic lawmakers who left the state over the weekend 'have forfeited their seats in the state legislature' and also warned of potential bribery charges if the lawmakers accepted any funds to travel out of Texas.
Update:
Date: 55 min ago
Title: "Gloves are off": New York governor vows retaliation
Content:
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said today she is exploring 'every option' with state leaders to 'redraw our state congressional lines as soon as possible' as Democrats prepare to fight back against Republicans' redistricting push in Texas.
'This will have implications, not just in Texas, but for our entire nation and its future,' Hochul said at a news conference in an Albany.
She was joined by several Democratic members of the Texas state legislature who left the state Sunday, as CNN has reported, in a desperate bid to block the GOP redistricting plan.
'The gloves are off, and I say, bring it on,' Hochul declared.
Some context: Tensions are deepening in Texas and seeping into other populous states as Republicans drive toward a controversial mid-decade redistricting in the Lone Star State. The effort, pushed by President Donald Trump, would aggressively redraw district lines in Texas and potentially eliminate five Democratic US House seats ahead of the 2026 midterms.
States typically redraw congressional district boundaries once every 10 years following the release of updated population data from the United States census. A mid-decade revision of the map would be an extraordinary move — one that Democrats contend is a nakedly partisan effort aimed at bolstering Republicans' prospects of retaining control of the House.
But Democrats nationwide have threatened to respond to the GOP's efforts at redistricting in Texas with the same tactics in Democratic-controlled states like California and New York. National Democratic Redistricting Committee Chairman Eric Holder, a longtime critic of partisan gerrymandering, says it may be time for Democrats to change their approach.
Update:
Date: 54 min ago
Title: Abbott is making "idle threats" against Texas Democrats who fled state, US House minority leader says
Content:
US House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries pushed back on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's threat to remove Democratic lawmakers who left the state to thwart a Republican-led redraw of congressional lines.
'Gov. Abbott is making idle threats,' Jeffries said today on CNN's 'The Situation Room.' 'He is all hat, no cattle.'
Abbott has also suggested Democratic legislators could face bribery charges if they accept donations to help pay the $500 fine they will accrue each day they are away from the state Capitol.
Jeffries said there is 'no basis to charge' the lawmakers.
The New York Democrat also defended the governors in his party who are weighing their own mid-decade redistricting plans to counter the move by Texas Republicans. The GOP map in Texas seeks to create five additional, Republican-friendly House seats in the Lone Star State to help boost the party's chances of retaining control of the US House in next year's midterm elections.
'What Democrats would be doing in response is to make sure that there is one fair, national map,' Jeffries said.
Update:
Date: 1 hr 9 min ago
Title: "There's nothing illegal about this," Texas governor says on GOP's gerrymandering efforts
Content:
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said today that 'gerrymandering can be done' and that 'there's nothing illegal about that' while castigating state Democrats who left Texas, arguing they had 'forfeited their seats.'
Abbott told Fox News that the state Democratic lawmakers had 'absconded' from their responsibilities and that 'I believe they have forfeited their seats in the state legislature because they're not doing the job they were elected to do.'
Abbott issued stern warnings about the potential of bribery charges against state Democrats if they accepted funds for their travel out of state.
'It would be bribery if any lawmaker took money to perform or to refuse to perform an act in the legislature. And the reports are, these legislators have been both,' Abbott said.
The Texas legislature is scheduled to convene Monday at 4 p.m. Eastern (3 p.m. Central). Abbott said the only way Democrats could 'cure' themselves of potential criminal sanction is by appearing in Austin when the legislature opens Monday.
Abbott also responded to Democratic state Rep. Gene Wu, who accused Republicans of drawing a 'racist, gerrymandered map,' by saying that the new GOP plan 'will add four new Hispanic districts, and so there's actually going to be more racial minority districts in the state of Texas.'
And he argued that the voters in those districts 'want to vote Republican,' citing President Donald Trump's improved performance with Hispanic voters in the 2024 election.
Update:
Date: 48 min ago
Title: Here's why Texas Democrats fled the state amid unprecedented partisan redistricting efforts
Content:
Texas House Democrats left the state in a desperate bid to block a partisan redrawing of the state's congressional map orchestrated by Republicans.
Here's what we know:
Update:
Date: 1 hr 13 min ago
Title: Republicans face razor-thin margin in House
Content:
The proposal by Republican Texas lawmakers to redistrict comes as the Party faces narrow margins in the US House.
It would eliminate five Democratic House seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Here's what the balance of power looks like:
Update:
Date: 1 hr 40 min ago
Title: Abbott threatens to remove Democrats from state House
Content:
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to remove Democrats from the state House if they don't return by 4 p.m. ET today, equating the absence to an 'abandonment or forfeiture of an elected state office.'
Texas House Democrats left the state in an attempt to block a partisan effort to redraw the state's congressional map orchestrated by Republicans with the support of President Donald Trump.
After a similar play by Texas Democrats in 2021, new rules were put in place to fine lawmakers $500 a day if a member is absent, including 'for the purpose of impeding the action of the House.'
In his statement late Sunday warning Democrats they could lose House membership, Abbott also accused them of raising money to cover their fines, which he suggested may be a felony.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) threatened to remove Democrats from the state House if they don't return by 3 PM today. Texas House Democrats left the state to try and block an aggressively partisan redrawing of the state's congressional map orchestrated by Republicans with the support of President Donald Trump. #texas #democrats #gregabbott #congressionalmaps #trump #news #cnn
Update:
Date: 1 hr 52 min ago
Title: Texas Democrats and Illinois governor put "spotlight" on Trump-backed redistricting efforts
Content:
Texas House Democrats and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker presented a show of unity in Chicago yesterday after lawmakers left the state to halt a vote on a GOP-drawn congressional district map.
'In the coming days and weeks, Illinois will partner with the Texas House Democratic Caucus to put a spotlight on the danger that Trump and Texas Republicans pose to all Americans,' Pritzker said in a news conference.
Pritzker welcomed the Texas Democrats to his state and noted that he met with a group of lawmakers nine days ago to 'learn about the challenges' facing the caucus.
Asked about the potential redistricting efforts led by Democratic governors in California and New York, Pritzker said, 'Everything's got to be on the table.'
State House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu criticized Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for his 'submission to Donald Trump' and for focusing on redistricting in the wake of last month's devastating flooding in central Texas.
'All Texans across the state have asked for is that the legislature focus and spend its time taking care of the families who are grieving,' Wu said. 'Instead, Gov. Abbott has used this tragedy, taken these families who are grieving, taken these communities who are struggling to recover, and used them as hostages in a political game.'
State Rep. Chris Turner, a former chair of the Democratic caucus, noted that aside from this delegation of lawmakers in Illinois, the Texas Democrats also have representatives in Albany, New York, and Boston 'meeting with leaders in those states to tell them what's happening.'