US president has urged Republicans to redraw map to help his party net a handful of seats in the midterms next year.
Democratic lawmakers in Texas are leaving the state en masse to try to prevent a vote on Monday on new congressional maps that Republicans hope will win them several additional seats in the United States House of Representatives in the 2026 midterm elections to buttress their narrow majority.
The move could expose Democrats to fines and other penalties, and the state’s attorney general had threatened to arrest them if they took such an action. Refusing to attend legislative sessions is a civil violation, so Democrats legally could not be jailed, and it is unclear who has the power to carry out the warrants.
Republican Governor Greg Abbott warned he would begin proceedings on Monday to remove lawmakers from office if they don’t return to Austin by the time the vote takes place at 3pm (20:00 GMT). In a statement issued on Sunday night, Abbott said local law allowed him to fill the vacant seats should the lawmakers fail to return and said the legislators “may also have committed felonies” by raising funds to pay possible fines.
Democrats have cast the decision to leave the state as a last-ditch effort to stop Republicans, who hold full control of the Texas government, from pushing through a rare mid-decade redrawing of the congressional map at the direction of US President Donald Trump.
Trump is eager to avoid a repeat of his first term when Democrats flipped the US House just two years into his presidency, stymying his legislative plans, and he hopes the new Texas map will aid that effort.
“This is not a decision we make lightly, but it is one we make with absolute moral clarity,” Gene Wu, chairperson of the House Democratic Caucus, said in a statement.
To conduct official business, at least 100 members of the 150-member Texas House of Representatives must be present.
Democrats hold 62 of the seats. At least 51 Democratic members are leaving the state, said Josh Rush Nisenson, spokesperson for the House Democratic Caucus.
“Apathy is complicity, and we will not be complicit in the silencing of hard-working communities who have spent decades fighting for the power that Trump wants to steal,” he said.
Standoff in 2021
The move marks the second time in four years that Texas Democrats have fled the state to block a vote.
In 2021, a 38-day standoff took place when Democrats left for Washington, DC, in opposition to new voting restrictions.
Abbott called a special session of the legislature that started last month to take up the redistricting effort and to respond to flooding in Texas Hill Country that killed at least 135 people in July.
Texas Republicans last week unveiled their proposed US House electoral map, which would create an additional five Republican-leaning districts. Republicans currently hold 25 of the state’s 38 seats.