Texas Democrats flee State to block GOP from redrawing political map

Democratic members of the Texas House of Representatives left the state on Sunday, a last-ditch attempt to stop Republicans from adopting an aggressively redrawn congressional map.

Their absence is expected to prevent the House from reaching the quorum needed to hold a vote this week.

The walkout was a sharp escalation in the bitter partisan clash over a mid-decade redistricting in Texas that was requested by President Donald Trump.

Republicans in the State legislature were rapidly moving forward, with the map — drawn to flip five Democratic congressional districts to favour Republicans — being passed out of two committees over the weekend.

A floor debate on the map, and a potential vote of the full House, was scheduled for Monday.

The ultimate outcome is far from certain: A walkout could delay action in the Legislature for several weeks or more, but comparable past attempts to block Republican legislation and redistricting in Texas have eventually failed.

Most of the Democratic lawmakers who took part were heading to Chicago and took off shortly after 5pm.

Governo JB Pritzker of Illinois has been weighing whether his state would respond to the move in Texas by redrawing its own congressional map in Democrats’ favour.

Texas Democrats who flew to Chicago planned to hold a news conference with Mr Pritzker late Sunday at a local Democratic Party office near the city.

A smaller group of Texas Democrats was going to New York, where they were expected to meet with Gov. Kathy Hochul on Monday. She has also been looking for ways that her state could respond to the Republican move.

A handful of Democratic lawmakers were traveling from Texas to Boston, for a meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures this week.

“We’re leaving Texas to fight for Texans,” Gene Wu, a state representative from Houston and chair of the Democratic caucus in the Texas House, said in a statement Sunday. “We’re walking out on a rigged system that refuses to listen to the people we represent.”

Mr Wu faulted Mr Trump and Governor Greg Abbott of Texas for pushing the redistricting forward in a special legislative session before lawmakers had taken action on a response to the deadly flooding in the Texas Hill Country.

Mr Wu, who was travelling to Illinois, suggested that the walkout could last through the rest of the 30-day special session, which was scheduled to end in late August, and possibly beyond.

“As of today, this corrupt special session is over,” Mr Wu said.

The action had the support of national Democratic groups and required coordination among nearly all of the Democrats in the Texas House. For the House to conduct business, at least two-thirds of its 150 members must be present. There are 62 Democrats in the House, and at least 51 of them would have to take part for the walkout to be effective.

On Sunday afternoon, several Democratic state representatives posted videos and photos of themselves boarding a chartered plane at an airport in Austin.

“We didn’t start this fight — Donald Trump started it,” Rep. Ramon Romero Jr., a Fort Worth area Democrat said in one video. “You see me? Look here. Bye.”

Texas Republican lawmakers could try to compel the Democratic members to return by issuing civil arrest warrants for violating the rules of the Texas House, as they did during a previous walkout, or by withholding pay from the members and their staffs.

State House Speaker Dustin Burrows, a Republican, said in a statement that “all options will be on the table” if not enough members are present when the House meets at 3 p.m. local time Monday.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said on social platform X that Democrats “who try and run away like cowards should be found, arrested and brought back to the Capitol immediately.” He has promised to work with state and federal authorities to bring back absent members.

Texas Democrats have been discussing the possibility of preventing a quorum ever since Abbott, a Republican, added redistricting to the agenda for the special session that began July 21.

Some Democratic members appeared to be apprehensive about attempting a walkout because the Republican majority in the House adopted new rules that impose a fine of $500 for each day a member is absent without permission.

Even so, national Democrats, including the Democratic National Committee, urged Texas Democrats to use whatever tactics were at their disposal. The fines could potentially be challenged in court.

“We will fight alongside them to stop this anti-democratic assault,” Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement Sunday.

Discussions about Texas Democrats traveling to Illinois have been going on since at least late June, when party officials in Texas began speaking with Mr Pritzker and his staff.

A group of Texas Democrats flew to Chicago last month, met with Mr Pritzker and were reassured that the governor and his team would support them if they chose to go to Illinois, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

Mr Pritzker’s staff has been providing logistical support, including determining where the lawmakers could stay and offering office resources, the person said.

Though Illinois has offered a safe haven, some Texas Democratic members expressed concern that Mr Trump would try to use federal agents to round up the legislators and bring them back to Texas. It was not immediately clear whether there would be a legal basis for doing so, since the lawmakers would be violating state legislative rules and not federal law.

Previous walkouts by Texas Democrats against the solid Republican majority in the Texas Legislature have also been mounted in what they said was a defense of voting rights. Many of the members who left the state Sunday had done so before.

“Our democracy is being stolen right in front of our faces,” said Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, who helped lead the action in 2021. “If it takes Texas Democrats to walk out and wake up the nation, that’s what we’re going to do. Democrats need to start acting like Democrats and fight back.”

In 2021, Texas Democrats walked out hoping to block legislation on voting that they said would diminish representation for Black and Hispanic voters across the state. In response, the Republican speaker of the Texas House issued civil arrest warrants for the absent members to force them to return, and the Texas Supreme Court upheld their validity, concluding that the Legislature had the authority to “physically compel the attendance of absent members to achieve a quorum.”

None of the members actually were arrested in 2021. But after nearly five weeks’ absence, three Democrats broke ranks and returned to the state Capitol in Austin, allowing the House to achieve a quorum and pass the legislation in a new special session called by Abbott. The Legislature also adopted new district maps after the Democrats returned.

“Texas Dems pulled the same stunt in 2021 because of my election integrity bill,” said state Sen. Bryan Hughes, an east Texas Republican, of the walkout Sunday. “We still got it passed and we’ll do it again with redistricting.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.