Texas Democrats Flee State to Block Redistricting Vote
Democratic lawmakers have yet to return to Texas after they left the state Aug. 3 in a dramatic escalation meant to block the consideration of a bill to redraw the state’s congressional maps.
“This is not a decision we make lightly, but it is one we make with absolute moral clarity,” said Gene Wu, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, in a statement, alleging that Texas wants to gerrymander district lines.
Most of the legislators traveled to Illinois, which has the most gerrymandered and oddest-looking congressional district lines in the nation. Others went to New York.
The move is intended as a last-ditch attempt to block Republicans from holding a vote on legislation to redraw several Democratic districts that the Department of Justice says are illegally gerrymandered according to requirements of the Voting Rights Act. Democrats have threatened such a walkout for weeks to prevent passage of the legislation through the Republican-dominated state government.
“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,” Wu said.
It comes as Republicans are moving forward during a special session of the Legislature with a plan to redraw Texas’s congressional maps in line with a demand from President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ), which has claimed that some of the state’s congressional districts may be illegal.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has threatened consequences ranging from fines to arrests if Democrats left the state.
In a post on X after news that Democrats had left the state broke, Paxton said that Texas should “use every tool at our disposal to hunt down those who think they are above the law.”
Like its counterparts in other states and the federal government, the Texas Legislature must have a quorum—a sufficient number of lawmakers—to conduct business. In the Lone Star State, two-thirds of lawmakers must be present to conduct any legislative business. That applies to both chambers of the Legislature.
This isn’t the first time Texas Democrats have left the state to prevent the legislature from voting. In 2021, Texas Democrats retreated to Washington, D.C., during a 38-day standoff revolving around election legislation.
By Joseph Lord | The Epoch Times
