Texas Democrats end walkout, allowing redrawn map to pass
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 6 hours ago
- 4 min read
By J. David Goodman
Democrats in the Texas Legislature who had left the state to halt an aggressive redistricting returned to Texas and ended their two-week walkout Monday, opening the way for Republicans to pass a redrawn congressional map called for by President Donald Trump.
For the past two weeks, Republican leaders in Texas bristled at the Democrats’ flight and took extraordinary steps to pressure them to return. Gov. Greg Abbott and state Attorney General Ken Paxton sued to try to remove the absent Democrats from office. Sen. John Cornyn got the FBI involved in locating them. The speaker of the state House, Dustin Burrows, issued civil arrest warrants and threatened to impose $500-a-day fines under House rules.
But in the end, Democrats said they decided to return after their walkout succeeded in preventing a vote on the map in the first special legislative session, a move that drew national attention to Trump’s push for a rare mid-decade redistricting and helped propel Democratic-run states to begin their own redistricting efforts.
California state lawmakers introduced legislation Monday to redraw that state’s congressional map to be more favorable to Democrats as a counter to the changes in Texas — a move championed by California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom. They are expected to vote Thursday on the proposal.
The standoff among Texas lawmakers began Aug. 3, when dozens of Democratic state representatives boarded a charter plane to Chicago. And it ended in much the same way, with a large group of Democrats flying together back to Austin.
Their charter jet landed just over an hour before the Texas House was set to convene at noon local time, and about two dozen representatives went directly to the Capitol from the airport.
They were cheered by a crowd of supporters, some waving signs reading “Thank you, Dems,” and others wearing union shirts, who lined the steps near the state House chamber.
“We have woken the nation up,” said state Rep. Mihaela Plesa, a Dallas-area Democrat, after returning from Chicago.
The walkout did not change the raw political dynamics in Republican-dominated Texas, where the state House of Representatives is made up of 62 Democrats and 88 Republicans. Democrats remained powerless to permanently stop the chamber from adopting a new congressional district map. But when that happens, as is expected, the Democrats say they will sue to challenge its legality.
“Our return allows us to build the legal record necessary to defeat this racist map in court,” said state Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, who led the walkout.
At least 100 members of the Texas House must be present to have a quorum and conduct business; recently there had been around 96 members on hand. With the Democrats’ return Monday, 120 total members were marked present.
“We are done waiting; we have a quorum,” said Burrows, R-Lubbock. “Now is the time for action.”
Many other Democratic lawmakers did not immediately return to the floor Monday — 29 members were recorded as absent — and some remained out of state.
“I’m not coming back,” said Rep. Jolanda Jones, D-Houston. “The only power we have is the power to deny them a quorum,” she added. “Who goes to a fight where you’ve already lost?”
Burrows said that civil arrest warrants would remain in effect for the members who were still absent. For the Democrats who showed up, Burrows said a state police officer would be assigned to each of them “who will ensure your return” to the Capitol for the rest of the special legislative session.
The proposed map, which could be passed quickly this week, is meant to help Republicans keep control of the U.S. House after the 2026 midterms, by redrawing five districts now represented by Democrats so they will be likely to elect Republican candidates. Republicans said in public hearings that their goals were strictly partisan. Democrats argued that the new map would illegally disempower Black and Hispanic voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act.
After the Democratic walkout began, the fight over Texas’ redistricting expanded into a bare-knuckled national political brawl between red and blue states. While California moves forward with its attempt to counteract the effect of the Texas map, several Republican states — including Florida, Indiana, Missouri and Ohio — have been weighing redistrictings of their own.
The extraordinary interstate fight over drawing congressional lines — a process that usually occurs only once a decade, after the U.S. census — erupted suddenly in the spring, at the behest of Trump and his political aides. Concerned about losing control of the U.S. House after the 2026 midterms, they began lobbying Texas and other Republican states to remake districts to their advantage.
Texas was the first to act. Abbott put redistricting on the agenda for a special session of the Legislature that he had called, which was also intended to address measures in response to last month’s devastating Hill Country floods.
Lacking the votes to stop the Republican map, dozens of Democratic representatives left the state, with most landing outside Chicago, where Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois offered them refuge from Texas officials seeking to compel their return.
Republican leaders in Texas ratcheted up the pressure on the absent lawmakers. Abbott promised to call repeated special sessions until the map passed, and he followed through Friday, announcing a second special session minutes after the first one ended.
Yet none of those efforts led directly to the return of the Democrats.
Instead, the Democratic lawmakers decided to return after the first special session ended Friday. For many of them, the goal had been to hold together through the end of the first session, to attract attention and to give other states like California time to start their own processes of redistricting.
“Your efforts have not been in vain,” said Ken Martin, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, in a letter to the Texas Democrats on Monday. “Others will now pick up the torch.”