Texas Republicans say that ‘Democrats hunted that leave the State on the redistribution of districts
The legislators of the State Democratic House plan to leave Texas on Sunday to break the quorum of a special legislative session in which Republican state legislators aim to approve a new map of Congress that can create up to five new Republican seats.
The measure is produced after a marathon public hearing on the Plan in the State Capitol on Friday and less than a week after state republican legislators proposed the new maps. Republicans have a majority in the Texas State Legislature; The Democrats had said that they would consider all the options to prevent the maps from being approved, although their options to retreat have been limited.
“We are not walking on our responsibilities; we are leaving in a manipulated system that refuses to listen to the people we represent. As of today, this corrupt special session is over,” said state representative Gene Wu, who presides over the democratic Caucus of the House of Representatives.
After the news was learned from the Democratic legislators who broke the quorum, the Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wrote in an X position that the Democrats who left should be arrested and returned to the State Capitol.
The American representative Jelanda Jones, D-Texas, looks at a map during the meeting of the Redistribution Committee of the Texas State House on August 1, 2025 in Austin. The Select Committee of the Redistribution of the Congress of the House of Representatives celebrated its first hearing since the Texas Republicans reduced their Map of Congress. The Maps of the Rediseños Congress occurred immediately after an impulse from President Donald Trump before half of next year’s partial exams.
Brandon Bell/Getty images
“Democrats in the Texas Chamber trying to flee as cowards must be found, arrested and returned to the Capitol immediately,” he wrote. “We should use all the tools at our disposal to hunt those who think they are above the law.”
The strike itself cannot stop the approval of the bill, but the Democrats aim to run out of the clock in the 30 -day special legislative session, which would mean that Texas governor Greg Abbott would have to call another. The Democrats of the Texas House of Representatives broke the quorum in 2021 to try to stop a draft election law and in 2003 to try to stop an effort to redistribution of districts similar to Republicans. The Republicans finally managed to approve the bills twice.
President Donald Trump said previously that he wanted Texas legislators to draw five new republican districts.
More than 51 legislators leave the State, denying the State Chamber the majority of two thirds of 150 legislators that need to have a quorum. An exact number of how many of the 62 Democratic legislators of the House of Representatives were not immediately available.
Democrats who break the risk of quorum accumulate a fine of $ 500 per day, according to the rules of the House of Representatives and possible legal actions.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, speaking with the host of the “war room” and the former Trump advisor, Steve Bannon, said Thursday: “The rules of the Chamber and the rules of the Senate allow these people to be arrested if they leave … The challenge is, if they leave the states, we lose the jurisdiction, and that has been a challenge in the past, willing to take sessions, at the height, that are home. “
The Capitol of the State of Texas is seen on July 21, 2025 in Austin. Legislators are gathering for a special session to discuss an agenda described by Governor Greg Abbott that seeks to address the relief of floods in response to the central floods of Texas that killed more than 100 people, redistribution of districts of Congress and THC products.
Brandon Bell/Getty images
Paxton also said that he was not worried about defending the maps in court: “We have, we have good maps. And the legislature has the right to draw the maps they want. They are based on the political race, not based on the race. And if they are based on policies, then they are defensible.”
Some of the Democratic legislators fleeing the State will appear Sunday night with the governor of Illinois JB Pritzker at a press conference. Pritzker has been a firm defender of Texas Democrats and has raised the possibility that the maps of the Illinois Congress will become redrawn if Texas returns to draw their maps. Illinois maps have been criticized by external observers as very partisan in favor of the Democrats.
At the end of June, the president of the Texas Democrats, Kendall Scudder, flew from Dallas to Oklahoma to see Pritzker, who was commenting at the state’s Democratic Party dinner. The couple had a private meeting during that to talk about the possibility that legislators huy from the State to Illinois, and if they flee from the State, they would have a place where they would feel safe and supported.
The governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, speaks during the announcement of the Chicago 2027 star game before a game between the Baltimore orioles and the Chicago puppies in Wrigley Field on August 1, 2025 in Chicago.
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Since then, the Democrats of Pritzker and Texas have been in contact, and a small group of them traveled to Chicago in July when the members of the delegation went to Illinois and California for short meetings.
Pritzker and his team have been helping behind the scene to help find hotels in the area for the Democrats, help their operation and grease the wheels, so things are going well for them while they go to Illinois.
The bill that contains the maps had been scheduled to be carried out on the floor of the State Representatives Chamber on Monday.
