Live updates: Texas Legislature’s redistricting fight spills over onto national stage

Appearing alongside five Texas House Democrats in Albany, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she and Democratic state legislators there are exploring ways to quickly pursue mid-decade redistricting.

Hochul slammed the Texas redistricting effort as a racist attempt to disenfranchise voters of color and hold onto congressional power. Calling out Abbott and Republican President Donald Trump, who pushed for the mid-decade redistricting, she said redrawing districts now is “legal insurrection” — meaning Republicans are using the legal process — meant to “drag us towards authoritarianism.”

New York has an independent redistricting commission which would be legislatively complicated to undo. But Hochul said the Texas threat is dangerous enough to warrant abandoning the principle of independent map-drawing. New York, she said, should not have to abide by rules that Republican states do not have.

“I cannot ignore that the playing field has changed overnight,” she said. “Shame on us if we ignore that fact and cling tight to the vestiges of the past. That era is over. Donald Trump eliminated that forever.”

To do so, New York Democrats are exploring a constitutional amendment allowing the Legislature to redraw congressional maps if another state pursues it first. It would need to pass through the Legislature twice and then be approved by voters in a ballot referendum, meaning new maps could not be used until the 2028 election cycle — a full cycle later than Texas, if the Texas Legislature is able to pass its redistricting bill. That would coincide with the next presidential election.

Hochul also said that the Texas House Democrats in Albany plan to leave New York this afternoon, though they did not say what their next destination will be.

At the press conference, Texas Democrats panned the notion that Abbott or any other Texas Republican could compel them to return or arrest them for leaving.

State Rep. Jolanda Jones, D-Houston, said denying a quorum is not a felony.

“Respectfully, he’s making up some shit,” Jones said. “ He’s trying to get soundbites, and he has no legal mechanism. And if he did, subpoenas from Texas don’t work in New York.”

— Gabby Birenbaum

Gov. Greg Abbott has warned Texas House Democrats that he would initiate removal proceedings if they do not return to Austin to pass the GOP’s proposed new congressional maps.

The Republican governor’s Sunday threat came after more than 50 Democrats left the state Sunday afternoon so the Texas House would not have the necessary number of members present to pass legislation.

“This truancy ends now,” Abbott said in a letter sent to each of the departed members, telling them to return to the Texas Capitol by 3 p.m. Monday.

In threatening to remove the elected officials from office, Abbott cited a nonbinding 2021 legal opinion from Attorney General Ken Paxton, who said it would be up to a court to decide whether a lawmaker who had left the state to deny quorum had forfeited their office.

— Eleanor Klibanoff

The Texas House’s redistricting committee approved a proposed congressional map Saturday that could flip five U.S. House seats currently held by Democrats. The proposed new district boundaries target Democratic members in the Austin, Dallas and Houston metro areas and in South Texas.

The 12-6 vote to send the proposal to the full Texas House fell along party lines and came after the committee heard from Texans who are largely opposed to the plan. That vote happened after Republicans acknowledged they are redrawing the congressional map to advantage Republican candidates, setting aside a legal justification offered by the U.S. Department of Justice.

“Different from everyone else, I’m telling you, I’m not beating around the bush,” said state Rep. Todd Hunter, the Corpus Christi Republican carrying the bill. “We have five new districts, and these five new districts are based on political performance.”

Currently, Republicans hold 25 of Texas’ 38 House seats. Trump carried 27 of those districts in 2024, including those won by Democratic U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar of Laredo and Vicente Gonzalez of McAllen.

— Eleanor Klibanoff, Kayla Guo and Gabby Birenbaum