Texas Democrats are entering the third day after fleeing the state to block Republicans from passing a gerrymandered map that would offer the GOP five pickup opportunities in the House next year.
After a Texas House committee advanced new congressional lines during their special session last week, Democrats left the Lone Star State to deny Republicans a quorum, or the minimum number of lawmakers needed to conduct business.
In response, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has called for the Democrats’ arrest and has ordered the Texas Rangers to launch a probe into the lawmakers for possible bribery and other violations.
Meanwhile, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) declared he would “seek judicial orders declaring that runaway Democrats who fail to appear by the Speaker’s deadline have vacated their office.” But for now, the two parties are locked in a standoff.
Here’s a look at what comes next in the Texas redistricting battle:
How long can Democrats stay out?
Essentially, they can stay out of the state as long as they want.
Texas Democrats have broken quorum before. In 2003, they fled the state to try to stop Republicans from passing GOP-friendly maps. They also left the state in 2021 when Republicans worked on largely restrictive voting and election legislation.
Both times, Democrats eventually returned to the state, and Republicans passed their priorities each time. Democrats are likely on a similar trajectory because Republicans control the state Legislature and the governor’s mansion, and there’s a conservative majority on the Texas Supreme Court.
The question this time is how long will Democrats remain away from the state. Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, said he expects Democrats to at least run out the clock of the first special session.
Rottinghaus noted the key to Democrats’ endurance is about “stamina, resources and unity.”
If “they can hold all those things, then they can be successful. If not, then they’ll start to see some dribbling of support from the members who’ve fled the quorum and they’ll ultimately kind of lose that support,” he said.
What other means of pressure can Republicans exert?
Republicans don’t have many options in terms of forcing Democrats to return to the state for their special session, though Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who’s in a competitive reelection battle against Paxton, has pressed the FBI to help Republicans bring the lawmakers who fled back to their state.
Rottinghaus noted that Democrats could face some pressure from their constituents who want to see them back in the state; they might also face pressure to return to the state to deal with some of the more pressing issues, including disaster relief following the deadly Texas Hill Country flooding.
Republicans face the same kind of pressure to deal with disaster relief and other agenda items, meaning the situation is not tenable long term for either party.
How are both sides trying to win the situation?
Republicans are trying to oust the Democrats who fled the state from their House seats.
Paxton announced Tuesday he would seek “judicial orders declaring that runaway Democrats who fail to appear by the Speaker’s deadline have vacated their office.”
While Texas Republicans will almost certainly pass their new House map, vacating state Democrats’ seats would be problematic for Republicans because the state House still wouldn’t have a quorum and would then need to wait to fill those seats in an election.
Even if this is legally allowed, there’s nothing to stop newly elected Democrats from breaking quorum and doing the same thing.
“The courts basically have been sort of been unwilling to intervene in other quorum breaks to require wayward members to come back,” Rottinghaus said. “Basically, what they said in these rulings was that the House needs to police itself, so it actually doesn’t say anything about what the governor or attorney general can do.”
Texas Democrats, meanwhile, are trying to stall Republican efforts as long as possible. They’ve traveled to New York, Massachusetts, California and Illinois and appeared alongside some of those governors and Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin to bring national attention to the issue.
In the long term, Texas Democrats will have to return to their state, so it’s not a lasting solution.
Democratic governors have also said they’re exploring their options over how to redraw their own maps in response to Texas.
What does Trump do?
Trump has said little publicly about Texas Democrats’ decision to break quorum and the larger redistricting tit-for-tat, though that could soon change.
One question is whether Trump directs the FBI or other agencies to force Texas Democrats to comply and return to the Lone Star State, though that would ramp up what has already become a very tumultuous situation playing out nationally — and one that could help galvanize Democrats further.
That doesn’t mean his team is on the sidelines, though. Punchbowl News reported that Vice President Vance is weighing heading to Indiana to speak with Republicans there about congressional redistricting.
Other states could move forward with redistricting
Several governors and top state officials have said they’re exploring their options or signaling they’d like to redraw their House maps.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said last month it would be “appropriate” for the state to consider mid-decade redistricting based off the Florida Supreme Court’s analysis of the state’s more recent battle with its congressional maps.
Missouri Lt. Gov. David Wasinger (R) also signaled in a statement the state may redraw its map.
“Missouri is a solidly conservative state, consistently electing Republicans to every statewide office and sending strong supermajorities to Jefferson City. Despite this, our current congressional map still sends two progressive Democrats to push a liberal agenda in D.C., misrepresenting the will of Missouri voters,” he said.
“We missed the chance to secure a 7-1 map in 2022, a mistake President Trump rightly calls on us to fix,” he continued. “Missouri’s next congressional map must protect Missouri values and ensure our representatives in Congress are as conservative as the voters who send them.”
In California, it appears that lawmakers are leaning toward redrawing their map and putting it before voters for a vote. The new map would reportedly hurt five House Republicans in the state.
New York and Illinois leaders this week also said they were exploring their options over how to proceed.
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