Former President Barack Obama has called Texas Republicans’ plan to snag five more congressional seats through a Trump-backed, off-schedule redistricting design a “power grab.”
Amplifying a call for Texas Democrats to fight the voting map revamp in a Tuesday repost on X, Obama wrote, “We can’t lose focus on what matters – right now, Republicans in Texas are trying to gerrymander district lines to unfairly win five seats in next year’s midterm elections. This is a power grab that undermines our democracy.”
The Lone Star State’s legislature has been in limbo since a bloc of Democratic lawmakers traveled out of Texas on Sunday in an effort to stall a vote on the rare mid-decade redistricting scheme.
On Tuesday, Texas’ Republican Gov. Greg Abbott demanded that the state Supreme Court remove his state’s Democratic House minority leader, Rep. Gene Wu, from office so the vote could proceed.
“Texas House Democrats abandoned their duty to Texans, and there must be consequences,” Abbott said in a statement.
President Trump also weighed in on Tuesday, backing Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-Texas) proposal to sic the FBI on the politicians who fled the state.
During an interview earlier in the day on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” the commander-in-chief claimed that his party was “entitled” to the five-seat seizure in Texas and also floated the idea of pulling a similar gerrymandering move in the Democratic stronghold of California.
But on Monday, both California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) signaled they were ready to initiate their own off-cycle redistricting gambit if Texas goes through with its remap.
“It’s cause and effect, triggered on the basis of what occurs or doesn’t occur in Texas,” Newsom said. “I hope they do the right thing, and if they do, then there’ll be no cause for us to have to move forward.”
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