President Donald Trump said he believes Texas can squeeze out five more Republican seats in the U.S. House to shore up the GOP majority ahead of the midterms.
AUSTIN, Texas — Days before the start of the first special session of the 89th Texas Legislature on Monday, Texas Democrats are weighing their options as they look to counter a planned, rare mid-decade congressional redistricting push by Texas Republicans.
As Republicans plow ahead with those plans, Democrats on Capitol Hill are putting pressure on state House Democrats to find a way to stop it, including potentially breaking quorum. It is one of the few tools Democrats in the state Legislature have to fight back.
Democrats consider options
In an op-ed posted on social media, state Rep. Ron Reynolds, a Democrat from Missouri City, said he is willing to break quorum to try to block the redistricting.
“They say everything’s bigger in Texas, including the lengths folks will go to hold onto power,” Reynolds wrote. “President Trump recently called for Texas Republicans to deliver five new congressional seats, and they didn’t hesitate. Not by earning more support or expanding their base, but by gerrymandering Black and Brown communities to secure an advantage.”
President Trump told reporters at the White House this week that he believes Texas can squeeze out five more Republican seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, offsetting the historic flipping of Congress that often occurs in midterm elections.
“Just a very simple redrawing,” Trump said. “We pick up five seats, but we have a couple of other states where we’ll pick up seats elsewhere.”
Trump said Republicans could look to redraw the congressional maps in other states as well, in hopes of picking up three to five additional seats in the House.
Reynolds said he is ready, willing and able to “get into good trouble by breaking quorum when justice is on the line.”
“I did not come to the Capitol to sit quietly while democracy is dismantled,” he wrote. “I came to defend the people I serve.”
Reynolds is the first Democratic state lawmaker to publicly state he is willing to break quorum. Other Democrats have played coy, not wanting to reveal their cards, but have vowed to push back aggressively and stated that all options are on the table to counter legislatively and legally.
“Under the U.S. Constitution and the Texas Constitution, it’s supposed to be one person, one vote. This kind of smash-and-grab on voting strength has to be resisted with everything we’ve got. There will be any number of strategies that are discussed and considered,” state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, a Democrat from Austin, said. “I don’t know which ones will be utilized at this point, but I hope that all Texans, no matter what their political affiliation is, will stand with us in the idea that every vote counts.”
Congressman Greg Casar (D-Austin), whose district includes parts of Austin, said Texas Democrats should use any tactic possible.
“Texas Democrats are able to filibuster, hold public hearings, fire people up at rallies and they should also have quorum breaks on the table,” Casar said.
Republican goals and legal challenges
The Trump administration wants Texas to redraw its maps to carve out more Republican seats, thereby increasing the GOP’s advantage in the U.S. House, which they currently control by a slim margin of 220-212. Republicans hold 25 of the state’s 38 congressional seats. Democrats hold 12 and are expected to pick up another vacant seat in a special election this November.
“Working with the House, the Texas Senate will move forward on redistricting to pass a legal, constitutional congressional map,” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Texas Senate, said.
Adding five more GOP seats in Texas would give Republicans control of 80% of the Texas delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives. However, it is not clear how Republicans plan to create those five new seats.
Michael Li, a redistricting expert with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, said it would be difficult to do so without violating the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which requires districts with opportunities for Black and Latino representation in Texas.
Gov. Greg Abbott and Texas Republicans have said state lawmakers need to address congressional redistricting “in light of constitutional concerns raised by the U.S. Department of Justice.”
The DOJ has raised legal concerns about four districts in the Dallas and Houston areas, all of which are represented by Democrats. The DOJ said those districts constitute “unconstitutional racial gerrymanders, in violation of the 14th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act.”
“Texans place their trust in the Legislature to uphold fairness in the redistricting process, and we will continue to work closely together to fulfill this legislative responsibility,” House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock) said.
Political maps must be redrawn once every decade after the U.S. Census is taken, although no federal law prohibits those maps from being redrawn mid-cycle. The Texas Constitution allows the maps to be redrawn at the discretion of the governor and the Legislature.
Breaking quorum?
There is growing chatter about Democrats potentially breaking quorum as part of their efforts to counter the redistricting. To conduct business, the Texas Constitution requires each chamber to have a quorum present, which is defined as two-thirds of the members. If they don’t, the chamber has to adjourn.
There are 150 members of the Texas House of Representatives, and 100 must be present to meet the quorum. A total of 62 representatives are Democrats and 88 are Republicans.
In the Senate, 20 lawmakers must be present to meet a quorum. Of its 30 members, 11 are Democrats and 19 are Republicans. One seat is currently vacant after state Sen. Kelly Hancock, a Republican from North Richland Hills, resigned to become interim comptroller.
Democrats don’t have enough members to block lawmakers from passing legislation if enough Republican members of the Legislature are on board.
However, they can deny the chambers a quorum, which means they cannot conduct business, and legislation cannot come up for votes on the floor if they do not show up. It is a tactic Democrats have used before.
In 2003, the last time Texas conducted mid-decade redistricting was after Republicans captured the House, Senate and governor’s office. Democrats fled the state multiple times in an attempt to block the effort, though the move, spearheaded by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, eventually succeeded after months of delays. In 2021, Democratic state lawmakers fled to Washington, D.C., to delay a vote on an election reform bill, which eventually passed.
However, since the 2021 quorum break, lawmakers in the Texas House have changed the rules to make using the tactic more risky for lawmakers. House members who are absent without approval can face daily fines of $500 and be liable for costs incurred by the House Sergeant-at-Arms to compel their attendance, as well as other punishments. Lawmakers who are breaking quorum could be tracked down and forcibly brought back to the House floor if they are still in the state.
In a social media post on Tuesday, Attorney General Ken Paxton vowed to use law enforcement to compel “the attendance of anyone who abandons their office and their constituents for cheap political theater.”
“Texas legislators will ultimately make the right decision, and to make that decision, they’ve got to have every option on the table,” Casar said. “We can’t show up and just be polite. This isn’t an everyday thing. Redistricting like this is supposed to happen every 10 years. The maps were already passed. So why is Trump going out of his way to demand congressional seats from Texas Republicans?”
Ramifications of redistricting
The 2021 state legislative and congressional maps have faced legal challenges, arguing they discriminate against some Black and Latino voters. The case went to trial in El Paso last month; however, a ruling is not expected for several months. The plaintiffs in that lawsuit argue that the special session call and the DOJ letter contradict what the state has long maintained, namely that race was not a factor considered in drawing the district boundaries in 2021.
Any new Texas map will almost certainly face legal challenges and be tied up in court.
The current map is favorable for Republicans. Sen. Eckhardt said Republicans don’t win two-thirds of the vote in Texas, but they hold two-thirds of the seats. The current map includes very safe seats, and there aren’t many competitive districts.
Eckhardt called Texas already “one of the most gerrymandered states in the United States.”
“If you look at the presidential results year over year, we already have overrepresentation by Republicans and underrepresentation by Democrats and frankly, underrepresentation by people of color and minorities in our state,” Eckhardt said. “This is an attempt to get even more overrepresentation and further disenfranchise and weaken the votes of independents, Democrats, and even Republicans. Moderate Republicans are going to be redistricted and disenfranchised.”
Democrats said the special session should focus solely on the flood response. Search and rescue efforts continue as crews look for the dozens still missing from the July Fourth floods that devastated parts of the state. Authorities said at least 134 people are dead and dozens more are still missing after flooding across the state.
“Whether you are conservative or liberal in the state of Texas, I think we can all agree that we should be focusing on relief and rebuilding from these Texas floods, not on redistricting to protect Donald Trump from being held accountable,” Casar said.
While the idea behind the new maps is to strengthen Republican seats and give Republicans a better chance of maintaining their slim majority in the U.S. House, some are concerned that it could jeopardize Republican lawmakers and put them at risk if they miscalculate with the new districts.
“They’re trying to take us pre-1965 on the Voting Rights Act by basically saying politicians can draw their districts however they want, no matter what that does to voters. So this is high stakes. This is about more than any one person or seat. This is bigger than my seat or somebody else’s. This is about the Voting Rights Act of 1965, what MLK and LBJ did together,” Casar said. “Donald Trump is saying he wants to get rid of that, basically because he doesn’t want to win an election or lose an election fair and square.”
Some Republican incumbents are nervous they could end up vulnerable. To create new Republican seats, Republicans may have to dilute and stretch GOP voters thin, turning safe districts into swing districts. It is known as a “dummymander,” and it could make incumbent Republicans more vulnerable, particularly in a midterm election environment, if Republicans are not careful in how they draw the new districts.
“If you start radically changing the maps, if you change five seats, you’re changing the whole map,” Casar said. “Then these Republican members of Congress could lose their seats because now they’re representing new areas. Democratic members of Congress have completely changed their constituents. All to appease one guy.”
If Texas redraws maps, leaders in California and other blue states are threatening to do the same to help Democrats. On social media on Tuesday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom replied to a post about the redistricting push, writing, “Two can play this game.”
“From my perspective, if we’re going to play fair in a world that is wholly unfair, we may have the higher moral ground, but the ground is shifting from underneath us, and I think we have to wake up to that reality,” Newsom said on the “Pod Save America” podcast this week.
In California, new maps are drawn by the Independent Redistricting Commission, so if Newsom wanted to change things, he would have to circumvent the commission or abolish it altogether.
“I’m talking to members of my Legislature, whatever alternatives we could do, a special session. I can call for one today if I choose to, we can then put something on the ballot, and I could call a special election,” Newsom said. “We could change the constitution with the consent of the voters. I think we would win that. I think people understand what’s at stake in California.”
The special legislative session begins on Monday and will run for up to 30 days. So far, no redistricting bills have been filed.