On August 20, 2025, the Texas State House passed congressional maps that would target five Democratic-held seats. The vote was 88–52, a party-line vote. The Congressional map targets Marc Veasey, Greg Casar, Lloyd Doggett, Julie Johnson, and Al Green.[1] On August 23, 2025, the Texas State Senate passed the map with a vote 18–8. It then headed to governor Greg Abbott,[2] who officially signed the new congressional map into law on August 29, 2025.[3]
In June 2025, The New York Times reported that the Trump administration had urged Republican leadership in the state of Texas to redistrict the state's legislative boundaries in order to benefit Republicans. The plan elicited concern from some Texas Republicans, who argued that it could hurt incumbent Republicans. An official associated with Donald Trump warned lawmakers that the president was noting who would support his plan. Representative Michael McCaul held a twenty-minute meeting in the United States Capitol to discuss the plan. According to the Times, the proposal began amid concern from Trump and his allies that a Republican loss in the 2026 United States House of Representatives elections could damage Trump's legislative agenda and lead to investigations.[4] According to The Texas Tribune, Trump's plan was met by skepticism from Governor Greg Abbott; his concerns were alleviated after a call with Trump.[5]
On August 4, 2025, House SpeakerDustin Burrows appointed a new committee for redistricting efforts. The committee is chaired by Representative Cody Vasut, with initial members to include 12 Republicans and nine Democrats.[6]
Texas Legislature special session
Hearings and Democratic preparations
"Lone Star Fund" redirects here; not to be confused with Lone Star Funds.
On July 9, 2025, Abbott called for a special session of the Texas Legislature to discuss redistricting.[7] The impetus for the session was a letter from the United States Department of Justice giving the Texas Legislature the legal authority to redistrict its legislative boundaries, citing discrimination in four majority-minority congressional districts; the letter led to Abbott acknowledging that some districts were drawn "along strict racial lines", a reversal in the state's prior stance.[8] The Texas Legislature's Republican majority gave Democrats limited options to contest the effort.[9] U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin held a call on July 14 to discuss a response to the redistricting proposal, including the possibility of walking out of the session. The following day, Trump held his own call with Texas Republicans, urging them to give the state five additional Republican seats.[10]
The special session began on July 21. At a press conference, state Democrats vowed to prolong the redistricting effort as much as possible through several means, including the filibuster, delaying hearings, and walking out.[6] At the first of at least seven House redistricting committee hearings three days later, criticism mounted from some constituents and Democrats, who focused on the lack of publicly available maps.[11] At a hearing at the University of Houston, Committee Chairman Cody Vasut stated that additional hearings would be scheduled after maps were filed.[12] Concurrently, Texas Democrats began fundraising in preparation to leave the state; a rules change approved two years prior, after Democrats had broken quorum to attempt to stop an election law from getting passed, imposes a US$500 fine per day and the possibility of arrest on lawmakers who break quorum, though lawmakers cannot use campaign funds to pay for the fines. U.S. Representative Jasmine Crockett stated that she was willing to fund the walkout.[13] Fundraising involved establishing a US$20 million fund, the Lone Star Fund, and a US$2 million advertisement campaign.[14] Several Texas House Democrats traveled to California, Illinois, and New Mexico to meet with Governors Gavin Newsom, JB Pritzker, and Michelle Lujan Grisham, respectively.[15]
Texas Republicans defended the map in a meeting on August 1 amid protests in the Texas State Capitol.[16] The following day, the Texas House Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting advanced the redrawn congressional map.[17] On August 3, most House Democrats left the state, denying Republicans a quorum to vote on the map. A majority left that afternoon to head to Chicago, while some traveled to New York to meet with Governor Kathy Hochul and others convened at the National Conference of State Legislatures with some Senate Democrats.[18] In response, Abbott ordered Democrats to return to the Capitol by August 4, threatening to remove them from office through a process outlined in a non-binding legal opinion by Attorney General Ken Paxton and warning of bribery charges for fundraising to pay for a US$500 per day fine. Abbott stated that he would move to extradite "any potential out-of-state felons", while Pritzker affirmed that he would protect the lawmakers in his state.[19] While Abbott cannot legally seek extradition for lawmakers breaking quorum, Paxton may file quo warranto petitions for each of the lawmakers to remove them from office—a process that would be time-intensive and involve multiple special elections whose winners must remain in the state to have a quorum—or file charges against the lawmakers for bribery.[20]
On August 4, 2025, the Texas House voted 85–6 to issue arrest warrants for the Democratic House members who left Texas. All of the no votes on the warrants were Democrats. The vote was seen as largely ceremonial because the arrest warrants cannot be enforced outside of Texas.[21]
Senator John Cornyn stated that the FBI had agreed to help "find" the Democratic lawmakers.[22]
On August 18, after the special session had expired, and following California's gerrymandering proposal to counter Republican gains in Texas, most of the Texas Democrats returned to the state.[23] Abbott had already called for another special session, which started that day. The Democrats who returned were told that they could not leave the state without written permission from the Republican house speaker, and each was given a permission form to sign, agreeing to be escorted by a Texas public safety officer at all times. Representative Nicole Collier refused to sign the form and was then prevented from leaving the House floor that evening, at which point she filed a habeas corpus petition in court, challenging the legality of locking her inside. Abbott and Paxton also petitioned the Texas Supreme Court to remove the Democrats who fled from office.[24]
In July 2025, The Texas Tribune reported that Democrats representing California in the United States House of Representatives and allies of Governor Gavin Newsom began considering retaliatory redistricting measures; a spokesperson for Newsom denied the Tribune's reporting.[30] At a press conference in Los Angeles, Newsom publicly called for redrawing California's congressional districts.[31] After meeting with Texas Democrats, Newsom and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker suggested that their states could follow in redistricting.[32] In the New York State Legislature, Democrats introduced a bill to allow the state to redraw its congressional boundaries every five years if another state does so first.[33] A spokesperson for Maryland Governor Wes Moore told The Baltimore Sun that Moore would "evaluate all options as states around the country make decisions regarding redistricting", but did not answer questions on whether he supported a bill introduced by House majority leader David Moon that would automatically restart the state's redistricting process if another state passed new congressional districts.[34] The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee urged Democratic-led legislatures to redistrict.[35]
To avert a "redistricting war", Representative Kevin Kiley (CA-03), whose seat would be vulnerable if California updated their maps, introduced legislation to ban mid-decade redistricting efforts and nullify maps approved before the 2030 United States census, though Kiley didn't mention stopping redistricting in Texas. He instead shifted the blame to Governor Gavin Newsom's intent to redistrict in California rather than Governor Greg Abbott, who has gone ahead with such plans in Texas.[36]
Redistricting litigation
According to The Texas Tribune, state officials could request litigation regarding Texas's legislative boundaries drawn after the 2020 United States census be dropped if the state redistricts.[37]
Public safety threats
On August 6, 2025, a bomb threat forced 400 people to evacuate the hotel in St. Charles, Illinois where some Democratic lawmakers were staying.[38] The St. Charles Police Department stated that first responders arrived at the hotel around 7:15 a.m. and "conducted a thorough search and no device was found," and that "In response to the threat, 400 people were immediately evacuated and the area was secured as bomb squad units conducted their investigation."[39]
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