CHICAGO — In an extraordinary move to counter Republican redistricting in Texas, dozens of Democrats in the state House of Representatives are heading here Sunday to deny a necessary quorum for the GOP to move forward with those efforts.
The roughly 30 Democrats are expected to stay for the week in a plan brokered with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who had met with the Texas caucus late last month and has directed staff to provide logistical support for their stay. A news conference with the governor and Texas Democrats is expected later Sunday.
“We’re leaving Texas to fight for Texans,” Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu said in a statement. “We will not allow disaster relief to be held hostage to a Trump gerrymander. We’re not walking out on our responsibilities; we’re walking out on a rigged system that refuses to listen to the people we represent. As of today, this corrupt special session is over.”
Last week, Texas Republicans released a proposed new congressional map that would give the GOP a path to pick up five seats in next year’s midterm elections. It followed President Donald Trump’s public pressure for a new map in the state as he works to retain a majority in Congress in what historically is a difficult year for the party holding the White House.
The proposed map would shift district lines in ways that would target current Democratic members of Congress in and around Austin, Dallas and Houston, as well as two already endangered Democrats representing South Texas districts that Trump carried last year.
A House committee approved the gerrymandered congressional maps on a party-line vote Saturday morning. After the vote, the committee chairman, Republican state Rep. Cody Vasut, told NBC News the maps were drawn to help Republicans win more seats.
“This map was politically based, and that’s totally legal, totally allowed and totally fair,” Vasut said. “You got states like California and New York and Illinois that have these really large margins between the percentage of seats they have and the percentage of votes that they’re getting, and Texas is underperforming in that. And so it’s totally prudent, totally right, for Texas to be able to respond and improve the political performance of its map.”
“This is not a decision we make lightly, but it is one we make with absolute moral clarity,” Wu continued in the statement. “Governor Abbott has turned the victims of a historic tragedy into political hostages in his submission to Donald Trump. He is using an intentionally racist map to steal the voices of millions of Black and Latino Texans, all to execute a corrupt political deal. Apathy is complicity, and we will not be complicit in the silencing of hard-working communities who have spent decades fighting for the power that Trump wants to steal.”
Politically, the move puts Pritzker at the center of a high-profile national fight. The governor, who is running for his third term in office, is also widely viewed as a 2028 presidential contender. He has implored Democrats to resist Trump’s agenda.
The origins of Pritzker’s involvement began when the governor gave a keynote address to Oklahoma Democrats in June. Pritzker met privately in a “robust” meeting with the party chair to talk about the Texas redistricting, according to a person close to the governor. When Pritzker later met with Texas Democrats he assured them they could come to his state and find support, including finding hotels, meeting spaces and other logistical assistance.
The Texas Democrats, however, face the risk of a $500-a-day fine and even possible arrest for fleeing the state. The Republican-controlled Legislature approved the measure in 2023, two years after state Democrats left the state for three weeks to block an elections bill from progressing.
“Democrats have got to stand up at this point and tell every individual in this nation, this is not normal. This is not democracy,” Democratic state Rep. Ann Johnson told NBC News on Saturday.
“You’ve got these Texas Republicans that are just rolling over and giving Trump what he wants because he’s asked for it. It’s an affront to every citizen, not only in Texas but the nation.”
The Texas House is scheduled to convene at 3 p.m. CT Monday. The redistricting bill is so far the only item on the calendar.
Natasha Korecki reported from Chicago, and Ryan Chandler from Austin, Texas.
Adam Edelman contributed.