Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is threatening to expand Republicans’ power grab over the state’s congressional maps even further. If Democrats who fled the state to deny the GOP a quorum don’t return, Abbott said, he may increase the number of Democratic districts he’s dismantling ahead of the 2026 midterms.
“We may make it six or seven or eight new seats we’re going to be adding on the Republican side,” Abbott told the conservative podcast “Ruthless,” according to CNN.
Democratic lawmakers left Texas for blue states in an attempt to run out the clock on the current special legislative session, which ends on Aug. 19, and prevent Republicans from enacting the new hyper-partisan maps called for by President Trump. But Abbott told NBC News that he plans to just keep calling new special sessions “with the same agenda items” until he gets his way.
Abbott and other Texas officials have gone full scorched-earth in their pressure campaign against Democratic lawmakers. Those efforts include issuing civil warrants for their arrests, trying to remove the House Democratic leader from office, opening investigations into groups providing financial support to the lawmakers, and even asking the FBI for assistance in rounding them up. (There’s no actual legal basis for the FBI to get involved, since the legislators have broken neither state nor federal criminal laws).
For now, Texas Dems are holding the line against returning to their home state and strategizing with blue state leaders like Govs. JB Pritzker (IL) and Kathy Hochul (NY) about what to do next. As Lawfare noted, prior “quorum-breaking” efforts have mostly failed for the minority party. Democratic lawmakers would need to stay out of the state until Texas’ Dec. 8 filing deadline in order to prevent the new maps from being adopted in time for the midterms — a hard sell, since each Democrat is currently subject to a $500 daily fine, and they only serve in the legislature part-time.
In the meantime, the redistricting wars have gone national. Republican leaders in Missouri, Florida and other GOP-controlled states are pushing to redraw their own maps to bolster their party’s narrow margins in the U.S. House, while Democrats in California and Maryland are countering with their own proposals.
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