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Both states convene legislators expected to vote August 18 on drawing new Congressional district lines
By Alexander J. Schorr
Miriam Raftery contributed to this report
Photos, left: Texas Governor Greg Abbott and California Governor Gavin Newsom push dueling redistricting plans
August 17, 2025 — It's a race against the clock between California and Texas, with governors of both states striving to draw new Congressional district maps promptly, instead of waiting for the next census as is customary.
The two states have the most Congressional seats in the nation (52 and 38 respectively), so the results of reapportionment could determine which party will control Congress after the 2026 midterm elections.
Key votes in both state legislatures could occur as early as Monday, August 18. Both states seek a partisan edge, instead of utilizing independent, nonpartisan redistricting options, though California's Governor contends his effort is a necessariliy response to a partisan gerrymandering battle launched by pro-Trump Texans.
What triggered this redistricting race? In summary:
Texas Republicans released a proposed new congressional map that would give their party a pathway to pick up five Congressional seats in next year’s midterm elections.
This follows President Donald Trump’s public pressure for Texas legislators to draw a new map that would favor Republicans, as he works to maintain a majority in Congress.
The Texas state Senate passed the measure. But Texas House Democrats left the state to prevent a quorum required for the redistricting vote, after which Texas Governor Gregg Abbott, a Republican, threatened to arrest and remove the Democratic legislators from office. Trump also threatened to involve the FBI.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat fired back. He's announced plans to ask his state’s legislators to put a measure on this November’s ballot titled the “Election Rigging Response Act” in hopes of switching at least as many districts from red to blue. Cal Matters reports that seats targeted by this effort include the 48th Congressional seat held by Darrell Issa (R-San Diego), whose district includes much of San Diego's East County.
The California legislature is expected to convene on Monday Aug. 18 to consider the ballot proposition.
Both Governors have drawn mixed reactions to their plans.
The Latest on the Texas saga
Texas Democrats have since said they will return for the vote if California also moves forward with redistricting.
After fleeing the state of Texas out of protest for Governor Abbott’s bid to redraw district lines to better support votes for the Republican part, Texas Democrats laid out some conditions for returning and giving the Governor a quorum: It is expected the Texas legislature will conclude the first special session and that California will introduce its own new map to offset GOP gains.
Abbott blasting Democrats stalling the session, calling them "Delinquent House Democrats.”
On August 15, Texas Republicans called for a new special session for the redistricting process, with Democrats expected to return for the vote.
Unlike the previous Texas session, the new 30-day session may end up with the more GOP favorable maps being passed. Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows said that he expects the quorum to be met on Monday, hoping that lawmakers can complete legislative business by Labor Day weekend. The speaker advised lawmakers to return to the state capitol by noon on Monday.
In addition to the redistricting, the next special session will also address the flood relief following the destructive storms in Texas Hill County last month. The agenda mirrors the plans set forth for the first special session but intends to add legislation for camp safety; dozens of campers and camp employees died in the July 4th floods.
This proposed map would shift district lines that would target current Democratic members of Congress within Austin, Dallas, and Houston, as well as Democrats representing south Texas districts that Trump picked up last year.
The California response
California Governor Newsom has said that the special election he aims to hold on November 4 will let the state’s voters decide whether or not they want to adopt these new district lines ahead of the midterms,— a contrast to Governor Abbott's push for his state’s legislators to decide on redrawing Texans’ Congressional district.
The California initiative, if passed by voters, would in effect bypass the state’s independent redistricting commission. This would not be permanent; the initiative would expire in five years.
Newsom argues that California is redrawing its congressional map in response to the Republicans in Texas redrawing their own—in essence, fighting fire with fire.
California’s Governor, at a press conference introducing the initiative, argued that Trump “doesn’t believe in the rules. And as a consequence, we need to disabuse ourselves of the way things have been done.”
Unlike Texas, Newsom plans an open-public review of his proposed map. Assembly Speaker Rivas stating , “Once these maps are released, voters will have the opportunity to digest these maps, review them for weeks and months leading to this election.”
Common Cause, a good government watchdog group that has opposed gerrymandering efforts over the years, has taken a neutral stance on Newsom’s measure, stating that there are “authoritarian efforts to undermine fair representation.”
But Newsom critics call his plan gerrymandering—the same criticism leveled at Abbott in Texas.
California Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, a Republican whose district includes swaths of San Diego and East County, has been a vocal critic of Governor Gavin Newsom and his policies, especially redistricting proposals. According to DeMaio, Newsom’s plan would aim to give power to draw election districts back to politicians and reverse a prior voter-approved initiative that created the state’sindependent redistricting commission.
DeMaio states, “Voters should be the ones choosing politicians.” According to a press release statement from his office, DeMaio has also criticized the cost of a potential special election to approve these changes, estimating that it would cost $250 million of taxpayer money. Assemblymember DeMaio has vowed to block the governor's measure and has threatened legal action against him.
Many Republicans oppose Newsom’s act, calling it unfair to California Republicans, though there is also an issue with this mindset. Consider the following: each of the two Democratic senators represent 19 million citizens. For comparison, the two Republican senators in the state of Wyoming represent 289,000 citizens. This means that a Republican voter's influence in Wyoming is about 68 times more impactful in the Senate than Democrats in California, a predominantly “blue state.” Additionally, in the Electoral College, each of Wyoming’s three electoral votes represent approximately 193,000 people. Each of California’s electoral votes represent 731,000 people.
Even in the House of Representatives, which is supposed to represent everyone equally— because the total number of seats are capped and new seats are reassigned based on the pace of growth of the state's population and not the actual growth itself, Republicans in Wyoming are represented 1.4 times better than even Democrats in California. Wyoming is considered an overwhelmingly “red state,” with Texas being even more so: the Texas Republicans currently control their legislative chamber, which is made up of 20 Republicans and 11 Democrats. Ultimately, due to the Senate and the Electoral College, a state population would usually be better represented as a Republican in a small town in a red state than a Democrat essentially living anywhere else.
Hurdles Ahead
There are many potential legal hurdles facing Newsom’s proposed redistricting initiative. The public will not doubt witness in the upcoming months much political quarterbacking and finger pointing.
For now, California Democrats are publicly rallying behind a national push to counter a similar effort led by the GOP in Texas, with even main frontline House members saying that Democrats have to be armed with every option. However, getting 54 Assembly votes and 27 Senate votes for new maps is a difficult matter; some of these Democrats who will be asked to vote for the gambit will have to balance personal plans and party priorities.
If the Legislature approves the measure as a ballot initiative, Newsom and other prominent Democrats can be expected to lobby heavily for its passage, which would likely swing at least five states, and potentially as many as nine into the Democratic side of the aisle.
A problem for Democrats is that they don’t have many options. In conversations with more than a dozen state lawmakers and redistricting experts, Democrats’ best shot at redrawing a map lies in California, a heavily blue state with a large number of congressional districts, with fewer options available in even Illinois, Maryland, and New Jersey, the latter having four Republican-held seats between them.
More on Texas drama: playing by different rules
When Texas Democrats left their state to try and stop a vote on what they viewed as partisan gerrymander, most fled to Illinois. The Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a Democrat, said, “we’re fighting for democracy, there are no rules anymore.”
“This is likely two football teams coming out of the locker room at halftime and the team that’s ahead says it wants to change the rules for the second half because they want to win the game,” State Representative James Talarico (D-Austin) said to NPR from Illinois, where he waswaiting out the present quorum break.
Republicans control the Texas House by a wide margin, but without Democrats present, their 88 members fall short of the 100 member quorum required to conduct their business.
“To be absolutely clear,” said Speaker Burrows, “ leaving the state doesn’t stop this House from doing its work, it just delays it.” At least two-thirds of the 150-member state legislative body in Texas must be present to proceed with the vote.
Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu said that he believes about 57 Democrats have left the state, with the bulk staying in Illinois for at least the immediate future; other House Democrats were in Boston and Albany, New York. Others are in Illinois, Massachusetts and New York to discuss their options with governors and legislators sympathetic to their politics.
Regarding the Texas governor, Chair Wu said “Abbott is doing this in submission to Donald Trump so that Donald Trump can steal these communities’ power and voice— We will not be complicit in the destruction of our own communities. We’re not here to play political games. We’re here to demand an end to this corrupt process.”
In Austin, Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows has said that “all options are on the table to compel Democrats to return or to punish them for their absence.
At a press conference, Democrats from Texas and Illinois, as well as party leaders, spoke about the ongoing fight: “Make no mistake about it, the Democratic Party didn’t start this fight, but we’re not going to roll over,” said the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin. “ They want a fight. We’re going to give it to them, and we’re going to put every option on the table.”
After a failed House session, Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered the Texas Department of Public Safety to “locate, arrest, and return to the House chamber any member who has abandoned their duty to Texans.”
The Governor's options are limited though, since state troopers do not have jurisdiction outside Texas. These Texas Democrats face the risk of a $500 a day fine— the Republican-controlled Legislature approved the punishment back in 2023, two weeks after the state Democrats left the state for three weeks to block an elections bill from progressing.
Governor Abbott also threatened to expel the Democrats from the Texas State House and potentially extradite them, saying that they may be “felons” though there does not appear to be any law against their actions. Ironically, in Congress earlier this month, House Republicans adjourned session early and left Washington D.C. to avoid having to vote on releasing the Epstein files which could contain embarrassing information on Trump and possibly other members of Congress.
The Texas state House Democrats exited from buses and Ubers into a crowded party headquarters at a strip mall last Sunday night, where they stood alongside Illinois Governor Pritzker to rail against what they charged was a racist, unfair, and undemocratic attempt to overhaul the Lone Star State’s political map.
Trump threatens FBI enforcement against Texas Democrats
According to The Guardian, President Trump said that the FBI “may have to” get involved with bringing back the Democrats who left the state to block the plan to redraw electoral boundaries: “The governor of Texas is demanding they come back,” the President told reports.
Additionally, Senator John Cornyn of Texas sent a letter to FBI director Kash Patel, imploring him to take any "appropriate steps” to aid Texas Law Enforcement in arresting the Democrats who fled.
According to the BBC, Governor Abbott has also threatened to charge the absent Democrats with bribery if they raise public money to cover the daily fine they incur for boycotting the chamber.
On Tuesday August 12, the Texas Senate was able to pass a redistricting map after two Democrats remained in the chamber, allowing a vote on the controversial plan. Senate Democrats were unable to break quorum because of members who refused to participate, unlike the other Texas House Democrats holding their ground out of state to block the map. Senators Judith Zaffirini and Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa remained in the chamber, allowing a quorum, though both voted against the measure.
The Senate vote does not mean that the map is going into effect— both chambers will need to sign off on it.
Presently, House Democrats are still unified to continue blocking the map in their chamber, all while facing legal threats from Republicans, and are also on track to stop the vote through the end of a thirty day special legislative session.
Trump’s challenges
Why does President Trump want Texas and possibly other conservative states to break with tradition and redraw district lines without waiting for the next census?
With the mid-terms just around the corner, and President Trump has upped the ante to potentially undermine the next election cycle. His actions come in the wake of multiple polls showing disapproval of Trump’s handling of some major issues concerning Americans.
Trump’s approval on cost of living has dropped to 31% amid tariff concerns, the Elon Musk-led federal workforce cuts faced mixed public support, and Americans are divided on President Trump’s Ukraine aid-aid-for-minerals plan. When President Trump didn’t like the most recent poor jobs report, he fired the person responsible for producing them, which mirrored the loss of about 3 million jobs in his first term. Even with the controversy of the Jeffrey Epstein files, a particularly personal issue to his MAGA supporters, he has lost decent support among independent voters; according to Reuters, Trump has a 40% approval rating, which may be the worst poll of his second term, with Independents being 61% against him on the issues of the economy, and 55% against him on immigration.
Additionally, a Federal Appeals court has challenged the legality of Trump imposing Tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Lastly, President Trump has set to officially begin levying higher import taxes on dozens of countries, just as the economic consequences of a deluge of tariffs has begun to create damage for the US economy. So the president has turned his attention to changing the battlefield for control of the country through ritualistic gerrymandering.
Other states eye redistricting options
As President Trump is pushing Republicans in an aggressive effort to redraw maps in hopes of holding the House in a potentially unfavorable midterms cycle. This is happening throughout the country in various Republican majority held states, with Punchbowl News recently reporting that Trump has been pressuring Missorui to shred its own map ahead of the midterms as well.
When asked about taking similar gerrymandering and redistricting tactics as Republicans, Illinois Governor Pritzker said: “Remember, all bets are off. All bets are off when the cult leader and would-be dictator tells Texas to change the game when they know they’re going to lose in 2026.”
As Texas Republicans pressed forward with a redistricting blitz designed to increase the number of red seats in the states, officials in the biggest Democratic states scrambled for a response.
In New York, House Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries spoke with Governor Kathy Hochul about recent efforts to counter Republican efforts.
Illinois Governor Pritzker joined California Governor Newsom in meeting with Texas Democratic lawmakers recently about a strategy for stalling the GOP’s efforts to carve out five new seats on behalf of President Trump’s demand.
Democratic leaders are feeling pressure to join a brewing redistricting battle that is threatening to upend the midterms landscape.
California Governor Newsom said that the state would not back down from its redistricting fight and pledged to “fight fire with fire” if Texas tried to redraw its congressional district maps. Newsome has strongly criticized President Trump, alleging that he was behind a nefarious and illegal stunt to sway the 2026 midterm elections
In what is effectively an arms race to gerrymander for votes the most, there is not a scenario where both the Democratic and Republican parties will find security and solidarity.
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