Democratic state lawmakers reportedly left Texas on Sunday, Aug. 3, the day before a vote is scheduled on a new congressional map that would give Republicans five more seats in the United States House of Representatives. The Texas Tribune wrote that 62 state House Democrats fled the state.
“This is not a decision we make lightly, but it is one we make with absolute moral clarity,” House Democratic Caucus chair and state Rep. Gene Wu said in a statement. He added that Gov. Greg Abbott used “an intentionally racist map to steal the voices of millions of Black and Latino Texans, all to execute a corrupt political deal.”
To conduct business in the House, which has 150 seats, there needs to be at least 100 state representatives in attendance. This means the lawmakers’ absence could stall the rest of the Texas Legislature’s special session, where they had regulations for edible hemp and bills about the response to floods such as the deadly ones on July 4, on the agenda, along with redistricting.
Wu said in the statement he put out that Democrats “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,” he said. “As of today, this corrupt special session is over.”
Most of the House Democrats leaving Texas were headed to Chicago, the Texas Tribune wrote, while others went to New York.
Texas Republicans unveiled a redrawn map of the state’s congressional districts on Wednesday, July 30, and it was immediately met with criticism from their Democratic counterparts. Still, a House committee approved the congressional maps on Saturday, Aug. 2.
Republican state Rep. Cody Vasut defended the maps to NBC News on Saturday, Aug. 2.
“This map was politically based, and that’s totally legal, totally allowed and totally fair,” Vasut said on NBC. “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.”
Under House rules imposed in 2023, the Texas lawmakers who went out of state are subject to arrest and a $500-a-day fine for breaking quorum.
“Democrats in the Texas House who try and run away like cowards should be found, arrested, and brought back to the Capitol immediately,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said on X on Sunday. “We should use every tool at our disposal to hunt down those who think they are above the law.”
Texas’ House Speaker Dustin Burrows said on X that his chamber is set to convene at 3 p.m. local time on Monday, Aug.1.
“If a quorum is not present then, to borrow the recent talking points from some of my Democrat colleagues, all options will be on the table. . .” Burrows wrote.
