Texas Democrats left the state Sunday in an attempt to prevent the state House from holding a vote Monday on new congressional maps that Republicans hope will net them several additional U.S. House seats in the 2026 midterm elections.
The dramatic move could expose Democrats to fines and other penalties — with the state’s attorney general having previously threatened to arrest them if they took such an action. Refusing to attend legislative session is a civil violation, however, so Democrats legally could not be jailed and it’s unclear who has the power to carry out the warrants.
Democrats have cast the decision to leave the state as a last-ditch effort to stop Republicans who hold full control of the Texas government from pushing through a rare mid-decade redrawing of the congressional map at the direction of President Donald Trump.
“This is not a decision we make lightly, but it is one we make with absolute moral clarity,” said Gene Wu, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, in a statement.
To conduct official business, at least 100 members of the 150-member Texas House must be present. Democrats hold 62 of the seats in the majority-Republican chamber. At least 51 Democratic members are leaving the state, said Josh Rush Nisenson, spokesperson for the House Democratic Caucus.
“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,” he said.
The move marks the second time in four years that Texas Democrats have fled the state to block a vote. In 2021, a 38-day standoff took place when Democrats left for Washington, D.C. in opposition to new voting restrictions.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session of the Legislature that started last month to take up the redistricting effort, as well as to respond to flooding in Texas Hill Country that killed at least 135 people in July. Trump has urged Texas Republicans to redraw the map to help the party net a handful of seats in the midterms next year.
“For weeks, we’ve been warning that if Republicans in Texas want a showdown — if they want to delay flood relief to cravenly protect Donald Trump from an inevitable midterm meltdown — then we’d give them that showdown,” Democratic Party Chair Ken Martin said in a statement. “That’s exactly what Texas Democrats did today: blowing up Republicans’ sham special session that’s virtually ignored the plight of flood victims in Kerr County.”
Attorney General Ken Paxton on X said the state should “use every tool at our disposal to hunt down those who think they are above the law.”
“Democrats in the Texas House who try and run away like cowards should be found, arrested, and brought back to the Capitol immediately,” he wrote.
Abbott’s office and House Speaker Dustin Burrows did not immediately respond to requests for comment Sunday afternoon.
Texas Republicans last week unveiled their planned new U.S. House map that would create five new Republican-leaning seats. Republicans currently hold 25 of the state’s 38 seats.
By leaving the state, Democrats are looking to block Republicans from the needed quorum to hold votes on the map set for Monday. The Texas House has rules to fine lawmakers $500 each day they break a quorum. GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton has said previously that if Democrats break quorum, “they should be found and arrested no matter where they go.”
“My office stands ready to assist local, state, and federal authorities in hunting down and compelling the attendance of anyone who abandons their office and their constituents for cheap political theater,” Paxton said on the social media platform X on July 15.
A large chunk of the Texas Democrats are heading to Illinois, where Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker had been in quiet talks with them for weeks about offering support if they chose to leave the state to break quorum. Pritzker, a potential 2028 presidential contender, has been one of Trump’s most outspoken critics during his second term.
Last week, Pritzker hosted several Texas Democrats in Illinois to publicly oppose the redistricting effort. California Gov. Gavin Newsom held a similar event in his own state.
Pritzker also met privately with Texas Democratic Chair Kendall Scudder in June to begin planning for the possibility that lawmakers would depart for Illinois if they did decide to break quorum to block the map, according to a source with direct knowledge who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Now, with Texas Democrats holed up in Illinois and blocking the Trump-backed congressional map, the stage may be set for a high-profile showdown between Pritzker and the president.
Trump is looking to avoid a repeat of his first term, when Democrats flipped the House just two years into his presidency, and hopes the new Texas map will aid that effort. Trump officials have also looked at redrawing lines in other states, such as Missouri, according to a person familiar with conversations but unauthorized to speak publicly about them.
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Associated Press writer Nadia Lathan in Austin contributed to this report.
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