{"id":12189,"date":"2025-08-04T15:22:32","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T07:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=12189"},"modified":"2025-08-04T15:22:37","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T07:22:37","slug":"texas-democrats-decamp-to-illinois-to-deny-republicans-a-quorum-on-redistricting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=12189","title":{"rendered":"Texas Democrats decamp to Illinois to deny Republicans a quorum on redistricting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"482\" src=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/\u5c4f\u5e55\u622a\u56fe-2025-08-04-152027-1024x482.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12190\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/\u5c4f\u5e55\u622a\u56fe-2025-08-04-152027-1024x482.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/\u5c4f\u5e55\u622a\u56fe-2025-08-04-152027-300x141.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/\u5c4f\u5e55\u622a\u56fe-2025-08-04-152027-768x361.jpg 768w, https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/\u5c4f\u5e55\u622a\u56fe-2025-08-04-152027.jpg 1192w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A showdown over redistricting in Texas played out here on Sunday as dozens of state Democrats took refuge roughly 1,000 miles away from home, saying they fled Texas to deny quorum to Republican efforts to add as many as five congressional seats to their map.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It culminated with Texas&#8217; Republican governor threatening to expel the Democrats from the Texas state House and potentially extradite them, saying they may be &#8220;felons.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Texas state House Democrats filed off of buses and Ubers into a crammed county party headquarters at a strip mall Sunday night, standing alongside Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to rail against what they charged was a racist, unfair and undemocratic attempt to overhaul the Lone Star State\u2019s political map.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu said that he believed 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, N.Y.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Gov. Abbott is doing this in submission to Donald Trump so that Donald Trump can steal these communities\u2019 power and voice,&#8221; Wu said. &#8220;We will not be complicit in the destruction of our own communities. We&#8217;re not here to play political games, we&#8217;re here to demand an end to this corrupt process.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After the news conference, Wu said there was real fear that some of their members could be arrested for defying a special session call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe have discussed this. This is a topic of serious concern. We know the governor has no authority to send state troopers over here but we don\u2019t know what Donald Trump\u2019s going to do,\u201d Wu said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He argued there was no legal basis for arrests but then pointed to questionable actions taken by immigration officials in their nationwide sweeps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThat\u2019s not far-fetched from arresting state legislators because they feel like it, and consequences be damned,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On Sunday evening, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a statement making another threat, saying that if Democrats didn&#8217;t return by the time the Legislature is set to convene at 3 p.m. CT Monday, he would invoke an opinion by the Texas attorney general that he said would allow the removal of those Democrats from the Texas House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He also said that those legislators &#8220;may have also committed felonies&#8221; if they are &#8220;soliciting funds to evade the fines they will incur under House rules.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Texas Democrats face the risk of a $500-a-day fine. The Republican-controlled Legislature approved the punishment in 2023, two years after state Democrats left the state for three weeks to block an elections bill from progressing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;I will use my full extradition authority to demand the return to Texas of any potential out-of-state felons,&#8221; Abbott said in the statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Democrats&#8217; plans were uncertain, with Wu saying he was taking it day by day in a plan to stay in Illinois brokered with Pritzker, who had met with the Texas caucus late last month and has directed staff to provide logistical support for their stay. Pritzker said he was not funding the Texas lawmakers and had not planned to help them pay their potential fines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThey are attempting to cheat,\u201d Pritzker said of Texas Republicans Sunday evening. Asked about his own state\u2019s congressional map \u2014 which has long been criticized for having been gerrymandered by Democrats, who now have a 14-3 congressional advantage in the state \u2014 Pritzker contended there was a difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou\u2019re talking about the outcome,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The fact that we are very good in Illinois about delivering for the people of Illinois and then people react to that and vote for our candidate winning is very different than cheating mid-decade by rewriting the rule because their cult leader told them to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When asked if potential efforts by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul would also be cheating if they take similar action to match Texas as they have suggested, Pritzker said, \u201cRemember, all bets are off. All bets are when the cult leader and would-be dictator tells Texas to mid-stream change the game when they know they\u2019re going to lose in 2026. All bets are off. Everything\u2019s got to be on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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\u2019s midterm elections. It followed President Donald Trump\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThis map was politically based, and that\u2019s totally legal, totally allowed and totally fair,\u201d Vasut said. \u201cYou 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\u2019re getting, and Texas is underperforming in that. And so it\u2019s totally prudent, totally right, for Texas to be able to respond and improve the political performance of its map.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The origins of Pritzker\u2019s involvement began when the governor gave a keynote address to Oklahoma Democrats in June. Pritzker met privately in a \u201crobust\u201d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cDemocrats have got to stand up at this point and tell every individual in this nation, \u2018This is not normal. This is not democracy,\u2019\u201d Democratic state Rep. Ann Johnson told NBC News on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou\u2019ve got these Texas Republicans that are just rolling over and giving Trump what he wants because he\u2019s asked for it,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cIt\u2019s an affront to every citizen, not only in Texas but the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A showdown over redistricting in Texas played out here on Sunday as dozens of state Democrats took refuge roughly 1,000 miles away from home, saying they fled Texas to deny quorum to Republican efforts to add as many as five congressional seats to their map. It culminated with Texas&#8217; Republican governor threatening to expel the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":12190,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2078,1603,1945],"class_list":["post-12189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-democrats","tag-state","tag-texas"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Texas Democrats decamp to Illinois to deny Republicans a quorum on redistricting - LISTEN WORLD<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=12189\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Texas Democrats decamp to Illinois to deny Republicans a quorum on redistricting - LISTEN WORLD\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A showdown over redistricting in Texas played out here on Sunday as dozens of state Democrats took refuge roughly 1,000 miles away from home, saying they fled Texas to deny quorum to Republican efforts to add as many as five congressional seats to their map. 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