Democrats Broach Potential Walkout to Block Texas Redistricting

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/us/politics/texas-redistricting-trump.html

https://archive.ph/6OQtA

Democrats Broach Potential Walkout to Block Texas Redistricting
Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, told Texas Democrats on a call on Tuesday that the moment required everyone to take extraordinary actions.
By J. David Goodman and Shane Goldmacher
July 15, 2025 Updated 6:55 p.m. ET

National Democratic leaders are encouraging state Democrats in the Texas House to consider walking out of a special legislative session this month to block Republicans from redrawing the state’s congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

At the same time, President Trump held his own call on Tuesday with congressional Republicans in the state, urging them to carve out five new G.O.P. seats from those held by Democrats, according to a person briefed on that call, which was first reported by Punchbowl News.

“Just spoke to our Great Congressmen and women of Texas,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media. He added, “I keep hearing about Texas ‘going Blue,’ but it is just another Democrat LIE.”

The redistricting of House seats is supposed to come at the beginning of each decade, after new census data shifts populations and changes the number of seats granted to each state. Reapportionment in the middle of the decade is rare and almost always contentious, since it is driven by political considerations, not demographic shifts. In this case, Mr. Trump is openly trying to use new maps to stave off midterm Democratic gains that would potentially cost his party control of the narrowly divided House.

Mr. Jeffries called the coming special session an all-hands-on-deck moment that would require extraordinary actions to block Mr. Trump and Texas Republicans, according to a person familiar with his remarks who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a private conversation.

The Democratic call on Monday also included Eric Holder, who served as attorney general under President Barack Obama and has led efforts to reverse gerrymandering in the House, according to a copy of the call agenda that was obtained by The New York Times.

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