Texas redistricting fight with Democrats 'could last years', threatens Greg Abbott

Source: The Guardian

Sun 10 Aug 2025 14.22 EDT
Last modified on Sun 10 Aug 2025 14.24 EDT


Texas governor, Greg Abbott, has stepped up his war of words with Democratic lawmakers who have left the state to foil an aggressive redistricting plan aimed at giving his Republican party five additional seats in Congress, saying on Sunday that the fight “could literally last years”.

Abbott issued his new threat on Fox News Sunday, saying that he would use his powers to call a special session of the Texas legislature to extend the battle indefinitely. The special session lasts 30 days, he said, “and as soon as this one is over, I’m going to call another one, then another one, then another one, then another one”.

Whenever the absent Democrats return to Texas, Abbott said, they would be arrested for violating their oath of office. “If they want to evade that arrest, they’re going to stay outside Texas for literally years,” he remarked. “And they might as well start voting in California or Illinois, or wherever they may be.”

Sunday’s TV political talk shows were dominated by the increasingly acrimonious dispute over Texas’s audacious gerrymandering plans which were instigated at the direct behest of Donald Trump. The move to flip five US House seats to the Republicans is being made as polls indicate that the US president’s party will struggle to hang on to its razor-slim majority in the chamber in next year’s midterm elections. The Republicans currently hold a margin of just three seats.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/10/greg-abbott-special-legislature-session-democrats

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And then by the end of December, you're done (IIRC, the legislature is only in session every other year (odd years) and it would be too late for the 2026 election for redistricting).

And without a quorum, you can't do ANY OTHER business in the state, dumbass.