Senators approved in a vote divided by a party line 18-11 after more than eight hours of debate
Legislators of the State of approved, on Saturday (23), a new electoral map designed to help the Republican party maintain control of the congress of the 2026 legislative elections.
The senators approved the map at a vote divided by a 18-11 party line after more than eight hours of debate, and despite the attempt of a Democratic senator to block the vote.
The Governor of Texas, the Republican, wrote this Saturday on social network X that he is in a hurry to promulgate this new map, and added that he “reflects the new electoral preferences of Texans.”
The US President, he pressured the Republican majority in the Texas legislative chambers to modify the state’s electoral districts to reduce the chances of Democrats to take control of the Federal Representatives House in the 2026 legislative elections.
This election will be crucial to the second half of the mandate of the tycoon, which seeks to consolidate the narrow current republican majority in the House of Representatives to continue implementing its political agenda.
Democrats hope, in turn, that Trump’s low popularity helps them control the low council of Congress. To ensure that this does not happen, the US president wants to redesign the electoral districts of the Republican states in favor of conservative candidates and to the detriment of the Democrats.
In this way, Texas resorted to the technique known as gerrymandering, which consists in redesigning electoral districts. This process has obtained a new and unequal drawing that should allow the American right to get up to five additional seats in Congress.
California response
The attitude of the Republicans caused a great controversy in the country and made the most populous state of the US, the Democrats respond with the same strategy. In this state, the governor, who claims to be Trump’s main opponent in the Democratic field, proposed an electoral map that would give his party up to five more seats to undermine the Texan initiative.
Last Thursday (21), the California state legislature approved the plan by overwhelming unanimity. The legislature also accepted the organization of a referendum in November to consult whether voters want to temporarily modify the limits of their electoral districts by 2030.
“We are responding to what happened in Texas,” said Newsom in an interview with the David Pakman podclus. “What evidence of authoritarianism is needed?” He asked. “These guys don’t play … People should wake up and open their eyes,” added the governor, reporting Trump for not “respecting any rule.”
Former Democratic President Barack Obama praised California’s decision as an “intelligent and balanced” response to Trump’s actions. Other states also seek to modify their electoral maps to give the majority party an advantage in the 2026 elections.
In addition to Texas, the Republican president wants to redistribute the electoral districts of the states of Indiana, Ohio and Missouri. For New York Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul, this is the “last breath of a desperate party that clings to power.”
She warned Trump through a statement that “would face him in the same field and win him in his own terrain,” just like California.
In Texas, Democratic legislators considered the manipulation of electoral districts as an attempt to neutralize the African-American vote, violating the law of voting rights. This legislation, an important civil rights law approved in 1965, aimed to prevent the southern states from depriving African Americans of the right to vote.
Democrats, a minority in the Texas legislature, believe that local republicans want to silence minority voters through “racist manipulations” of electoral districts. They argued, the new electoral map would dilute the votes of black and Latin voters, who traditionally vote for Democrats more.
*With information from AFP
Posted by Nátaly Tenório
