The Texas Senate approved on Saturday (23) new maps of the congressional elaborated to help Republicans win up to five more chairs in the House in the middle of next year elections.
Voting was the last legislative obstacle to the Redistritement Plan sought by President Donald Trump and Governor Greg Abbott – a plan that triggered an increasingly intense national arms race for redistructuring.
California Democrats responded to Texas’s effort on Thursday approving your own new congressional mapsan attempt led by Governor Gavin Newsom to compensate for Republican Party gains in Texas, giving Democrats five more districts in favor of the House.
Newsom’s plan faces another major obstacle. As California voters have transferred the power to draft Maps of the Legislators Congress to an independent committee in 2010, the implementation of the new Democratic Maps will require a state election on November 4.
Voters will be asked to approve a constitutional amendment to annul the commission’s district limits.
The race to redesign electoral districts – a process that usually occurs once every decade after the US census – will probably expand in the coming weeks.
The White House is keeping an eye on Ohio, where a unique state law requires the legislature to enjoy new maps this year, as well as Missouri, Florida, Indiana and South Carolina, where Republicans have full control of state governments, as opportunities to add more favorable districts.
Democratic governors in Illinois, Maryland and New York also proposed to redesign their maps to add more districts with a democratic trend.
“The game started,” said New York governor Kathy Hochul on Wednesday X after the Texas Chamber approved its new maps.
Redistructuring in the mid -decade is unusual, and state legislators are not hiding why they are doing it now.
Texas state deputy Todd Hunter, the Republican who sponsored the new map of the House Congress, said during a debate on Wednesday that he did it “to give Republicans an opportunity they didn’t have in the past.”
California state senator Catherine Blakespear, Democrat, said during a plenary debate on Thursday that Republicans “began this madness.”
“Republicans are trying to defraud to overcome the middle-term elections for Congress under their unpopular president, and Democrats are reacting. It is about trying to level the national scene so that we can have almost fair elections for Congress in 2026,” said Blakespear.
Maps exceed the last obstacle
The approval of the Texas Senate Redistritement Plan on Saturday is the final stage for the new maps to be sent to the Abbott table to be sanctioned.
The new maps “should elect more republicans to the US Congress, but I’m here to say there are no guarantees,” said the author of the project in the Senate, Republican Phil King.
The drama around the initiative seemed to enter its final chapter on Monday, when the Democratic members of the House who had fled the state for 15 days to deny the House the special two-thirds quorum returned to Austin.
To prevent Democrats from leaving the state again that same day, the mayor, Dustin Burrows, locked the House’s doors and demanded that the boycotting democrats sign authorizations, agreeing to be escorted by a public security department agent, who would return them when the House gathered again on Wednesday.
State Representative Nicole Collier refused and remained in the House plenary for two nights; More Democrats ripped their permits and joined her on the second night.
These democrats promised on Wednesday night, minutes after the 88-52 party vote in the House, waging a legal battle against the new Congress maps.
“This fight is far from ending,” said state deputy Gene Wu, a democratic leader in the House. “Our best chance is in the courts.”
There was a certain drama in the State Senate, when the final approval of the Republican Redistrination legislation was threatened by a possible obstruction of the state Senator Democrat Carol Alvarado, known for his 15 -hour obstruction against a restrictive electoral law in 2021.
But the Senate Republicans blocked their initiative, citing a fundraising email sent by their campaign on Friday and accusing it of violating the rules of the House.
Even before they are sanctioned, the new maps are already remodeling the scenario of the middle -term elections. Democratic deputy Lloyd Doggett, who currently represents the 37th district, said he will not seek reelection if the new maps are held in court.
His retirement would avoid a potentially controversial primary against another Democratic congressman, Deputy Greg Casar, whose district would be redesigned to favor Republicans with the new maps.
Meanwhile, the House Republicans are fulfilling their threats of punishing the democrats who have fled the state. They have notified some of the House democrats that they will have to pay fines and court costs of more than $ 9,000 each.
A letter published by state deputy Venton Jones rated a total of $ 9,354.25 due – including $ 7,000 in fines, following a rule that imposed daily fines of $ 500 for those who violate the quorum after a 2021 democrat strike, and $ 2,354.25 in costs.
The costs were divided among the legislators and totaled US $ 124,943.40.
The letter was sent by the chairman of the State Chamber Administration Committee, Deputy Charlie Geren.
Democrats may request a legal hearing to explain “why the total amount of fines and costs authorized by the rule should not be imposed” or send a written request to the committee by August 25.
California
Contrary to the Texas Redistrination Bill, which did not require constitutional amendment, the California project was divided into three parts.
A bill is the constitutional amendment; Another finances the election of November 4; and another includes the maps themselves. All three were approved in both Legislative Chambers on Thursday, with mostly partisan votes.
The California Redistritement Plan will only come into force if voters approve the State Constitution in the November election to temporarily replace the Maps of the Chamber of the State Independent Redistrination Commission with new Democratic Maps for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections.
California republicans have long recognized that their best chance of blocking the redistructuring initiative is to defeat it at the polls.
A coalition of opponents of electoral manipulation and republican leaders has already begun to graduate to defeat the initiative, known as proposal 50.
State and federal democrats are also preparing to defend it.
Newsom argued that California’s effort is “strong contrast to what you are seeing in Texas,” because voters need to sign before new districts can come into force.
“I signed the first bill already signed by a governor of any state in US history that will place maps against voters for its determination. It is the most democratic redistructing effort ever made,” he said in a live broadcast with supporters on Thursday.
The California Democrats plan initially included a trigger that would come into force only if another state was involved in a redistrination in the mid-decade, but this arrangement was removed on Thursday, a day after the Texas Chamber approved the Congress maps drawn by the Republican Party.
“As Texas Republicans voted,” the trigger language “is no longer necessary,” said Nick Miller, director of communications at the President of the Assembly, Robert Rivas, in a statement.
