Redistricting roundup

While we wait for maps, we can ponder whether or not there will be a quorum break.

As Republicans in Texas move full steam ahead with a plan to redraw the state’s congressional districts, Democrats are privately mulling their options, including an expensive and legally dicey quorum break.

If they go that route, it appears they will have the backing of big-dollar Democratic donors.

By fleeing the state to deprive the Legislature of enough members to function, Democrats would each incur a fine of $500 per day and face the threat of arrest. Deep-pocketed donors within the party appear ready to cover these expenses, according to three people involved in the discussions.

The donors’ willingness to foot the bill eliminates a major deterrent to walking out — the personal financial cost — and could embolden Democrats who might otherwise hesitate.

But first, the donors and absconding members would need to figure out how to skirt a potential roadblock: Texas House rules prohibit lawmakers from dipping into their campaign coffers to pay the fines. Republicans approved the $500 daily punishment in 2023, two years after Democrats fled the state in an unsuccessful bid to stop Republicans from passing an overhaul of the state’s election laws.

Two people involved in the latest Democratic fundraising strategy sessions, who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations, claim their legal teams have found a way to disburse the funds to the members but declined to provide any additional details.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Dallas Democrat who was part of the 2021 quorum break, sees a path to circumvent the campaign finance rules: With minimal limits on external income, Texas lawmakers can simply accept the donations as another salary, she said. As one of the most prolific fundraisers in the U.S. House, Crockett said she’s willing to tap her donor base — and her $3.7 million war chest — to cover the expenses.

[…]

Donors appeared convinced and ready to open their checkbooks should Texas members decide to flee the state, according to three people who were on the calls or briefed on them. One person estimated lawmakers would need $1 million per month to finance the protest — a sum that those involved in the calls are certain they can secure.

Paying these fines may not even be necessary, Crockett believes.

“I think that the first step would be to make sure that there are attorneys on deck to actually challenge the legality of these rules,” she said in an interview with The Texas Tribune.

Andrew Cates, an Austin-based campaign finance and ethics lawyer, said he would be “very surprised if there were any real monetary penalties that were enforceable.”

Okay, let me say first that “As Republicans in Texas move full steam ahead with a plan to redraw the state’s congressional districts” sure sounds like an overbid to me, especially when there are no freaking maps. But maybe I just have different definitions of “full steam ahead” and “with a plan”. I was skeptical about that “$1 million a month” figure, but Lone Star Left, which has their doubts about a quorum break, did some back of the envelope math on it before the session started, and it’s in the ballpark. That’s a real consideration, and I’m not sure how confident I am in the national fundraising process for this. But at least there’s a number.

I personally would be a lot more worried about our deranged madman in DC deciding to send in a goon squad to arrest every out of state Dem and drag them back to Austin in chains. This was all his idea in the first place, and he will have no compunctions about using excessive force or pretty much anything else. I’m not sure how to quantify this, but the odds of there being violence visited on the quorum busters is very much not zero. And I’m sure that is something they have thought about.

Nonetheless, they are doing some due diligence.

Members of the Texas House Democratic Caucus have gone to New Mexico for the day to meet with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. It’s not a quorum break — unlike the last time Texas Democrats sent a contingent to New Mexico — but another chance for Democrats to lock arms nationally against the mid-decade redistricting effort in the Lone Star State.

[…]

It’s the THDC’s third such expeditionary force this special session after members traveled to California and Illinois on Friday to meet with Govs. Gavin Newsom and JB Pritzker. Democrats frame the coalition as a national “firewall” against Texas’ map redraw pushed by President Donald Trump and called by Gov. Greg Abbott as Republicans look to retain the U.S. House in 2026.

U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York will travel to Austin on Wednesday, underscoring the national spotlight on Austin.

Unlike Newsom and Pritzker, Lujan Grisham isn’t considering retaliatory redistricting because there’s no more juice to squeeze out of New Mexico. The state’s three congressional seats are already held by Democrats. Instead, Texas Democrats are using the trip to argue that Abbott and Republicans are wasting time with redistricting as opposed to prioritizing a legislative response to the recent Central Texas floods.

Flash floods have hit the New Mexico mountain town of Ruidoso three times in less than a month during the ongoing monsoon season. One of the floods killed three people. The town is expected to get more rain Tuesday.

“We’re traveling to meet with leaders who put people first in a crisis,” Moody said in a statement, contrasting New Mexico with Texas’ focus on redistricting. “We’re seeking serious, productive conversations with other governors about how to solve the real problems Texans expect and deserve their leaders to solve.”

Like I said, I don’t know what they’re going to do. I don’t envy them the decision, and I cannot and will not be mad at anyone who isn’t willing or able to flee the state.

Meanwhile, Ken Paxton has responded to the Trump Justice Department and its claims about how the current map was drawn.

On July 7, President Trump’s Department of Justice sent a letter to Texas leaders claiming three Houston-area and one Fort Worth-based Democratic congressional districts were unconstitutional racial gerrymanders.

In a letter four days later, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton disagreed with the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division’s interpretation.

He mentioned that a lawsuit against Congressional District 18 had already been dismissed and the other three districts – TX 9, 29, and 33 – were drawn race-blind. The state just wrapped up a four-week trial in El Paso defending the constitutionality of the 2021 maps.

“The evidence at that trial was clear and unequivocal: the Texas legislature did not pass race-based electoral districts for any of those three political maps,” wrote Paxton in bold in a letter obtained through a public records request.

The Attorney General went on to write that Texas State Senator Joan Huffman, R – Houston, as chair of a redistricting committee, testified under oath she drew the districts race-blind and only sought “to maximize Republican political advantage.”

The letter is important because Governor Abbott placed redistricting on the special session agenda because of the constitutional concerns raised by the DOJ in their July 7 letter. In interviews afterward, Abbott said he believed the current maps would hold up in court but supported looking into redrawing them.

You can see a copy of the letter in the story. Paxton still has the original lawsuit against the current maps to defend, and he’d surely prefer not to have the Justice Department crap all over his defense. As I’m sure you can tell, I’m just full of sympathy for him.

One more thing from this story:

The Department of Justice does have a move of last resort if Texas lawmakers cannot draw new congressional maps during the summer. Some Democrats have threatened to break quorum, leaving town so the lawmaking process stops. Fifteen already traveled out of state to strategize with their colleagues in California and Illinois.

With that in mind, during the first few weeks of the special session, some Republican political operatives told NBC DFW they could take their case to the court system and impose new maps on the state if lawmakers cannot draw new ones.

In the letter sparking this latest round of redistricting, Trump’s Department of Justice said as much.

In the July 7 letter, the Assistant Attorney General over the Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon, warned Governor Greg Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that legal action could come if changes were not made.

“If the State of Texas fails to rectify the racial gerrymandering of TX-09, TX-18, TX-29 and TX33, the Attorney General reserves the right to seek legal action against the State, including without limitation under the 14th Amendment,” Dhillon wrote.

Just a reminder, one of the justifications for the DeLay re-redistricting of 2003 was that the 2001 Congressional map had been drawn by a three-judge panel since the Lege (which in 2001 still had a Dem majority in the House) could not agree on a map. The party line at the time was that only a map drawn by the Lege was legitimate. Those were the days, let me tell you.

Axios has a couple of interesting tidbits.

State of play: Midterm elections are typically a tougher playing field for the party in power. Democrats are eyeing taking back the House in 2026.

• If safe Republican districts in Texas are diluted with Democratic voters to build Republican districts elsewhere, then reliable seats could turn competitive for Republicans, Jon Taylor, department chair and political science professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, tells Axios.

[…]

What they’re saying: “Given the kind of election that’s taking place, given the issues that may be in play, they may be in for an unpleasant surprise,” Taylor says of the Republican Party.

• “They are putting everything at risk in this special session by putting this on the agenda.”

Zoom in: The Cook Political Report says the most obvious targets are the 28th and 34th congressional districts in South Texas, represented by Democratic U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, respectively.

• Taylor also thinks Republicans could “radically” redraw the 35th Congressional District, represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, which runs from East Austin to San Antonio along Interstate 35.
• Other potential targets: the 32nd and 37th districts, represented by Democratic U.S. Reps. Julie Johnson of the Dallas area and Lloyd Doggett of Austin.
• Republicans who could gain Democratic voters include U.S. Reps. Tony Gonzales, whose sprawling district extends from San Antonio to El Paso, and Chip Roy, whose district encompasses much of the conservative Hill Country but includes portions of Austin and San Antonio.

What we’re watching: Republicans are looking to South Texas after Trump performed well with Latino voters there.

• But Taylor says it isn’t a given that they will continue to prefer Republicans.
• Hispanic adults give Trump’s handling of immigration a lower approval rating (21%) than the national rating (35%), per a Gallup poll conducted in June.

[…]

The bottom line: There’s already a warning sign for Republicans as they weigh redistricting.

• The top concern among Texas voters is no longer immigration or border security — for years, winning issues for the GOP — according to the Texas Politics Project Poll in June.
• It’s now “political corruption/leadership.”

We’ve talked about the risk to Republicans before. We still don’t know what it amounts to, and we don’t know how seriously anyone on that side is taking it. I assume any threat to CDs 35 and 37 are mostly to screw with Reps. Casar and Doggett, as there are more obvious electoral targets elsewhere. But who knows?

Finally, the NYT reports on New York possibly doing their own retaliatory redistricting; the story is firewalled, so that’s all I know. We’re all just waiting here.

Related Posts:

• So is there a map yet or not?
• July 2025 campaign finance reports – Senate and Congress
• Still no maps