The special session gavels in tomorrow and there’s a new proposed Congressional map, but before we get to that let’s look at the lay of the land going into the session.
On Monday, state lawmakers held a call with U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin, and former Attorney General Eric Holder regarding the special session. They did not directly encourage members to stage a walkout, a source who was on that call told ABC News. Still, the source added the state House members are continuing to keep all their options open.
California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom is being more explicit – telling the Pod Save America podcast that he has spoken to state lawmakers about calling a special session to begin making changes to state law in order to redraw their districts in response to Abbott.
“If we’re gonna play fair in a world that is wholly unfair, we may have the higher moral ground, but the ground is shifting from underneath us. And I think we have to wake up to that reality,” Newsom said.
California has an independent redistricting commission intended to prevent gerrymandering, but Paul Mitchell, an elections and redistricting expert, said Newsom could go around the commission either by getting voters’ approval on a ballot measure in a special election or by arguing in court.
A potential ballot measure could halt the commission’s authority to draw congressional districts until other states began using similar commissions, and “could all be done in time for the next election” without legal issues. The biggest uncertainty in this scenario would be whether or not voters would support it.
Alternatively, Newsom could argue the commission only has authority over decade-end redistricting, but the legislature can still redistrict mid-decade. Mitchell said it was a coin toss whether the California Supreme Court would uphold this argument.
Jeffries huddled with California’s congressional delegation to discuss the prospect Wednesday, a source familiar said. Experts suggested to ABC that other Democratic-held states could follow California’s lead, such as New York, Maryland or Illinois, but it’s unclear if there would be a significant strategic advantage.
Marina Jenkins, the executive director Holder’s National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said in a statement that Republicans are trying to “suppress votes” and believes an “an immediate avalanche of lawsuits” will come if the maps are redrawn.
“This moment requires all hands on deck to stop them,” said Jenkins.
From walkouts to retaliatory redistricting to lawsuits, I don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s easy to cheer for legislative Dems to flee the state, but as Lone Star Left pointed out, it’s a lot easier said than done. For one thing, Abbott can keep calling sessions, and the costs associated with being away will pile up. For another, there are issues on the agenda that Dems would like to have a say in, most notably related to flooding and THC regulation. You can be sure that the Republicans will blame their inability to pass laws on those topics on the absent Dems. It will be an argument made in bad faith, but it will be made and we know how easily people can be swayed by that. There’s a lot more to any case for or against breaking quorum than just that aspect of it.
We also don’t know what pressure Republicans may be under relating to this.
Some Texas Republicans in Congress say the issue is out of their hands.
“The Legislature has the prerogative to do it, and so they’ll look at the maps, we’ll see what they do,” said U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin. “We have no voice in that as members of Congress.”
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, appeared on board with the effort. He pointed to the gains Trump made in the 2024 elections.
On social media, the senior senator said, “Hispanic voters in Texas have rapidly shifted in favor of the GOP, in large part thanks @realdonaldtrump, so a mid decade redistricting will mean significant gains for Texas Republicans.”
When the news broke last month that the White House was pushing the effort, barely any Texas Republicans wanted to speak on the record about it. Changing the district lines could backfire by making some solidly red districts less Republican and more competitive.
“Everything comes at a cost,” said Kareem Crayton, vice president for the Brennan Center for Justice’s Washington, D.C. office. “Can you get people all aligned to do a thing again? But also, can you do it in a way that might make some members more vulnerable than they would be under the current version of the map?”
Senator Cornyn might want to look at some current polling numbers before he gets too comfortable in that statement. Be that as it may, there will be risks assumed by the current Republicans in Congress if a new map is adopted, and not just in the general election. They could be vulnerable in a primary just because so many of their current voters would no longer be theirs.
To see what I mean, here’s the current map and here’s the first proposed map. There may be others, but given the lag between when this idea was first floated (there were rumors about it before it was ever reported on) and now, you have to assume something like this was being shown around before now, and with the session being short and packed, we’re unlikely to see much more. A few observations:
– Hard to know what the weirdest-looking district is under this map, but CDs 23 and 32 would surely be on the short list. When I said a map that achieved what Republicans said they were aiming for would look like the world’s ugliest bowl of spaghetti, this is what I meant. I never want to hear another complaint about CD18 or CD33 again.
– CD23 no longer touches Bexar County. CD10 is out of Travis County. CD26 no longer has a piece of Tarrant County. CD17 was almost entirely east of I-35 and largely east of I-45, now it straddles I-35. CD25 now goes from Travis County to the Panhandle. CD01 is no longer in Smith County. These are all Republican districts, and I doubt anyone could properly identify all of them on an unmarked map. The bigger question on their side is, how many incumbent Republican members of Congress would no longer live in their districts? For sure, that will be a problem for them.
– Obviously, more violence was done to Dem districts, though CDs 16 and 18 appear to be mostly the same. They spread the Black voters around, for sure. I haven’t seen electoral analysis, but it wouldn’t shock me if this achieves the goal of making five more districts majority red, at least under 2024 data. How they might perform under 2018 conditions – or even more blue, if things keep getting worse for Trump – is another question altogether.
You can zoom in to street level on that district viewer, so if you’re not sure at first glance where you’ve ended up in this map you can verify it. I’d be in CD29 if this passes, the first time since 1989 that I’d not be in CD18. (I lived in a garage apartment in West U my first year in Houston and don’t know what district I was in; my best guess is it was CD07 under Bill Archer. After that I was in Montrose and then the Heights and it’s been CD18 all the way.) It looks like under this map, CD29 would be the only district entirely within Harris County. There’s going to be a hearing in Houston this week, I’ll pass along that info when I get it. They won’t listen, but you can show up and yell at them about this anyway.