AUSTIN, Texas—Bitter political battles over congressional redistricting—and whether voters choose their lawmakers or the other way around—come to a head today and tomorrow, Aug. 21 and 22, in Texas and California.
In Texas, a Democratic lawmaker is being held prisoner by the Republican majority in the state Capitol in Austin to ensure that they have the votes to force through a redistricting plan that would ensure a permanent Republican majority in the U.S. House.
Anti-worker Republicans control the Texas U.S. House delegation 25-13. Their remap will slice and dice districts—all with majorities or pluralities of people of color–now held by five Democrats, including Rep. Greg Casar, a longtime union organizer.
Trump triggered the cause of the unconstitutional and illegal imprisonment with a late-night all-caps tweet demanding that Texas eliminate most of its congressional Democrats, most of whom are African American or Latino.
Republicans control the Texas House 88-62. They needed 100 lawmakers present for a quorum for the special session Abbott called to enact the illegal remap. All the Democrats fled the state. Most wound up in Illinois. They returned on August 18.
Then House Speaker, Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, mandated they could only leave the House chamber under round-the-clock “escort” by state troopers.
Burrows also declared the Democrats needed a signed letter from him saying they agreed to a vote at the August 20 session. Rep. Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth, refused to sign the letter, and Burrows wouldn’t let her leave unless she did.
Armed with pillows and blankets, and provided with food by several colleagues, Collier spent the night of August 19-20 at her desk.
“I refuse to sign away my dignity as a duly elected representative just so Republicans can control my movements and monitor me with police escorts,” Collier said in a statement on August 18.
“When I press that button to vote, I know these maps will harm my constituents—I won’t just go along quietly with their intimidation or their discrimination.”
Trump virtually ordered the already GOP-gerrymandered Texas legislature and his willing ally, GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, to redraw the state’s lines to give Republicans five more U.S. House seats in next November’s off-year election.
The Texas House vote was scheduled for today, August 20, with the plan expected to easily pass along party lines. The GOP-gerrymandered state Senate is likely to follow that lead.
The Texas battle is important to workers, minorities and democracy as is the entire war over congressional redistricting. And redistricting is just one weapon in the GOP arsenal to rig the 2026 and 2028 elections, and all elections that follow—if there are any at all—in their favor.
Other GOP weapons include the SAVE Act, a House-passed bill along party lines that would deprive at least 21 million people, most of them women, of their voting rights.
In addition, GOP-run “red” states are restricting ballot drop boxes, curbing absentee and online voting, and scrubbing voter rolls to eliminate workers, women, people of color, students, and other “enemies” of their radical right and pro-corporate agenda.
Trump is, in addition, now calling for the total elimination of voting by mail, falsely claiming that no other countries use the system. The claim is false, with numerous countries, including Canada and the UK, using the system.
Battle shifts to California
Meanwhile, the battle is shifting to California, with the heavily Democratic legislature there scheduled to vote tomorrow, August 21, on Newsom’s plan to override the injustice happening in Texas.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed to evade the state’s mandated non-partisan redistricting commission and remap the Golden State to add five Democrats there.
That move alone would neutralize Texas’s gambit. Democrats control the California delegation, the nation’s largest, 43-9. Add Illinois, where Democrats control the U.S. House delegation 14-3, is also the scene of expected battling over district lines.
Newsom’s plan involves a voter referendum overriding the state constitutional provision for an independent redistricting commission. If voters agree, the Democratic-run legislature could then impose Newsom’s map, thus trumping Texas’s remap.
Newsom also took to social media, mimicking Trump with tweets full of exclamation points and all capital letters, to publicize his plan. Democrats got the joke. Republicans were furious. And they’ve since sued in state courts to stop that redistricting in its tracks.
That leaves Illinois, where Democrats have total control and the state’s U.S. House delegation is 14-3 Democratic already. If Texas moves, Pritzker wants to make it even more tilted.
The Land of Lincoln is so gerrymandered already—there is no commission in the way, yet—that one congressional district, dominated by Chicago’s South Side, stretches more than 125 miles south to Kankakee.
And deep-red-turned-purple DuPage County, the most populous of the “collar counties” around Chicago, once had a district of its own. Now it’s sliced among four districts, three of them Democratic-held.
Congressional Democrats, seeing the bare-knuckle tactics of the GOP in preserving its slim U.S. House margin and rewriting maps to ensure lawmakers choose their constituents, abandoned their past stand against partisan redistricting.
“I will be an advocate for continuing to try to create national standards, but until those national standards are agreed to by everyone, I think it’s going to make it increasingly difficult for states to continue to engage in a more nonpartisan system of redistricting,” said Rep. Joe Morrelle, D-N.Y., the top Democrat on a U,S. House committee that deals with election issues.
“As with so many things, Donald Trump shatters the norms and the standards that we have lived for, and as we try to improve our democracy, he is just shattering it. We have no choice but to respond in kind,” Morrelle told Politico.
We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!
CONTRIBUTOR
