After weeks of protests by Democrats Texas House approves redrawing of map requested by Trump

The Republican-led Texas House passed a redrawn congressional map on Wednesday, following a request by US President Donald Trump after weeks of protests by Democrats aimed at stalling the efforts. Before the passing of the legislation, the initiative had already triggered a redistricting arms race between red and blue states.

Now that the bill has been passed in the House, the measure will go to the state senate, where it is expected to pass as soon as Thursday. It is pertinent to note that before the legislation was passed, Democratic state representatives filed a series of amendments to the bill, which were voted down. The party also raised objections to taking up redistricting before flood relief, to the house rules, which require a police escort when leaving the chamber, and to the proposal itself.

The Democrats emphasised that the mid-decade change reduces the voting power of people of colour and serves as a Republican political gain and further gerrymanders the state at the cost of democracy. “We’re ready to meet Trump where he is, which is on a dirt road,” said Democrat Nicole Collier, livestreaming from a bathroom off the legislative floor. “We’re ready to get down and dirty.”

The Democrat who trapped herself in the chamber

Collier has refused to sign a pass and permit a police escort for leaving the house floor, and has been trapped in the chamber as a result. While speaking to Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey on a Zoom call and the Democratic National Committee chair, Ken Martin, Collier said she was being told she had to end the live stream or face a felony charge, abruptly leaving the meeting.

The Democrats have been resisting the bill for weeks as the Republican-led Texas government finds ways to deal with the resistance. “This bill intentionally discriminates against Black and Hispanic Texans and other Texans of colour by cracking and packing minority communities across the state of Texas,“ said Chris Turner, a Democratic representative from Arlington. “It is a clear violation of the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution.”

Meanwhile, Republican leaders have rejected racial animus as an element of the redistricting, insisting that the redrawing of the map would increase the number of districts with a Hispanic voting age majority from seven to eight. It is pertinent to note that, based on the voting results from 2024, five congressional seats would change party from Democratic to Republican under the new map, which they argue is legally allowed.

“You want transparency,” said representative Todd Hunter, the Corpus Christi Republican who drafted the redistricting bill. “The underlying goal of this plan is straightforward: improve Republican political performance … We are allowed to draw congressional districts based on political performance, as recognised by the US Supreme Court in Rucho v Common Cause. These districts were drawn primarily using political performance to guide the redrawing of districts.”

Under the US Voting Rights Act, lawmakers need to draw lines with great awareness of the racial composition of the electorate, to avoid packing them into a single district and reduce their influence in other districts, or to spread them in other districts to such an extent that it dilutes their voting strength as a group.

California aimed to neutralise the move

Meanwhile, the Democratic-led state of California is scheduled to vote on Thursday morning on a suite of bills that would advance Newsom’s redistricting plan to “neutralise” Texas’s gerrymandering effort. However, the state needs to approve the new map through a November special election.

California has made it clear that the move would only take place if Texas or another Republican state moves forward with their mid-decade redistricting plan. On Tuesday, the California plan earned the support of former President Barack Obama, who said it was a “responsible” response to the Texas effort.

Last month, Democrats in the Texas House of Representatives fled the state with the intent of denying a quorum to the legislature to block a vote on the redistricting bill. However, they abandoned their exile after the California legislature began advancing a redistricting bill of its own.