Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.
Eleanor Klibanoff at Texas Tribune:
The Texas House voted Monday afternoon to track down and arrest more than 50 Democratic lawmakers who were not present when the chamber gaveled in. After the 85-6 vote, House Speaker Dustin Burrows said he would immediately sign civil warrants for each of the legislators, empowering the chamber’s sergeant-at-arms and state troopers to arrest and bring them to the Capitol.
They will not face civil or criminal charges from the arrests. The warrants apply only within state lines, making them largely symbolic as most of the legislators in question decamped to Illinois, New York and Massachusetts to forestall passage of the GOP’s proposed redraw of Texas’ congressional map.
The House used the same tactic to try to force Democrats back to work in 2021, when a majority of them left for Washington, D.C., to protest GOP voting restrictions. Some of the lawmakers challenged the warrants in court, obtaining an injunction against arrests that was later struck down by the Texas Supreme Court.
While the Texas Constitution “enables ‘quorum-breaking’ by a minority faction of the legislature, it likewise authorizes ‘quorum-forcing’ by the remaining members,” the court ruled.
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Democrats left the state Sunday afternoon to deny the House a quorum — the number of people necessary for the chamber to advance legislation — and delay passage of a new congressional map.
The current congressional map, drawn by a Republican-dominated Legislature in 2021, has netted 25 GOP seats in the last two elections. But after pressure from President Donald Trump’s team, Abbott directed lawmakers to redraw the map during the special legislative session, which started July 21. Last week, the House proposed new congressional lines dividing up existing districts in Austin, Houston and Dallas with the aim of netting five more Republican seats.
Michael Wilner, Laura J. Nelson, Seema Mehta and Taryn Luna at LAT:
A last-ditch effort by California Democrats to redraw the state’s congressional map for the 2026 election, countering a similar push by Texas Republicans, is now up against the clock.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday that Democrats are moving forward with a plan to put a rare mid-decade redistricting plan before voters on Nov. 4. But state lawmakers will craft a “trigger,” he said, meaning California voters would only vote on the measure if Texas moved forward with its own plans to redraw Congressional boundaries to add five more Republican seats.
“It’s cause and effect, triggered on the basis of what occurs or doesn’t occur in Texas,” Newsom said. “I hope they do the right thing, and if they do, then there’ll be no cause for us to have to move forward.”
