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Texas legislators have approved new congressional maps meant to give Republicans an edge in next year’s elections for the US House of Representatives.
After a two-week standoff, where Democrats fled the state to stall the vote and rally supporters against the redistricting plans, Republicans in the Texas House of Representatives passed the new voting lines in an 88 – 52 vote.
The maps will now go to the Texas Senate, where they are expected to be swiftly approved.
The new maps are intended give Republicans five seats that are currently held by Democrats and shore up the party’s US House majority. However, Democrat-led states are pushing to redraw their maps to offset those gains.
President Donald Trump backed redrawing the maps to safeguard a Republican majority in the US House, when congressional lawmakers will again be on the ballot in 2026.
The vote followed a dramatic standoff, where state Democrats fled the state to halt the new maps from being voted on.
At least two-thirds of the 150-member state legislative body in Texas must be present to proceed with the vote, called a quorum. It became unreachable in the Texas House of Representatives after Democrats fled.
Texas Gov Greg Abbott issued arrest warrants for members of the group and multiple Democrats said law enforcement had been monitoring their homes while they were gone.
The lawmakers returned this week, saying they believed their stalling helped garner widespread awareness of the redistricting plans and caused multiple states to mull their own plans to counter Republicans.
In an effort to ensure Democrats would not attempt to halt the vote again, Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows on Monday ordered the house chamber doors be locked.
He also said Democrats would be “released into the custody” of a designated officer to ensure they return to the statehouse on Wednesday for the redistricting vote.
Several Democrats instead ripped up the written agreements that they were required to sign for the police escort. One lawmaker, state Rep Nicole Collier elected to sleep in the house chamber instead of being escorted by an officer.
In the time since Texas started mulling these new voting maps, other states controlled by both political parties – including Florida, New York, Ohio and Missouri – have been mulling political changes to their voting maps.
California lawmakers are currently debating new maps that would give new advantages to Democrats in five districts, which would cancel out changes made in Texas.
A key provision in California says the changed maps would only go into effect if Texas or other states went ahead with changes favouring Republicans.
The changed maps in Texas sparked concerns about gerrymandering – the redrawing of electoral boundaries to favour a political party – which is legal unless it is racially motivated.
Like other states, Texas typically redraws congressional districts once a decade when new population data is released by the US Census.
Texas Democrats contend that redrawing the maps before the next census count in 2030 is being done along racial lines – an argument that has been rejected by Republicans. Voting maps that were approved in 2021 after the last population count are currently being litigated over allegations of racial discrimination.
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