Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed dueling petitions to the state Supreme Court this week seeking to punish dozens of quorum-breaking Democrats who fled the state to block passage of a newly drawn congressional map — a high-stakes gerrymandering fight playing out ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
Abbott’s petition, filed late Tuesday night, alleges that Rep. Gene Wu, the Democratic Caucus chair, and his 49 Democratic colleagues violated their “affirmative constitutional obligation” by leaving Texas late last week to block the state from passing the newly drawn congressional map.
“Representative Wu has openly renounced these constitutional mandates by fleeing the State of Texas to break quorum, obstruct legislative proceedings, and paralyze the Texas House of Representatives,” Abbott said.
Paxton, for his part, said he will issue judicial orders on Friday, August 8, to all Democrats who failed to return to the House and “present themselves” before the end of the speaker’s deadline.
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Under the state’s constitution, two-thirds of the House legislators must be present for the body to conduct business.
It was with an eye to this rule that Democratic lawmakers fled the state to cities including Chicago, New York City and Boston — beyond the reach of Texas authorities and Abbott.
But Texas’s newly drawn map — a rare, mid-decade redistricting attempt — heavily favors Republicans, and would create five additional Republican-leaning districts in the state.
The move is part of a broader Republican effort to shore up control of the U.S. House through aggressive redistricting in GOP-led states.
As with most midterms following a new president’s election, 2026 is expected to serve as a referendum on the White House, raising concerns among Republicans that they could lose control of the chamber next fall.
But the push in Texas has also prompted backlash and threats of retaliation from Democrats in other blue states as well, indicating the breadth and scope of the potential redistricting fight.
“The president and Texas governor have essentially set off kind of a gerrymandering ‘arms race,'” Bruce Spiva, the senior vice president of the Campaign Legal Center, told Fox News Digital in an interview.
It also “leaves other states that have already adopted reforms to go back on them in order to try to respond or retaliate,” he said.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom threatened earlier this week to dismantle the state’s independent redistricting commission if Texas goes through with its new map.
“The proposal that we’re advancing with the legislature has a trigger only if they move forward, to dismantling the protocols that are well-established,” Newsom said at a press conference, describing the effort as fighting “fire with fire.”
Spiva, the CLC vice president, said the fight highlights the importance of national legislation to protect against partisan gerrymandering efforts.
“There is national legislation that has been introduced in previous congresses … that would essentially require independent redistricting commissions everywhere,” he said.
The legislative efforts were designed specifically to protect against situations like today, he said, in which some states have essentially disarmed partisan redistricting maps “and have adopted a fair system, while another state says, ‘Well, hey, that’s great, that leaves me open to gerrymandering the heck out of my map!'”
“Never, in my knowledge, has a president ever explicitly called on a state to redistrict in the middle of the decade in order to maximize the advantage for his party,” Spiva added.
Wu has pushed back on Abbott’s characterization of the Democrats’ walkout.
“Denying the governor a quorum was not an abandonment of my office; it was a fulfillment of my oath,” he said on social media.
In a press conference Monday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul stressed the magnitude of the redistricting efforts and vowed to explore “every option” in redrawing state lines.
“We are at war,” Hochul said, speaking alongside the Texas Democrats who fled to her state.
“And that’s why the gloves are off — and I say, ‘Bring it on.’”