quorum

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Democrats ended a two-week walkout Monday that stalled Republican efforts to redraw congressional districts as part of a national partisan brawl over President Trump’s desire to reshape U.S. House maps to his advantage.

Their return to the Texas Capitol will allow the Republican-run Legislature to proceed as California Democrats separately advance a countereffort to redraw their congressional boundaries in retaliation. The tit-for-tat puts the nation’s two most populous states at the center of an expanding fight over control of Congress ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The battle also has rallied Democrats nationally after infighting and frustrations among the party’s voters since Republicans took control of the White House and Capitol Hill in January.

Dozens of state House Democrats left the state Aug. 3 to deny their Republican-majority colleagues the attendance necessary to vote on redrawn maps intended to send five more Texas Republicans to Washington.

After spending nearly two weeks in Illinois and elsewhere, they declared victory when Republicans adjourned their first special session Friday and Democrats around the country rallied in opposition to the Trump-led gerrymandering effort. They pointed specifically to California’s release of proposed maps intended to increase Democrats’ U.S. House advantage by five seats, in effect neutralizing any Republican gains in Texas.

Many of the absent Democrats left Chicago early Monday and landed hours later at a private airfield in Austin, where several boarded a large charter bus to the Capitol. Once inside, they were greeted by cheering supporters. And for the first time since Trump’s redistricting push accelerated into a national issue, the Texas House floor was near full capacity when lawmakers convened briefly Monday afternoon.

Republican House Speaker Dustin Burrows did not mention redistricting on the floor Monday but promised swift action on the Legislature’s agenda.

“The majority has the right to prevail. The minority has the right to be heard,” the speaker said. “We are done waiting.”

Democrats cheered at the Austin statehouse

Cheering supporters greeted returning lawmakers inside the Capitol before the House convened for a brief session.

“We killed the corrupt special session, withstood unprecedented surveillance and intimidation, and rallied Democrats nationwide to join this existential fight for fair representation — reshaping the entire 2026 landscape,” Texas House Minority Leader Gene Wu said in a written statement.

Wu has promised Democrats would challenge the new designs in court.

The House did not take up any bills Monday and was not scheduled to return until Wednesday.

Trump has pressured other Republican-run states to consider redistricting as well, while Democratic governors in multiple statehouses have indicated they would follow California’s lead in response. Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom has said that his state will hold a Nov. 4 special referendum on the redrawn districts.

The president wants to shore up Republicans’ narrow House majority and avoid a repeat of the 2018 midterms during his first presidency. Democrats regained House control then and used their majority to stymie his agenda and twice impeach him.

On a national level, the partisan makeup of existing district lines puts Democrats within three seats of a majority. Of the 435 total House seats, only several dozen districts are competitive. So even slight changes in a few states could affect which party wins control.

Texas’ governor jumped to the president’s aid

Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott added redistricting to an initial special session agenda that included a number of issues, but most notably a package of bills responding to devastating floods that killed more than 130 people last month.

Abbott has blamed Democrats’ absence for delaying action on those measures. Democrats have countered that Abbott’s capitulation to Trump is responsible for the delay because he insisted on in effect linking the hyper-partisan matter to the nonpartisan flood relief.

Redistricting typically occurs once at the beginning of each decade to coincide with the census. Many states, including Texas, give legislators the power to draw maps. California is among those that empower independent commissions with the task, giving Newsom an additional hurdle in his bid to match or exceed whatever partisan moves Texas makes.

Abbott, Burrows and other Republicans tried various threats and legal maneuvers to pressure Democrats’ return, including issuing civil warrants for absent lawmakers’ arrest. As long as they were out of state, those lawmakers remained beyond the reach of Texas authorities.

The Democrats who came back to the chamber Monday did so without being detained by law enforcement. However, plainclothes officers escorted them from the chamber after Monday’s session. And Burrows’ office said Texas Department of Public Safety officers will follow the Democratic returnees around the clock to ensure that they return again.

Additionally, the lawmakers who left face fines of up to $500 for each legislative day they missed. Burrows has insisted Democratic lawmakers also will pick up the tab for state troopers and others who attempted to corral them during the walkout.

California lawmakers were scheduled to convene later Monday.

Barrow and Figueroa write for the Associated Press. Barrow reported from Atlanta.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.) was seized by Senate police in the wee hours of Wednesday morning and carried into the Senate to answer a quorum call, but he was in good humor after the incident, joking: “I rather enjoyed it. I instructed four of my staff to get a sedan chair.”

Other Republicans, however, bridled at the arrest, which took place as Democratic and Republican lawmakers staged a lengthy fight over legislation that would limit spending on congressional elections. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said the action made the chamber look like “a banana republic.”

The incident–during which Packwood was carried feet-first into the Senate chamber by three plainclothes officers–highlighted the unusual intensity of the fight over the bill. Although Senate rules allow the sergeant-at-arms to compel absent members to attend sessions, it was the first time the procedure had been used since a 1942 filibuster over civil rights.

Vote Planned Friday

Senate leaders plan to vote Friday in an attempt to end Republican stalling tactics, but their strategists concede that campaign finance reform is probably dead for the rest of the year. Supporters of the bill vowed Wednesday to try to make it an election issue in the fall.

The arrest incident occurred after Senate aides began bringing cots into the cloakrooms behind the chamber late Tuesday night. Republicans walked out in an attempt to deprive the Senate of a quorum and shut down the chamber for the night. Democrats responded by voting, 45 to 3, on a motion by Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) to order the Senate police to search out missing members and compel them to attend.

Armed with arrest warrants for all 46 Republicans, the Senate’s sergeant-at-arms, Henry Giugni, and his men began to search the corridors of the Capitol and the Senate office buildings. After checking several empty offices, they spotted Sen. Steve Symms (R-Ida.) but he fled down a hallway and escaped arrest. Then a cleaning woman tipped them that Packwood was in his office, and Giugni–a burly former Hawaii vice officer–opened the door with a passkey.

Bruised Knuckles

Packwood tried to shove the door closed, but Giugni and two of his assistants pushed it open. The senator, who hurt his left arm in an accident two weeks ago and has been wearing a cast since then, tried to use his left hand to keep the door shut, bruising his knuckles in the process.

“It was their mass against my mass,” Packwood said. “Except for the honor of it, I’d rather walk.”

Later in the day, an X-ray showed no serious injury. Packwood proudly displayed his cast and gauze-wrapped left hand to reporters as he described the arrest.

Packwood Forgiving

At a news conference attended by Giugni, Packwood said: “This man deserves accolades, not criticisms.”

Democratic senators, however, were not so forgiving.

Byrd served notice that he had run out of patience. “Senators are supposed to be grown-ups, not kids. They’re supposed to come to the Senate floor to vote,” Byrd told reporters, calling the incident a “sideshow” designed to divert attention from the substantive issues.

Republican attempts to kill the campaign financing bill–which would restrict election spending, provide limited public funds for congressional campaigns and cut back contributions by political action committees–began last spring.

But until this week, Democratic leaders had allowed the Republicans to conduct a “gentlemanly filibuster,” debating the bill for a few hours every few weeks, then setting it aside.

On Tuesday, Byrd said he would put the Republicans to the test of an old-fashioned, non-stop, talk-all-night filibuster. “There is no point in having an easy, gentlemanly filibuster back in the cloakrooms,” he said. “Let’s have it right out here on the Senate floor where the American people can see it.”

Supporters of the bill say it is needed to reduce the power of special-interest money in congressional elections. Opponents say that spending limits would entrench incumbents because challengers generally need to spend more money to become well enough known to beat a sitting lawmaker.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says he will begin trying to remove Democratic lawmakers from office Monday if they don’t return after dozens of them left the state in a last-resort attempt to block redrawn U.S. House maps that President Trump wants before the 2026 midterm elections.

The revolt by the state House Democrats, many of whom went to Illinois or New York on Sunday, and Abbott giving them less than 24 hours to come home ratcheted up a widening fight over congressional maps that began in Texas but has drawn in Democratic governors who have floated the possibility of rushing to redraw their own state’s maps in retaliation. Their options, however, are limited.

At the center of the escalating impasse is Trump’s pursuit of adding five more GOP-leaning congressional seats in Texas before next year that would bolster his party’s chances of preserving its slim U.S. House majority.

The new congressional maps drawn by Texas Republicans would create five new Republican-leaning seats. Republicans currently hold 25 of the state’s 38 seats.

A vote on the proposed maps had been set for Monday in the Texas House of Representatives, but it cannot proceed if the majority of Democratic members deny a quorum by not showing up. After one group of Democrats landed in Chicago on Sunday, they were welcomed by Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, but declined to say how long they were prepared to stay out of Texas.

“We will do whatever it takes. What that looks like, we don’t know,” said state Rep. Gene Wu, the Texas House Democratic Caucus leader.

But legislative walkouts often only delay passage of a bill, including in 2021 when many of the same Texas House Democrats left the state for 38 days in protest of new voting restrictions. Once they returned, Republicans still wound up passing that measure.

Four years later, Abbott is taking a far more aggressive stance and swiftly warning Democrats that he will seek to remove them from office if they are not back when the House reconvenes Monday afternoon. He cited a non-binding 2021 legal opinion issued by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, which suggested a court could determine that a legislator had forfeited their office.

He also suggested the lawmakers may have committed felonies by raising money to help pay for fines they’d face.

“This truancy ends now,” Abbott said.

In response, House Democrats issued a four-word statement: “Come and take it.”

The state of the vote

Lawmakers can’t pass bills in the 150-member Texas House without at least two-thirds of them present. Democrats hold 62 of the seats in the majority-Republican chamber and at least 51 left the state, said Josh Rush Nisenson, spokesperson for the House Democratic Caucus.

Republican House Speaker Dustin Burrows said the chamber would still meet as planned on Monday afternoon.

“If a quorum is not present then, to borrow the recent talking points from some of my Democrat colleagues, all options will be on the table. . .,” he posted on X.

Paxton, who is running for U.S. Senate, said on X that Democrats who “try and run away like cowards should be found, arrested, and brought back to the Capitol immediately.”

Fines for not showing up

A refusal by Texas lawmakers to show up is a civil violation of legislative rules. The Texas Supreme Court held in 2021 that House leaders had the authority to “physically compel the attendance” of missing members, but no Democrats were forcibly brought back to the state after warrants were served that year. Two years later, Republicans pushed through new rules that allow daily fines of $500 for lawmakers who don’t show up for work as punishment.

The quorum break will also delay votes on flood relief and new warning systems in the wake of last month’s catastrophic floods in Texas that killed at least 136 people. Democrats had called for votes on the flooding response before taking up redistricting and have criticized Republicans for not doing so.

Illinois hosts Texas lawmakers

Pritzker, a potential 2028 presidential contender who has been one of Trump’s most outspoken critics during his second term, had been in quiet talks with Texas Democrats for weeks about offering support if they chose to leave the state to break quorum.

Last week, the governor hosted several Texas Democrats in Illinois to publicly oppose the redistricting effort, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom held a similar event in his own state.

Pritzker also met privately with Texas Democratic Chair Kendall Scudder in June to begin planning for the possibility that lawmakers would depart for Illinois if they did decide to break quorum to block the map, according to a source with direct knowledge who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.

“This is not just rigging the system in Texas, it’s about rigging the system against the rights of all Americans for years to come,” Pritzker said Sunday night.

Trump is looking to avoid a repeat of his first term, when Democrats flipped the House just two years into his presidency, and hopes the new Texas map will aid that effort. Trump officials have also looked at redrawing lines in other states.

Cappelletti and DeMillo write for the Associated Press. AP writer Nadia Lathan in Austin contributed to this report.

Democrats in the Texas House left the state Sunday in a last-resort bid to block new congressional maps sought by President Trump that would give Republicans a better chance of preserving their narrow U.S. House majority in the 2026 midterm elections.

The dramatic revolt came before the GOP-controlled House was set to vote Monday on the proposed maps, which would give Republicans five more winnable congressional seats. In response to Texas’ rare mid-decade political gerrymander, Democratic governors in other states have floated the possibility of redrawing their own maps in retaliation, but their options are limited.

Many of the Texas Democrats were bound for Illinois and a welcoming from Gov. JB Pritzker, a potential 2028 presidential contender, who in recent weeks has offered them support. It was unclear how long they were prepared to stay out of Texas or whether the maneuver would succeed. Four years ago, House Democrats left Texas for 38 days in protest of new voting restrictions that still wound up passing once the holdout ended.

“This is not a decision we make lightly, but it is one we make with absolute moral clarity,” Rep. Gene Wu, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said in a statement.

Lawmakers can’t pass bills in the 150-member Texas House without at least two-thirds of them present. Democrats hold 62 of the seats in the Republican-majority chamber, and at least 51 were leaving the state, said Josh Rush Nisenson, spokesperson for the House Democratic Caucus. In addition to the Illinois group, five lawmakers headed to New York and another group went to Boston, Rush Nisenson said.

Republican House Speaker Dustin Burrows said the chamber would meet as planned Monday afternoon.

“If a quorum is not present then, to borrow the recent talking points from some of my Democrat colleagues, all options will be on the table,” he posted on X.

Republican Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton, who is running for U.S. Senate, said on X that Democrats who “try and run away like cowards should be found, arrested, and brought back to the Capitol immediately.”

A refusal by Texas lawmakers to show up is a civil violation of legislative rules. The Texas Supreme Court held in 2021 that House leaders had the authority to “physically compel the attendance” of missing members, but no Democrats were forcibly brought back to the state after warrants were served that year. Two years later, Republicans pushed through new rules that allow daily fines of $500 for lawmakers who don’t show up for work.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Sunday.

The quorum break will also delay votes on flood relief and new warning systems in response to last month’s catastrophic floods in Texas that killed at least 136 people. Democrats had called for votes on the flooding response before taking up redistricting and have criticized Republicans for not doing so.

Texas Republicans last week unveiled their planned U.S. House map that would create five GOP-leaning seats. Republicans currently hold 25 of the state’s 38 seats.

Pritzker, who has been one of Trump’s most outspoken critics during his second term, had been in quiet talks with Texas Democrats for weeks about offering support if they chose to leave the state to break quorum.

Last week, the governor hosted several Texas Democrats in Illinois to publicly oppose the redistricting effort, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom held a similar event in his state.

Pritzker also met privately with Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder in June to begin planning for the possibility that lawmakers would depart for Illinois if they did decide to break quorum to block the map, according to a source with direct knowledge who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Now, with many Texas Democrats holed up in Illinois and blocking the gerrymandered map proposal, the stage may be set for a high-profile showdown between Pritzker and Trump.

The Republican president is looking to avoid a repeat of his first term, when Democrats flipped the House two years into his presidency, and he hopes the new Texas map will aid that effort. Trump officials have also looked at redrawing lines in other states, such as Missouri, according to a person familiar with conversations but unauthorized to speak publicly about them.

Cappelletti and DeMillo write for the Associated Press. AP writer Nadia Lathan in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.