Texas House Democrats who fled to Illinois and other northern states to block a Republican-led congressional redistricting plan backed by President Donald Trump said Thursday they would return to Austin after lawmakers adjourn their current special session on Friday and California Democrats introduce their retaliatory map designed to neutralize the Texas GOP effort.
“Under the advice of legal counsel, Democrats must return to Texas to build a strong public legislative record for the upcoming legal battle against a map that violates both the current Voting Rights Act and the Constitution,” a statement from the Texas House Democratic Caucus said.
“Trump thought he could easily get his way in Texas with compliant Republicans, but Democrats fought back ferociously and took the fight to Trump across America. We will return to the House floor and to the courthouse with a clear message: The fight to protect voting rights has only begun,” the Texas Democrats said of the Trump-backed Texas remap effort.
Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows of Lubbock has already said he would adjourn the chamber’s special session on Friday. But Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has said he will call “special session after special session” until the new boundaries are approved. By fleeing the state nearly two weeks ago, Texas Democrats denied House Republicans the quorum needed to conduct legislative business.
There was never much doubt that the Texas Democrats would eventually return to face a losing vote on the remap issue. But their walkout raised the issue of political gerrymandering nationally as well as whether the process should be confined to the traditional once-per-decade, post-census drawing of boundaries or whether partisan battles would break out over remap efforts after every election.
Indeed, the announcement by the Texas Democrats, at least 33 of whom have been residing in a secure hotel facility in west suburban St. Charles after their arrival in Chicago on Aug. 3, came as California Gov. Gavin Newsom formally announced his state’s plans for lawmakers to vote next week to ask that state’s voters to adopt new Democratic-favored congressional districts. The California measure would also temporarily suspend the state’s independent mapmaking process until after the 2030 federal census.
In a news conference in Los Angeles, Newsom laid out the steps for voter adoption of a new constitutional amendment to suspend the independent map commission and approval of new boundary lines on Nov. 4. The new boundaries could create as many as six new Democratic districts at the expense of Republicans.
“Wake up, America. This is a serious moment. Wake up to what’s going on. Wake up to the fear and anxiety,” Newsom said. “They say, ‘Don’t mess with Texas.’ Well, don’t mess with the great Golden State.”
“We’re doing this in reaction to a president of the United States that called a sitting governor of the state of Texas and said, ‘Find me five seats,’” said the California governor, who is viewed as a potential 2028 Democratic presidential aspirant. “We can’t stand back and watch this democracy disappear, district by district, all across the country.”
Newsom also implored other blue states to engage in redistricting their congressional boundaries after Trump has encouraged Indiana, Florida and Missouri to also create Republican seats at the expense of Democrats.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks about California redistricting plans at a news conference on Aug. 14, 2025, in Los Angeles. (Mario Tama/Getty)
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who is also considered a possible Democratic presidential candidate, has not ruled out an Illinois redistricting effort even though petitions are currently being circulated for the March primary under current boundaries and the state’s heavily gerrymandered Democrat-drawn map puts Republicans at a 14-3 disadvantage.
“We’re giving the people of this state the power to save democracy, not just in California, but all across America,” Newsom said.
It was not immediately clear when copies of the new California map would be made available to the public. But the California legislature is expected to vote next week to put the proposed constitutional amendment on that state’s fall ballot.
Abbott has called Texas’ GOP-led legislature into special session, ostensibly to consider flood relief from deadly July 4 floods in the Hill Country, but also to pass the new congressional boundaries aimed at flipping five Democratic seats from Democrat to Republican.
In an attempt to force the return of the absent House Democrats to Texas, that state’s Republican attorney general went to a downstate Illinois circuit court last week seeking an order that would compel Illinois law enforcement to carry out civil warrants for the House Democrats. The civil warrants were issued by the GOP Texas House speaker.
But on Wednesday, a circuit judge in downstate Quincy rejected Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s petition.
In his ruling, Adams County Circuit Judge Scott Larson said repeatedly that the Illinois circuit courts do not have the “inherent power” to consider the case, in part, because the warrants were issued by Texas’ legislative branch and no Texas court has issued a ruling to enforce them.
“This Illinois circuit court does not have the inherent power to initiate, consider and determine whether the actions of foreign legislators while in a special legislative session were contumacious and done for the purpose of willfully evading civil legislative Quorum Warrants issued by the State of Texas House of Representatives,” Larson wrote in his ruling issued Wednesday, using a somewhat archaic term meaning “willfully disobedient to authority.“
Larson also said the court did not have the power “to direct Illinois law enforcement officers, or to allow the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Representatives of the State of Texas, or any officer appointed by her, to execute Texas civil Quorum Warrants upon nonresidents temporarily located in the State of Illinois.”
Larson said the enforcement of the civil warrants was limited to within the boundaries of the state of Texas — a fact that legal experts had said made Paxton’s court petition a long-shot legal act.
“As the petitioner has failed to present a legal basis for the court to obtain subject matter jurisdiction over this cause of action, this court is without jurisdiction to grant petitioner’s emergency motion to rule on pleadings,” Larson wrote.
Paxton’s court petition, filed by using Illinois Republican state Sen. Jil Tracy of Quincy as an uncompensated temporary assistant Texas attorney general, represented another level of escalation in the national battle between Republicans and Democrats.
After House Democrats left Texas more than a week ago to prevent the quorum, Burrows, the speaker of the Texas House, issued the civil warrants to compel the Democrats to return to Austin.
Originally Published: August 14, 2025 at 4:52 PM CDT