GOP Risks 'Dummy-Mander' With Texas Redistricting Bid, Says Sabato

Larry Sabato, director of The Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, breaks down the potential fallout from both the Republican redistricting gambit and Democrats' response ahead of the 2026 midterm election.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered the arrest of Democratic lawmakers who left the state to block a controversial vote on new congressional maps.

“Texas House Democrats abandoned their duty to Texans,” Abbott said in a statement Monday. “I ordered the Texas Department of Public Safety to locate, arrest and return to the House chamber any member who has abandoned their duty to Texans.”

The governor’s move followed a vote by the remaining lawmakers in the Texas House of Representatives to authorize arrest warrants, which don’t carry any criminal charges and can’t be enforced across state lines. Republican lawmakers proposed a redistricting plan last week that Democrats describe as a gerrymander designed to give more seats in the US Congress to the GOP.

“This is not a decision we make lightly, but it is one we make with absolute moral clarity,” Gene Wu, the Democratic leader in the Texas House, said at a news conference in Illinois after leaving the state. “We’re not walking out on our responsibilities; we’re walking out on a rigged system that refuses to listen to the people we represent.”

The unusually timed revamp of Texas’ congressional districts has mushroomed into a national spectacle with the Democrats’ departure. President Donald Trump has pushed the revamp as a way to bolster Republican power in the 2026 midterm elections. In response, Democratic governors such as California’s Gavin Newsom and New York’s Kathy Hochul have discussed retaliating with new maps of their own, while Missouri’s Republican Governor Mike Kehoe is also considering a redistricting plan.

By exiting the state, Democrats left the Texas House short of the minimum number of lawmakers required to hold votes. They will be fined $500 a day due to a rule adopted in 2021 after the caucus broke quorum over voting legislation.

That year, Republicans issued arrest warrants for absent members in a bid to compel them to return from Washington. While some Democrats fought the warrants in court and secured temporary orders blocking their arrest, those orders were ultimately overturned by the Texas Supreme Court.

This year, there are two weeks left in a special session of the state legislature. Lawmakers were also set to address issues including last month’s deadly floods in central Texas.

“Leaving the state does not stop this House from doing its work. It only delays it,” said House Speaker Dustin Burrows.

Earlier, Abbott cited the Texas attorney general’s view that a district court may decide if the legislators’ departure amounts to an abandonment or forfeiture of an elected office, a ruling that the governor said would empower him to “swiftly” remove them from office.

He added that the Democratic lawmakers may have committed felonies with the move. He said he directed state authorities to investigate them for potential violations including bribery.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running for the Republican nomination for US Senate, said he supported the speedy arrest of “jet-setting runaways” who left the state during the legislative session.

“This is cowardice and dereliction of duty, and they should face the full force of the law without apology,” Paxton said in a tweet.

Democrats fired back at Abbott by casting doubt on whether he could legally remove them from office or have them charged with felonies. Many have gone to the Chicago area, with others traveling to Boston and Albany, New York.

“There is no felony in the Texas penal code for what he says,” Jolanda Jones, a Texas state representative and Democrat, said Monday at a news conference in Albany with New York Governor Kathy Hochul. “He’s trying to get sound bites and he has no legal mechanism.”

Hochul called the Texas redistricting effort a “blatant power grab.”

“We are at war and that’s why the gloves are off,” she said.

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