It’s over. The war over Texas’ congressional maps for the upcoming midterms is over, and we have won. It was going to happen: the messaging was a mess, the governor vowed to hold more special sessions until the new map passed, and the public didn’t care.
Texas House Democrats fled the state when this map was proposed, some absconding to the heavily gerrymandered Illinois, which was beyond parody. It was done to prevent a quorum. Texas House Democrats were the subject of arrest warrants and threats of expulsion. The FBI was tasked with helping local and state police find them. The jig was up—they’re returning all but assuring final passage of the new map (via ABC13):
ABC13 has confirmed with multiple sources that House Democrats will return to Texas.
Eyewitness News has not confirmed the date, but we do know that Democrats believe they've accomplished their mission by killing the first special session and by raising national awareness about the mid-decade redistricting effort.
It is unclear which day they will be in Austin at the Capitol, but they stress that they will push for Hill Country flooding relief to be the priority.
This comes as the House went another session without a quorum on Tuesday, with just 95 members present for the second day in a row. Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows said that assuming there is no quorum on Friday, the session will end, and a new one will begin.
Democrats learned quickly that voters know gerrymandering has been happening since before Trump. Even the media framed their stunt as ‘fleeing the state.’ It didn’t help that Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and New York Governor Kathy Hochul got torched on the Sunday morning talk shows, where their states’ congressional maps, heavily drawn to favor Democrats, were brought up by hosts on NBC and Fox News Sunday. The hypocrisy was astounding. The Texas Senate easily passed the map, which sent it to the State House for final passage.