Texas launches full legal assault on runaway Democrats blocking redistricting

Texas Republican officials have asked California to help arrest the Democratic lawmakers who fled to the West Coast last week, seeking to scuttle GOP plans to pad their numbers in the U.S. House by redrawing the Texas congressional map.

The Saturday move by Attorney General Ken Paxton and state House Speaker Dustin Burrows is the latest escalation in what has become a nasty fight over the composition of Congress.

Mr. Paxton on Friday asked the Texas Supreme Court to declare that the lawmakers had abandoned their seats.

“These cowards deliberately sabotaged the constitutional process and violated the oath they swore to uphold,” said the Republican attorney general.

“I have asked the Texas Supreme Court to declare what has been clear from the beginning: that the runaway members have officially vacated their offices in the Texas House,” he said.

Mr. Paxton also won a temporary restraining order against former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, with a judge saying the Democrat’s political organization, Powered by People, was likely breaking the law by raising money to help pay for the deserting Democrats’ travel and hotel expenses and daily $500 fines as they remain outside Texas.

Mr. Paxton called the money a “bribe,” though his lawsuit — and the judge’s ruling — focused on campaign laws, finding that the expenses weren’t allowed.

Dozens of Democrats have “broken quorum,” leaving in order to block the legislature from being able to conduct business.

They object to Gov. Greg Abbott’s special session that includes attempting to redraw the state’s congressional districts to net five more seats for Republicans.

Some of the Democrats have shown up in Illinois, where Mr. Paxton has also filed a lawsuit asking for help in arresting them.

And on Friday some of the lawmakers showed up in Sacramento, where they were welcomed as heroes by California Democrats who vowed retaliation against Texas if it follows through on its plans to redraw maps.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, eyeing a 2028 bid for the White House, said California will now rush to overturn its own congressional map and draw new lines that would flip five seats from the GOP to Democrats.

“We will nullify what happens in Texas,” Mr. Newsom said.

California’s lines are currently drawn by a commission but Mr. Newsom said the legislature, dominated by Democrats and eager to punish President Trump and his party, will propose new maps that erase the GOP seats.

Those maps will then be put to voters in November, setting them up for use in next year’s midterm congressional elections.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, head of the caucus of California’s Democrats in the U.S. House, said all support the retaliation threat.

Mr. Newsom called the ability of a minority party to leave their state to block action “as old a principle as American pie.”

He and fellow California Democrats also bristled at the suggestion that two wrongs don’t make a right, saying the ends justified the means.

“This is not a wrong,” said former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “This is self-defense for our democracy.”

Usually, congressional districts are drawn after the decennial decade, but there is nothing in federal law preventing a more frequent line drawing.

With Texas at the plate, Democrats have called on California, New York and Illinois to redraw their maps to erase GOP seats.

Indeed, New York did just that last year, approving a new map that helped flip several GOP-held seats in November’s election. Texas is following that lead, though Democrats have said this time is different because Mr. Trump has prodded the state to act.

“He’s dialing for seats,” Mr. Newsom said.

If Democrats do erase five GOP seats in California, it would leave Republicans with just four of the state’s 52 seats. Even now, they only hold nine, or about 17% of the congressional delegation in a state where Mr. Trump won 38% of the vote last year.

In Texas, Democrats won 13 of the 38 seats in last year’s House elections, or 34%, in a state where Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris won 42% of the vote.

But Mr. Abbott said if Democrats don’t return and work on the new plan in front of them, he will keep calling the legislature back into session until they finish.