Drama in the Lone Star State has spread across all 50, as the Texas House has issued arrest warrants for the state’s Democratic lawmakers, who have fled as far away as Illinois and New York to forestall a special legislative session in which, among other things, the Texas legislature is considering a plan to redraw its congressional districts.

How did the controversy come about? What are the issues at play? Why is Texas even considering its electoral map halfway through the 10-year census reapportionment cycle? For those feeling bewildered by the escalating drama, here is an explainer.

Texas Redistricting Effort

On July 9, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) called a special legislative session, beginning July 21, to address 18 agenda items, including flood relief, tax cuts, and protecting unborn children, human trafficking victims, and privacy in women’s spaces. The Texas legislature convenes for four months every other year, but the governor has authority to call the legislature back for a 30-day special session as often as he chooses.

One of the 18 agenda items the Texas legislature will consider concerns “REDISTRICTING: Legislation that provides a revised congressional redistricting plan in light of constitutional concerns raised by the U.S. Department of Justice [DOJ].”

On July 7, a letter from Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the DOJ Civil Rights Division served Texas with “formal notice” of the DOJ’s “serious concerns regarding the legality of four of Texas’s congressional districts.”

“Congressional Districts TX-09, TX-18, TX-29, and TX-33 currently constitute unconstitutional ‘coalition districts,’” the letter explained. “So-called ‘coalition districts’ run afoul [of] the Voting Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment.” A “coalition district,” or “minority coalition district” is one in which “combined racial minorities make up a majority of the population.”

As support for its position, Dhillon’s letter cited Petteway v. Galveston County, a Fifth Circuit decision from 2024, which reversed a Fifth Circuit precedent from 1988, Campos v. City of Baytown. “In Petteway, the Fifth Circuit aligned itself with the Supreme Court’s decision in Bartlett v. Strickland, 556 U.S. 1 (2009), and determined that a minority group must be geographically compact enough to constitute more than 50% of the voting population in a single-member district to be protected under the Voting Rights Act,” it added.

Thus, “although the State’s interest when configuring these districts [in 2021] was to comply with Fifth Circuit precedent prior to the 2024 Petteway decision, that interest no longer exists,” the letter concluded. “Post-Petteway, the Congressional Districts at issue are nothing more than vestiges of an unconstitutional racially based gerrymandering past, which must be abandoned, and must now be corrected by Texas.”

Accordingly, the Texas House proposed new congressional districts last Wednesday, “yielding five additional districts that would have voted for Trump by at least 10 percentage points in 2024,” according to the Texas Tribune. A Texas House panel advanced that proposal on Saturday.

“Political performance does not guarantee electoral success — that’s up to the candidates,” cautioned bill sponsor Texas Rep. Todd Hunter (R). “But it does allow Republican candidates the opportunity to compete in these districts.”

Redistricting Lawsuit

Texas’s new congressional map landed like a meteor in an environment already fraught with legal intrigue. Left-wing groups tend to sue Texas (and just about every other southern state), alleging a racially-biased gerrymander that violates the Voting Rights Act, whenever the maps don’t go their way. At least in Texas’s case, these challenges often succeed — for instance, in League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) v. Perry (2006).

In the most recent redistricting cycle, the Texas legislature’s Republican majority tried a new strategy to avoid such lawsuits (or merely to avoid losing seats). Instead of trying to take away Democratic seats, the legislature simply tried to shore up Republican incumbents. Thus, before redistricting Texas sent 23 Republicans and 13 Democrats to the U.S. House of Representatives, and Texas adopted a map with 24 seats that leaned toward Republicans, 13 seats that leaned toward Democrats, and one swing district (Texas gained two seats through reapportionment).

Alas, even this modest strategy did not protect the state from left-wing lawsuits. Legal proceedings in League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) v. Abbott have drawn out for years; the case finally reached the bench trial stage from May 21 to June 11, 2025, but post-trial filings continue. In 2022, the Biden DOJ had intervened in a lawsuit brought by left-wing activists, LULAC v. Abbott, which complained that Texas’s maps diluted minority votes. In March 2025, the Trump administration DOJ withdrew from the lawsuit.

Thus, the DOJ letter prompting Texas to redraw its district lines represents a complete reversal from its Biden-era position. While the Trump administration wanted less racial gerrymandering in Texas, the Biden administration wanted more.

Of course, neither the Trump administration nor the Biden administration (nor the left-wing activists, for that matter) is or was concerned about racial gerrymandering per se. The underlying motivations on both sides are strictly partisan. When President Trump weighed in on Texas’s redistricting, his comments were explicitly partisan. “We have an opportunity in Texas to pick up five seats,” he said in a Tuesday interview. “I got the highest vote in the history of Texas ... and we are entitled to five more seats.”

But courts (at least in many states) will not invalidate congressional districts drawn by the legislature simply because of partisan bias. To challenge an election map in court, a plaintiff must argue that it violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by unfairly discriminating against a racial minority.

There are multiple problems with this framework. First, the standard is confusing, as state legislatures can be found to violate the law either by separating minorities into multiple districts, or by combining them into one. Second, with American racial attitudes shifting to the point where South Carolina and Georgia have both reelected black senators, it’s reasonable to wonder whether guardrails against electoral segregation are even needed. Third, as in Texas’s case, claims of racial bias are often — perhaps usually — a façade for the real issue, political bias; thus, political battles are often waged in courts instead of the political arena.

On Friday, the Supreme Court decided to rehear a case (Louisiana v. Callais) in which it looks poised to decide whether racial gerrymanders violate the U.S. Constitution. The same nine justices recently overturned affirmative action in college admissions, and they may take the same approach to affirmative action in redistricting.

Democratic Flight

In this politically-charged environment, Texas Democrats chose the “nuclear option” for obstructing legislation they opposed. After the Saturday House committee vote advanced the new map, Democratic legislators literally fled the state. Dozens sought shelter in Chicago, and some traveled as far as New York or Massachusetts. The explicit purpose of this ploy, as Governor Abbott noted, was “to deprive the House of the quorum necessary to meet and conduct business.”

“Every session, legislators on both sides of the aisle find themselves on the losing side of a legislative vote. And every session, most of those legislators find a way to disagree agreeably and behave like adults, rather than going AWOL,” Abbott argued. “This truancy ends now. The derelict Democrat House members must return to Texas and be in attendance when the House reconvenes at 3:00 PM on Monday, August 4, 2025.”

For Democrats who did not return, Abbott threatened to persuade a court to “determine that a legislator has forfeited his or her office due to abandonment,” thus creating a vacant seat which would be filled by Abbott.

More than 50 Texas Democratic legislators did not appear for votes on Monday. Consequently, the Texas House voted 85-6 on Monday to arrest the lawmakers, empowering state troopers and the chamber’s sergeant at arms to track them down, arrest them, and bring them to the capitol to do their jobs. (These warrants would not result in civil or criminal charges, and they apply only within the state of Texas.) The House will also fine each member $500 for each day they are absent.

Abbott likewise 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.” Upon hearing that the absent lawmakers were raising third-party funds to cover their fines, Abbott ordered the Texas Rangers (the law enforcement investigative agency, not the baseball team) to “investigate fleeing Texas House Democrats for potential bribery and any other potential legal violations” related to their refusal to conduct state business.

State legislators (Oregon Republicans, Wisconsin and Indiana Democrats) have tried this tactic from time to time, though never with much success. In 2003, Texas Democrats twice broke quorum, fleeing to Oklahoma and New Mexico to stop Republican redistricting efforts, but the maps eventually passed anyways. In 2021, Texas Democrats fled to Washington, D.C. to avoid their legislative duties in another redistricting fight over the current maps.

State Responses

Redistricting in Texas matters more than in many other states because the size of the state means more seats are on the line. The five seats that Republicans hope to flip would represent more than the current Republican majority in Congress heading into the midterm election cycle. Due to its significance, large Democratic states have seen fit to get involved.

Illinois

Most of the absconding legislators fled to Illinois, where Governor J.B. Pritzker (D) welcomed them with open arms. “I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that they’re welcome here, that they have the ability to stay as long as they need to and want to,” he declared. “This is a righteous act of courage. When you show people that you have the will to fight, well, they can muster the will to fight, too,” he added.

“What … they’re trying to do in Texas affects you guys, but it affects the whole country,” Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.) said in agreement. “When you want to remove five Democrats … that hurts us in the House.”

Of course, Illinois Democrats have little moral authority to condemn other states for partisan gerrymandering. During 2021 redistricting, Democrats in Illinois managed to leverage their already gerrymandered map even further. They previously held a 13-to-5 partisan advantage in seats, but they extended this to a 14-to-3 advantage, even while losing one seat in reapportionment.

Democrats did so by carving a long, thin slice through the center of the state, carving out enough Democratic-leaning precincts from predominantly Republican-leaning areas. This district (IL-13) nearly bisects another (IL-15), which runs from the state’s western border to its eastern border, and nearly back again. Ironically, the incumbent Republican they unseated was Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a notable anti-Trumper.

“The idea that Texas Democrats would flee to Illinois, a state where Dems have abused gerrymandering to comical levels, is perfection,” reflected RealClearPolitics co-founder and president Tom Bevan.

New York

Meanwhile, six of the Texas Democrats fled to New York, where Governor Kathy Hochul (D) stood side by side with them. “These brave public servants are taking a stand against a blatant power grab that’s happening in their state as we speak. This is a war. We are at war. And that’s why the gloves are off, and I say bring it on,” she declared. “If Republicans are willing to rewrite these rules to give themselves an advantage, then they’re leaving us no choice. We must do the same. You have to fight fire with fire.”

In the most recent redistricting cycle, New York Democrats threw out a map drawn by a non-politician commission and tried to implement an aggressive gerrymander that would have taken seats away from Republicans — enough to cost the GOP control of the U.S. House. However, that law was struck down in court for violating New York law. Thus, Hochul’s threat to gerrymander would entail the New York legislature repealing their anti-gerrymandering laws to pass a partisan map.

California

The story was similar in California. The nation’s most populous state also has its maps drawn by a non-partisan commission, although the resulting map heavily favors Democrats (who hold a 43-to-9 advantage in Congress). “If the Texas plan goes through and all else remains equal, the Lone Star State will have about the same partisan skew as California,” noted Rich Lowry.

In response to Texas’s redistricting effort, California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) declared, “Two can play this game. The California legislature is considering ways to take five more Republican seats,” he said, neutralizing Republican gains in Texas. “Would the state of California move forward in kind? Fighting? Yes, fire with fire,” he said.

The curious repetition of the phrase, “fire with fire,” suggests that Democrats are sharing their talking points from coast to coast.

History and Future of Gerrymandering

However, what the Democratic pearl clutching overlooks is that gerrymandering is almost as old as America. The term was first used in 1812, when Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry signed a state redistricting plan with a circuitous state senate district opponents said resembled a salamander. Hence: “Gerry”-“mander.” Gerry only served one term as governor (1810-1812) and lost his next election. However, the former signer of the Declaration of Independence was elected as vice president under President James Madison in 1813, where he served until his death in 1814.

Despite the slimy connotations of the word, many state legislators still gerrymander in practice. When Democrats controlled the Texas legislature, they too gerrymandered districts in their favor, Lowry pointed out, until Republicans won control in 2002.

This does not make gerrymandering right. Perfect justice would involve perfectly fair apportionment — which is only inevitable as long as selfish human beings compete for individual districts in rival political parties. The alternative — which Americans have long rejected — is a parliamentary model without individual districts and the individual accountability that brings.

For years, a faction on the Left has campaigned against gerrymandering, alleging that maps with a partisan skew suppress the will of the people. On this basis, they have lobbied states to implement independent redistricting commissions, which are tasked with drawing district lines with an eye to making compact, contiguous districts. However, as anyone who has ever built with Legos knows, there are many ways to stack cubic shapes together — some better, some worse. Only 11 states have employed district-drawing commissions, and with mixed results (e.g. New York and California).

At the same time, some arguments about the partisan bias of district lines are overblown, because they fail to account for inevitable geographic imbalances and other irregularities. In other words, sometimes electoral maps will be biased — not based on any ulterior motives but simply based on where voters live.

The National Review editors provide helpful perspective here: in states run by Republicans, the GOP won 59.3% of the popular House vote and 75% of House districts in the 2024 election — a 16 percentage-point partisan advantage. In states run by Democrats, Democrats won 56.7% of the popular House vote by 77.7% of House seats — a 21 percentage-point partisan advantage. In states with divided government, Republicans won 52.3% of the popular House vote and 62.7% of the House seats — a 10.4 percentage-point advantage.

Some of the bias could be due to partisan gerrymandering, but some seems to be due to the fact that Democratic voters tend to be heavily concentrated in urban areas, where they run up high (and therefore electorally inefficient) margins of victory.

It’s worth considering one additional factor that is always true in politics but often overlooked: the partisan lean of electoral maps can change. Party coalitions can shift, and politicians can win over voters through persuasion. No one has demonstrated the truth of this reality more than President Trump among Latino voters, and nowhere is this more evident than in Texas.

This should prompt one final consideration: while arguments against gerrymandering are always tinged with a concern for the will of the people (at least ostensibly), the very definition of the will of the people is up for debate. When a majority of the elected representatives of the people enact a map in their partisan interest, is that not the will of the people? Does the answer to the question change if the map they draw is unfair? How about if every other state is doing the same thing? Or does safeguarding the future will of the people require taking the power of apportionment out of the hands of their elected representatives? Does an appointed commission, or a court, represent the will of the people more than the legislature?

Perhaps most importantly, if the people’s elected representatives see politically skewed maps as a key to electoral success, what does that say about the voters themselves?