A confrontation develops in Texas while Republican governor Greg Abbott threatens to eliminate the Democrats who have fled the State in protest of an effort led by Republicans to create a new map of Congress with the control of the United States Chamber of the United States potentially at stake.
Abbott gave the Democrats of the House of Representatives of Texas a deadline of the local time of 3 pm on Monday to return to the state house for the special session or risk losing their work. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton suggested that the Democrats who left should be arrested and brought by force, although he later admitted that it would be a “challenge.”
He answer From the democratic Caucus of the Texas House of Representatives to the threat of Abbott was: “Come and Tomalo”.
The members of the Texas Chamber who left the State are scheduled to celebrate several events throughout the day on Monday in the states led by the Democrats.
The proposed Congress map, backed by President Donald Trump, could create up to five new Republican seats and help Republicans maintain camera control in the mid -period elections of 2026. The consideration of the bill had been established for Monday, but cannot proceed if the Democrats deny a quorum.
The State Capitol is seen on July 21, 2025 in Austin, Texas.
Brandon Bell/Getty images
Democrats celebrate events in New York, Massachusetts and Illinois
The first press conference with Texas Democrats on Monday was with New York Governor Kathy Hochul in Albany. Hochul’s message for the Democrats of the Texas House of Representatives was: “You are on the right side of the story. And you are not alone.”
“As I said, the story will judge us and how we respond to this moment. But here in New York, we will not be on the site with the shy souls that do not care and we will not invest their heart and soul in this battle. This is a war,” Hochul continued. “We are at war and that’s why gloves are turned off. And I say, bring it.”
Hochul said he would try to dissolve or change the Commission of Independent Redistories of New York through a constitutional amendment in response to Texas, but admitted that doing so would not be possible before the 2028 elections. Under former governor Andrew Cuomo, New Yorkers approved a constitutional amendment in 2014 that prohibits the redistribution of partisan districts.
The Democrats of the Texas House of Representatives who have gone to Massachusetts for the Summit of the National Conference of State Legislators will hold a press conference in Boston on Monday afternoon. Then, the Democrats of the Texas Representatives Chamber who have met at Illinois will hold a press conference with Democratic members of Congress in Chicago on Monday night.
New York governor Kathy Hochul, celebrates a press conference with members of the Democratic Caucus of the Texas House of Representatives in Albany, on August 4, 2025.
ABC News
Representative of the state of Texas James Talarico, a. Democrat, spoke with Abc News from Illinois. He confirmed that he plans to stay out of the state during the remaining two weeks of the special session.
“Being missing from my family, from my state, is not something happy for me. But why I am doing this is because the Republicans are trying to change the rules of the game in the middle of the decade,” Talarico told the ABC News Jay O’Brien correspondent.
Talarico also characterized the redistribution effort of Republican districts as a Trump ploy to manipulate the elections.
“It is a rock fund for people like Greg Abbott and Donald Trump. Unfortunately, I have come to expect nothing less of them, but it is still immoral, unpleasant and outrageous, and we should all reject it regardless of our political party,” Talarico added.
Abbott, Paxton threatens the action against Democrats
Abbott, in his warning to the Democrats of the House of Representatives of Texas, said that leaving the State in protest was equivalent to “abandonment or confiscation of a elected state office.”
The governor said that if they did not return at 3 pm local time on Monday, he would invoke the opinion of the Texas Attorney General No. KP-0382 to eliminate the missing Democrats from membership in the Texas Chamber. In addition, he claimed to the legislators that they left “may also have committed serious crimes” through the collection of funds to pay the $ 500 fine to risk accumulating every day they are absent.
“Our fellow Texans are being disappointed and do not receive the relief of the floods they need, because these Democrats have escaped the responsibility, and I think they have lost their seats in the state legislature because they are not doing the work they were chosen to do,” Abbott said during an interview with Fox News on Monday.
Paxton, in a publication on social networks, wrote that “the Democrats in the house of Texas who try to escape as cowards must be found, arrested and returned to the Capitol immediately. We should use all the tools at our disposal to hunt those who think they are above the law.”
What is at stake?
The new map of Congress was proposed by Texas Republicans after a Trump impulse for the most favorable maps for Republicans to help the party keep the majority in the camera in 2026. Currently, the Republicans of the Chamber are operating with a narrow majority.
Trump has said he wants Republicans to collect five new seats in Texas and others throughout the country. The Democrats have criticized the measure and said they run the risk of damaging minority voters.
Asked by Fox News why she is pressing for new districts, Abbott said it is partly dismantling “coalition districts” (where racial minority groups together constitute the majority of the population) and to redraw districts based on political considerations.
“Gerrymandering can be made or drawing lines can be done on the basis of political composition, as in Republican versus Democrat, and there is nothing illegal in that,” said Abbott. “And then, when you observe the result of the most recent presidential elections, all these districts that are being added are districts that Trump won.”
As the Distriction Redistribution Battle is heated, a House Republican will introduce legislation to prohibit the reduction of the decade of the Maps of Congress throughout the country.
The representative of the Republican Party of California, Kevin Kiley, will formally present the bill on Tuesday that “will annul the new maps adopted by the states before the 2030 census, including those adopted this year.” However, the future of the bill remains uncertain, since it is unlikely to be supported by the republican leadership of the Chamber.
Rachael Dziaba and Lauren Peller of ABC News contributed to this report.
