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Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is rolling out the red carpet for Democratic state lawmakers who fled Texas as they push back against a move by President Donald Trump to add five Republican-controlled congressional seats in their state.
“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,” Pritzker, a Democrat, said on Sunday evening as the lawmakers arrived in Illinois.
The lawmakers fled Texas in order to prevent the quorum needed in the Republican-dominated state legislature to vote on Monday on the new redistricting maps, which passed a committee vote this past weekend along party lines.
TEXAS’ CONSERVATIVE GOVERNOR VOWS TO REMOVE FLEEING DEMOCRAT STATE LAWMAKERS FROM OFFICE
The redistricting push in Texas is part of a broader effort by the GOP across the country to keep control of the House and cushion losses elsewhere in the country, as the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats in midterm elections.
But a veteran Republican strategist argued that the decision by most of the Democratic lawmakers to head to Illinois – with a few others decamping in two other blue states, New York and Massachusetts – was “cartoonishly dumb.”
“The idea that Texas Democrats would flee to Illinois, a state where Dems have abused gerrymandering to comical levels, is perfection,” Tom Bevan, the RealClearPolitics co-founder and president, wrote on X.
“To protest ‘partisan gerrymandering’ Texas Democrats are fleeing to…Illinois,” Republican Missouri Senator Eric Scmitt wrote on X. “You can’t make this up.”
TEXAS DEMOCRATS FLEE STATE TO BLOCK TRUMP-BACKED REDISTRICTING VOTE IN DRAMATIC LEGISLATIVE MOVE
Pritzker, the two-term Illinois governor who is seen as a potential 2028 Democratic Party White House hopeful, has criticized Trump and Republicans for “cheating” as they push for rare mid-decade congressional redistricting.
“Texas Democrats were left with no choice but to leave their home state to block a vote from taking place and protect their constituents. This is a righteous act of courage,” the governor claimed.
But Republicans point to the move four years ago by Pritzker and Illinois Democrats to eliminate two Republican congressional seats in the state, to help bolster the party.
Illinois, which lost a seat in Congress due to population changes in the last census, went from 13 Democrats and 5 Republicans to 14 Democrats and 3 Republicans in their congressional delegation.
Matt Whitlock, a longtime GOP communicator and veteran of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, questioned the optics of the Texas Democrats fleeing to Illinois, which he called “the Mecca of partisan Gerrymandering.”
TRUMP, REPUBLICANS RACE TO REDRAW TEXAS CONGRESSIONAL MAP AS DEMOCRATS THREATEN LEGAL WAR
By breaking the quorum – the minimum number of lawmakers needed to conduct legislative business – the fleeing Democrats will be fined $500 per day and conservative Gov. Greg Abbott threatened them with arrest upon their return to Texas.
Trump and his political team are aiming to prevent what happened during his first term in the White House, when Democrats stormed back to grab the House majority in the 2018 midterms.
“Texas will be the biggest one,” the president told reporters recently, as he predicted the number of GOP-friendly seats that could be added through redistricting in the reliably red state. “Just a simple redrawing, we pick up five seats.”
Democrats control just 12 of the state’s 38 congressional districts, with a blue-leaning seat vacant after the death in March of Rep. Sylvester Turner.
The GOP plan relocates Democratic voters from competitive seats into nearby GOP-leaning districts, and moves Republican voters into neighboring districts the Democrats currently control.
Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, both Trump allies, said they needed to redistrict because of constitutional concerns raised by the Justice Department over a handful of minority-dominated districts.
Redistricting typically takes place at the start of each decade, based on the latest U.S. Census data. Mid-decade redistricting is uncommon—but not without precedent.
Democrats are slamming Trump and Texas Republicans for what they describe as a power grab, and vowing to take legal action to prevent any shift in the current congressional maps.
And Democrats in blue-dominated states are now trying to fight fire with fire.
“Two can play this game,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote on social media recently.
The next day, after a meeting, Democrats in California’s congressional delegation said they were on board with an ambitious plan to try and gain at least five seats through redistricting. Democrats currently control 43 of the Golden State’s 52 congressional districts.
But it won’t be easy to enact the change, because in California, congressional maps are drawn by an independent commission that is not supposed to let partisanship influence their work.
Democrats in other heavily populated blue states—including Illinois, New York, and New Jersey, are also considering making changes to their maps, but have redistricting limits enshrined in their state constitutions.
Meanwhile, Ohio is required by law to redistrict this year, and a redrawing of the maps in the red-leaning state could provide the GOP with up to three more congressional seats.
And Republicans are also mulling mid-decade redistricting that might give the GOP a couple of more House seats in red states such as Florida, Missouri, and Indiana.
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