Abbott’s new map would boost Republicans to eight additional House seats, up from the five proposed initially, if the Democrats who left to deny the Texas legislature a quorum do not return, he said on a Friday episode of the Ruthless Podcast.
Texas Democrats left last week and took refuge in blue states such as Illinois, New York, and Massachusetts.
“What I’m thinking now is that if they don’t start showing up, I may start expanding,” Abbott said. “We may make it six or seven or eight new seats we’re going to be adding on the Republican side.”
The Texas governor insisted his map will pass.
“They’re going to come back, or we’ll be able to track them down,” Abbott said. “One way or the other, they’re coming back, and it’s going to end with these maps being passed.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), a chief figure in the redistricting resistance, will participate in a news conference with Texas Democrats on Friday, along with Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and leaders of the California legislature. Newsom and others are expected to give an update on his plan to call a special election so voters can decide whether to enact a Democratic-friendly map in his state.
Abbott has pressured the Texas Democrats to return, threatening them with arrest or expulsion from their elected offices. He filed an emergency petition to the Texas Supreme Court asking for the removal of Democratic Texas House Minority Leader Gene Wu.
The governor said the Democrats’ flight is “embarrassing.”
“That’s something that school kids do, you know, ‘I’m losing the game, I’m just going to walk away and leave,’” Abbott said. “That’s not the way adults operate. It’s not the way that employees operate. But know this, Texans, that’s the way your Texas Democrats operate, and that’s exactly why more and more Texans are voting Republican than ever before.”
Without a return of the Texas Democrats, the state’s new congressional map will be delayed.
Texas Republicans began a national debate and a redistricting effort after President Donald Trump ordered them to draw a congressional map to award five more Republican House seats.
The president also recently called for a new census. A new census could grant Republicans more House seats via reapportionment and possibly further justify the mid-decade redistricting effort. Trump said the new census would only count legal citizens in the country. However, there is no legal mechanism for a mid-decade census.
Abbott suggested that Texas Republicans are justified because blue states are gerrymandered.
“Americans have now realized how gerrymandered all these blue states are,” Abbott said. “They now see that map in Illinois, they’ve seen the map in New York, they see that 40% of the people in Massachusetts voted for President Trump, and yet there are zero Republican congressional districts there. Look at what happened in California. The worst examples of gerrymandering are Democrat states. And now Americans have realized that.”
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said Thursday that the FBI will assist Texas authorities in locating the Democratic lawmakers, escalating the search-and-return effort.
ABSENT TEXAS DEMOCRATS SLAM FBI OVER REDISTRICTING MANHUNT: ‘NO AUTHORITY’
Democratic state Rep. James Talarico, of Joe Rogan fame, denounced the search effort.
“Trump threatened to arrest us,” he posted on X. “Abbott threatened to remove us from office. Paxton threatened to ‘hunt’ us down. Yesterday, we received a bomb threat. But we will not back down.”
