The Maryland House pushed forward with mid-decade redistricting at the urging of Gov. Wes Moore. However, leadership in the state Senate has said the bill doesn’t have enough support to advance in that chamber.
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — The Maryland House approved a new congressional map Monday that could enable Democrats to win the state’s only Republican-held U.S. House seat, but leadership in the state Senate has said since October the bill doesn’t have enough support to advance in that chamber — largely due to concerns it could backfire.
The Maryland House pushed forward with unusual mid-decade redistricting at the urging of Democratic Gov. Wes Moore in response to redistricting in other states.
Democrats now hold a 7-1 advantage over Republicans in the state’s U.S. House delegation. The new map would make it easier to defeat Republican Rep. Andy Harris and enable Democrats to win all eight seats.
President Donald Trump launched mid-decade redistricting efforts last summer, when he urged Republican officials in Texas to redraw maps to help the GOP win more seats in hopes of preserving a narrow House majority.
Maryland Democrats spent much of the four-hour debate on Monday criticizing Trump’s presidency. Del. C.T. Wilson, a Democrat who is the sponsor of the bill containing the map’s new boundaries, said the measure is needed “to help ensure that this administration finally has a Congress that puts his power in check.”
Republicans who oppose the new map focused on how Harris’ district, which is mostly on the state’s largely rural Eastern Shore, would jump over the Chesapeake Bay to include more Democratic voters to help oust Harris.
“It is about nothing except party politics,” Del. Jason Buckel, a western Maryland Republican who is the House minority leader, said.
But Del. Marc Korman, a Democrat in the Montgomery County suburbs of the nation’s capital, argued that the district has extended over the bay several times since the 1960s — including once by court order — and five different Republicans still won the seat when it did, including Harris.
Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat, has consistently said the redistricting effort aimed at flipping the seat held by Harris could jeopardize at least one seat now held by Democrats.
Ferguson has pointed out that a congressional map adopted in 2021 was ruled unconstitutional by a judge who described it as “a product of extreme partisan gerrymandering.” That map also would have made it easier for a Democrat to defeat Harris. Maryland passed another map in 2022, and the parties dropped their legal fight. Redrawing districts again would prompt new legal challenges and potentially allow a court to impose districts, Ferguson has noted.
Changing the map could be disruptive to the state’s election calendar, as well, due to expected legal challenges, the Senate president has said. Maryland has a Feb. 24 candidate filing deadline and a primary scheduled for June 23.
Ferguson’s opposition to mid-decade redistricting has not changed, his spokesperson, David Schuhlein, said Monday.
At the national level, the redistricting battle has resulted so far in nine more seats that Republicans believe they can win in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, and six that Democrats think they can win in California and Utah.
Democrats hope to fully or partially make up that three-seat margin in Virginia, though a judge recently ruled that their redistricting efforts were illegal. Lawmakers have appealed the case.
As in Virginia, redistricting is still being litigated in several states, and there is no guarantee that the parties will win the seats they have redrawn.
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis plans to call a special session on redistricting in April.
In our workplaces, in our communities and in our government, the right to vote is how working people make our voices heard. The late Rep. John Lewis (Georgia) proclaimed, “Your vote is precious, almost sacred.” The Supreme Court’s recent decision allowing Texas to use a racially discriminatory congressional map threatens that precious right once again—and with it, the foundation of worker power itself.
A challenge out of Louisiana may soon make matters worse, threatening to further limit the strength of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965—the nation’s most powerful tool for correcting historical racial discrimination in voting, including the violence and suppression once used to keep Black voters from the polls.
The VRA was brought to life by courageous civil rights and labor leaders who risked everything to end racial discrimination at the ballot box. The law transformed American democracy by dramatically increasing Black political participation, expanding representation at every level of government and giving working people a real chance to shape the decisions that affect their lives.
This fight is part of the labor movement’s history too. In 1963, labor leaders were key architects of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and labor unions mobilized 40,000 union members and provided resources. We offered critical lobbying support and testimony in support of the Civil Rights Act and the VRA—the passage of which in 1965 led to the filing of thousands of successful cases against workplace discrimination and eliminated many of the racist voting restrictions in the South. When Black voter turnout surged, so did worker power, especially in the South, where the VRA helped create a diverse coalition of working-class voters.
According to research from the University of California San Diego, the VRA narrowed the wage gap between Black and White workers by 5.5% between 1950 and 1980. Another study found that high-turnout communities saw more paved roads and streetlights; better access to city and county resources; and easier entry into public sector jobs such as police, firefighters and teachers.
The lesson is clear: A strong democracy gives working people space to thrive. When democracy is weakened, workers pay the price.
In 2013, the Supreme Court issued its Shelby County v. Holder decision and gutted the VRA, ruling that states with histories of racial discrimination no longer needed federal approval to change voting laws. Almost immediately, a race to the bottom began. States wasted no time closing polling places, shortening early voting hours and passing restrictive ID laws. The targets were clear: young people, shift workers and communities of color—the same groups driving today’s organizing momentum. In the years since Shelby, wages for Black teachers, city workers and health care aides have fallen, while corporate power has only grown stronger.
The Texas congressional map offers a glimpse of a future without the VRA: diluted working-class voices in a system that answers only to the wealthy few. These attempts to roll back the clock on racial progress should sound an alarm. When politicians get a green light to manipulate voting maps and take intentional steps to block representation on the basis of race, they can use that power to dismantle protections for union power, fair wages and retirement security.
Democracy depends on rules that keep it fair. Those in power understand this—and some are working overtime to erase the rules entirely. But America’s unions have never accepted a world where working people are silenced. We fought for the Voting Rights Act because this movement knows our fight for fair pay, safe jobs and dignity at work is the same fight as the struggle for the ballot box.
Workers built this democracy, and we will defend it. We will continue to push Congress to do its job and pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to fully restore and permanently protect voting rights and ensure access to free and fair elections.
Voting rights are a labor issue—because when democracy breaks down, worker power breaks down with it.
Fred Redmond, the highest-ranking African American labor official in history, is the secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation, representing 64 unions andnearly 15 million workers.
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Fred Redmond AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer and NNPA Newswire
(CNN) — Democrats’ dominance in Tuesday’s elections reset expectations ahead of next year’s midterm battle for House and Senate control, reinvigorating a party that has been in the political wilderness and leaving Republicans lamenting that the gains President Donald Trump made a year ago with key portions of the electorate all but evaporated.
“Last night, if that wasn’t a message to all Republicans, then we’ve got our head jammed in the ground,” said West Virginia GOP Sen. Jim Justice.
The list of Democratic winners spanned the party’s ideological spectrum — from Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist elected mayor of New York City, to Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill, the moderates with strong national security credentials elected governors of Virginia and New Jersey, respectively.
Their wins could rally Democrats in competitive House, Senate and governor’s races next year around a message all three made central to their campaigns, in different forms: pledges to reduce the cost of living.
But the playing field won’t be easy for Democrats. Strategists in both parties agree that control of the House will be in play, but the net effect of redistricting moves around the country — particularly if the Supreme Court decides to weaken the Voting Rights Act — could leave fewer competitive seats for Democrats. And the 2026 Senate map includes only a handful of GOP-held seats that appear to be in play and multiple seats Democrats will have to defend.
Still, Tuesday’s results may embolden Democrats to continue their strategy in the ongoing government shutdown, while igniting new debates over what kinds of candidates can win, and where.
Margie Omero, a Democratic pollster, said the elections should be viewed within the broader context of a year in which the party’s voters have packed town halls and rallies, won key races like the Wisconsin Supreme Court contest in the spring and a slew of special elections, and scored candidate recruitment victories for next year’s midterms.
“Take the whole year into account and it tells a pretty similar story, which is that Democrats are motivated and Republicans are less motivated,” Omero said.
Trump, she said, “lost popularity and he’s lost altitude on all of his top issues, like the economy and immigration.”
“Where does that leave his supporters in a midterm or off-year election?” Omero said. “What are they coming out for, if he’s less popular and his policies are less popular and his agenda’s less popular?”
Voters cast their ballots at a polling station in Arlington, Virginia, on November 4. Credit: Alex Wong / Getty Images via CNN Newsource
In addition to the wins in governor’s races and mayoral elections, and a critical victory in a statewide vote to green-light a redistricting effort to add five more seats that favor Democrats in California, the party also scored a long list of lower-profile victories on Tuesday.
They broke the GOP’s supermajority in the Mississippi state Senate. They flipped two seats on Georgia’s Public Service Commission. They defeated a voter identification ballot initiative in Maine. Their incumbent Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices prevailed in retention votes.
The results showed that many of the gains Trump had made in 2024 have evaporated. In New Jersey, Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli couldn’t match Trump’s support levels with Latino and Black voters. In Virginia, Spanberger notched the most impressive Democratic performance in recent years — besting the margins of the party’s last two presidential nominees and carrying a scandal-plagued nominee for attorney general, Jay Jones, to victory on her coattails.
For the GOP, the fallout could come in a number of forms — including altering the party’s push for redistricting to add winnable congressional seats in deep-red states, and changing how Republicans in competitive midterm races approach Trump.
“The picture is pretty clear,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres. “It is not a muddled message.”
Ayres pointed to several lessons Republicans should take from Tuesday’s results. In Virginia and New Jersey, two states Trump lost in all three of his presidential runs, Republican gubernatorial candidates tied themselves to the president, a “losing strategy from the start,” he said.
Republicans might also be inclined to rethink their strategy on redistricting, he said.
“Given the Democratic margins yesterday, about the last thing you want to do if you want to hold on to the House is weaken Republican incumbent House members, and that’s exactly what will happen if you’re trying to carve out more Republican districts,” he said.
Trump world deflects blame
For his part, Trump and his top allies publicly downplayed the election results, with the president noting on social media that he wasn’t on the ballot. He partially blamed the ongoing federal government shutdown, telling Republican lawmakers in a closed-door session Wednesday morning that they are getting “killed” politically by the impasse, a source told CNN.
Vice President JD Vance said that “it’s idiotic to overreact to a couple of elections in blue states.” But he also warned that the GOP needs “to do better at turning out voters than we have in the past.”
“I said it in 2022, and I’ve said it repeatedly since: our coalition is ‘lower propensity’ and that means we have to do better at turning out voters than we have in the past,” Vance said Wednesday morning on X.
Vance also urged Republicans to focus on affordability. He said the Trump administration “inherited a disaster from Joe Biden and Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
Trump adviser Alex Bruesewitz called the election results a “great lesson for the Republican Party,” blaming the losing Virginia gubernatorial nominee, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, for failing to excite Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement.
“Your candidate needs to be able to turn out ALL FACTIONS of our party, and they do that by being MAGA all the way,” he wrote on X.
Though Tuesday’s GOP losses were wide-ranging, Republicans focused on elevating one Democratic winner: Mamdani, the 34-year-old Muslim and democratic socialist mayor-elect of New York City.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise called Mamdani “the new leader of the Democrat Party.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is “apparently a socialist now,” since Jeffries endorsed Mamdani.
Democratic ideological rifts remain
Mamdani’s victory over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in New York City emboldened the left wing of the Democratic Party. Usamah Andrabi, a spokesperson for Justice Democrats, a group created to oust “corporate Democrats” and elect progressives, said Mamdani’s win marks a “turning point” for their movement and shows the importance of competitive races.
One long-simmering debate Tuesday’s results didn’t settle is the ideological battle within the Democratic Party over the way forward, with a host of competitive House and Senate primaries just months away and the 2028 presidential primary already looming large.
“Democratic primaries can and should be the battleground for the control of our party’s direction,” Andrabi said.
A supporter for independent mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo watches election night returns during a watch party for Cuomo in New York on Tuesday. Credit: Heather Khalifa / AP via CNN Newsource
However, in New Jersey and Virginia, the winning Democratic candidates are moderates with strong national security credentials. Spanberger, the Virginia governor-elect, criticized Mamdani in an interview with CNN just days before the election, suggesting his proposals aimed at reducing the cost of living will ultimately disappoint his supporters.
“We don’t need to settle,” said Omero, the Democratic pollster. “We’re able to have more moderate candidates in some places and more progressive candidates in some places. That feels like an important lesson.”
One area where Democrats appeared broadly on the same page Wednesday is the ongoing government shutdown — fueled in part by Democrats’ demand that Republicans make concessions on health care funding in order to pass a measure that would fund the government.
Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy wrote on X that it is “not a coincidence these big wins came at the exact moment when Democrats are using our power to stand for something and be strong. A huge risk to not learn that lesson.”
The Supreme Court is deliberating a case today that could reshape congressional redistricting nationwide, focusing on racial gerrymandering in Louisiana.States are allowed to redistrict based on party lines, but this case in the Supreme Court deals with gerrymandering along racial lines and could change who you’re voting for. If the Supreme Court justices get rid of Section Two, the last remaining part of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in redistricting, it could upend electoral maps nationwide.At issue is Louisiana’s congressional map, which has two majority Black districts. The state drew a new map in 2022, but civil rights advocates argued in federal court that it violated part of the Voting Rights Act because it only included one majority Black district. They won, and the state redrew the map, but a group claimed it was racist against them. A court agreed, leading to the current Supreme Court case.A ruling in favor of Louisiana could open the door for states with large minority populations, mostly red states in the South, to redraw congressional districts, essentially eliminating majority Black and Latino seats that tend to favor Democrats.”If the court, as I think some people expect, says you can’t use race ever anymore, or if the Voting Rights Act allows you to use race, then that violates the Constitution under the 14th and 15th amendments, then we are basically done with the Voting Rights Act,” American University Washington College of Law Professor Stephen Wermiel said.Once the Supreme Court hears arguments today, a decision will most likely be released in the late spring or early summer.Keep watching for the latest from the Washington News Bureau:
WASHINGTON —
The Supreme Court is deliberating a case today that could reshape congressional redistricting nationwide, focusing on racial gerrymandering in Louisiana.
States are allowed to redistrict based on party lines, but this case in the Supreme Court deals with gerrymandering along racial lines and could change who you’re voting for.
If the Supreme Court justices get rid of Section Two, the last remaining part of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in redistricting, it could upend electoral maps nationwide.
At issue is Louisiana’s congressional map, which has two majority Black districts. The state drew a new map in 2022, but civil rights advocates argued in federal court that it violated part of the Voting Rights Act because it only included one majority Black district. They won, and the state redrew the map, but a group claimed it was racist against them. A court agreed, leading to the current Supreme Court case.
A ruling in favor of Louisiana could open the door for states with large minority populations, mostly red states in the South, to redraw congressional districts, essentially eliminating majority Black and Latino seats that tend to favor Democrats.
“If the court, as I think some people expect, says you can’t use race ever anymore, or if the Voting Rights Act allows you to use race, then that violates the Constitution under the 14th and 15th amendments, then we are basically done with the Voting Rights Act,” American University Washington College of Law Professor Stephen Wermiel said.
Once the Supreme Court hears arguments today, a decision will most likely be released in the late spring or early summer.
Keep watching for the latest from the Washington News Bureau:
Over the last 25 years, Maryland Democrats have gradually redrawn the state’s congressional map to reduce the number of Republicans in federal office.
Maryland’s congressional district map, approved by the General Assembly in 2012, faced legal challenges that made it up to the U.S. Supreme Court, where justices decided it was not the court’s place to weigh in on state-level political gerrymandering disputes. (Courtesy Maryland Department of Planning)
Maryland’s congressional district map, approved by the General Assembly in 2012, faced legal challenges that made it up to the U.S. Supreme Court, where justices decided it was not the court’s place to weigh in on state-level political gerrymandering disputes. (Courtesy Maryland Department of Planning)
Over the last 25 years, Maryland Democrats have gradually redrawn the state’s congressional maps to reduce the number of Republicans in federal office.
Now that Rep. Andy Harris is the lone Republican member of Congress from Maryland, that’s still too many for some Democrats who see the battles being waged in Texas and other states and want a special session called this year to redraw the map.
And while not every leading Democrat in Maryland is on board with the idea, even those preaching caution aren’t ruling it out.
If it happens, it would need to be done this year since the filing deadline for next year’s elections is in February and any changes would surely spawn a legal challenge. And during an event in Randallstown on Monday, Senate President Bill Ferguson said it’s too early to say just yet if it’ll happen.
“I’ve said it over and over, it should be the absolute last possible option that we consider,” he said. “It’s not as easy as just going in and passing a bill. There’s some real legal concerns, and there are real questions about democracy.”
He referred to redistricting as a last resort to counter redistricting that favors Republicans in other states.
“I talked to my colleagues in other states who are from the other side of the aisle who also understand the devastating nature of what a race to the bottom looks like,” he said. “I’m hopeful that this trend that we’ve seen just in Texas and California can be stemmed, but we’ll see. We’re talking through it and looking through the options to keep it as a possibility, in the case that we have to deploy it.”
Ferguson said he hasn’t yet studied maps and drawings that could cause Harris to likely lose his congressional seat to a Democrat. But he said his colleagues in Annapolis are split on whether to even attempt it. Frederick County Delegate Jesse Pippy, the House Minority Whip in Annapolis, isn’t sure Democrats can pull it off.
“Maryland Democrats have already gerrymandered the hell out of Maryland,” Pippy said. “Every 10 years Democrats have redrawn the lines for their own benefit, and they’ve — every year — successfully managed to remove one more Republican from representation even though 40% of the state consistently votes Republican.”
He calls the concerns about gerrymandering in other states “fake outrage” while adding “this idea that it’s the moral thing to do is outrageous, because they’ve been doing it. They’ve been doing it for decades. Everyone knows it.”
But one Democrat ready to move ahead is Charles County Delegate C.T. Wilson, who said he’s been involved in the drawing of maps before and is looking at ways to make a map that gives Maryland eight Democrats in the House of Representatives.
“I think gerrymandering is a horrible idea, but I think that’s a national issue and Maryland shouldn’t take it on the chin just to try to be right,” Wilson said. “And I don’t believe in any moral superiority when it comes to a fight. Sometimes it’s just a brawl.”
Legally, he said he thinks Maryland would be on sound footing, but he admitted redrawing the map wouldn’t necessarily accomplish what Democrats want.
“But that’s not what this is about,” Wilson said. “This is about fighting back. This is about being determined and show as a state that we’re not just going to stand back and hope somebody else, hope California, hope New York and hope Illinois saves us. We’ll do our part.”
Pointing to the impact of federal job losses in Maryland, as well as a rising unemployment rate among Black women, Wilson said it’s another way for Maryland to fight back.
“I know that my state is ready to do something,” Wilson said. “Because right now, the worst thing we feel is helpless. And if we can change that, I’m all for it.”
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The Missouri House on Tuesday approved a congressional map designed to weaken one of the state’s two Democratic incumbents, intensifying the partisan redistricting battles that are shaping the political landscape ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
The measure, which passed in late August by a 90-to-65 vote, makes Missouri the second Republican-led state to adopt a plan targeting the seats of Black Democratic representatives. The Missouri Democrat most impacted, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), said that he will run for re-election. Earlier this summer, Texas Republicans pushed through a map that could put as many as five Democratic lawmakers at risk. Democrats in California have mounted a counteroffensive of their own: last month, the Legislature advanced a proposal to the ballot that would reshape five Republican-held districts.
As the vote was taking place in Missouri, thirteen members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including Rep. Cleaver, spoke emphatically about the state of play for Black elected officials targeted by redistricting. They spoke about what happened in Texas and how they knew that other states would follow. The group was strong in their statements on the current situation. “Texas has more African Americans than any other state in this country right now. Under the proposed maps, they want to make it so that Texas only has two districts in which African Americans have an opportunity to choose their representation. What does that mean for black voices in Texas? That means that it is approximately 1/5 the voting strength of their white Texan neighbors. That is what is going to be, not three-fifths, but we are going to be reduced to 1/5, so my colleagues have laid out a number of things that they believe are going on as to why it is that this is happening. But I’m going to start with number one, Trump himself. He’s racist,” said Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas).
“We will not be silenced. They’ve tried to bury us before, not knowing that we were seeds. We will grow and we will be resilient, just as we have time and time before,” added Crockett. “We are about to experience something that we never thought we’d see in our lifetimes, especially after having experienced what happened at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, which is probably the reason a good many of us in Congress are in Congress. It was at the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday that John Lewis and a host of other people of goodwill suffered grave, gross, and inhumane injustices… Bloody Sunday is the reason we have the Voting Rights Act of 1965. We would not but for Bloody Sunday,” said Rep. Al Green (D-Texas). “We are going to fight this. We are not going to back down. And I believe that the Voting Rights Act will be upheld and that these maps in Texas will be overturned. But again, Texas is just the beginning. This is a nationwide fight, and it’s bigger than who holds the majority in the House of Representatives. This is about maintaining our democracy and our republic,” Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas). When asked by Black Press USA whether or not there is an actual plan to combat what is happening to Black elected officials around the country, several members answered yes. Rep. Veasey added that perhaps there needed to be a special group to deal with the redistricting attacks against Black members at the DNC. The members also relayed that legal strategies are ongoing, and in some cases have been for years, on redistricting.
Texas Republican lawmakers on Wednesday evening adopted a package of sharper penalties and new fundraising restrictions for members who leave the state to freeze legislative action, in a bid to deter future standoffs like what ensued when House Democrats absconded last month to delay passage of a new congressional map.
The array of new punishments includes a proposal to severely curtail how much lawmakers can fundraise should they leave Texas to deny their chamber the headcount required to conduct business. Under House Bill 18, absent members and their legislative caucuses will be prohibited from accepting daily political contributions beyond their per diem allocation — currently $221 a day, as set by the Texas Ethics Commission — and barred from spending any campaign cash on travel, food or lodging related to their out-of-state trip.
The measure passed the lower chamber Tuesday and was whisked through the Senate and on to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk late just after midnight Thursday.
Meanwhile, the Texas House also adopted new rules Wednesday that impose a handful of harsher punishments for lawmakers who break quorum, including erasing two years of legislative seniority for each day lawmakers are absent, starting after they miss three consecutive days of legislative business. The changes also include higher daily fines for lawmakers who flee the state and a new provision stripping them of committee leadership appointments.
The new rules are largely symbolic and aimed squarely at future quorum breaks, as Democrats have returned from their August protest against congressional redistricting. And the Legislature already passed the reconfigured map — ordered by President Donald Trump to secure the GOP more seats in the U.S. House — which was recently signed into law by Abbott and now faces legal challenges.
House members adopt rules anew at the beginning of each regular session on odd-numbered years. After Democrats left the state to delay a package of GOP voting restrictions in 2021, the House held off on updating the rules until 2023, by which time tensions had mellowed out.
House GOP hardliners for weeks urged state leaders to castigate Democrats for what they characterize as an abandonment of their duties, though the state Constitution permits quorum breaks.
“I think these penalties are reasonable,” Rep. Cody Vasut of Angleton, the rules package author, said Wednesday night. “I think they are strong to help deter a future quorum break.”
The calls for retribution were answered in short order. After Democrats returned and the House approved the new district lines, Abbott — who decides which topics can be considered during special sessions — expanded his agenda, giving lawmakers permission to enact the stiffer penalties.
Such legislation was needed, Abbott said at the time, “to ensure that rogue lawmakers cannot hijack the important business of Texans.”
On the House floor this week, Republican Rep. Matt Shaheen of Plano, the author of the fundraising restriction bill, argued that current law creates a financial incentive for members to protest with their absence, pointing to fundraising efforts touting the Democrats’ departure.
Democrats cast the penalties — particularly the new House rules — as vindictive and unnecessarily punitive.
In opposition speeches, they noted the “outside influences” — nodding to Vasut’s wording — that nudged the GOP into mid-decade redistricting. Some struck a defiant tone, arguing that voters could kick them out of office at the polls if they disapproved of their quorum breaking.
“When politicians change the rules of the game, it’s because they know they’re losing,” Houston Rep. Gene Wu, the House Democratic Caucus leader, said in a statement. “By breaking quorum, we exposed the corrupt deal between Trump and Abbott to rig Texas’ congressional maps, and turned it into a national movement.”
The fundraising clampdown sailed through the GOP-dominated Senate, though some Republicans who supported the measure said it would not solve the issue at hand, bemoaning that it stopped short of the upper chamber’s more aggressive approach of barring lawmakers from fundraising altogether during special sessions. That moratorium is already in place for the Legislature’s 140-day regular sessions that take place every other year.
During a Senate committee hearing Wednesday, Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, noted that quorum breaks generally do not happen on the spur of the moment and instead are preceded by weeks of chatter and planning, during which it will still be legal for lawmakers to raise money. Hall ultimately voted to advance the measure as part of a 9-1 committee vote.
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