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  • Contributor: I’m a young Latino voter. Neither party has figured us out

    On Tuesday, I voted for the first time. Not for a president, not in a midterm, but in the California special election to counter Texas Republicans’ gerrymandering efforts. What makes this dynamic particularly fascinating is that both parties are betting on the same demographic — Latino voters.

    For years, pundits assumed Latinos were a lock for Democrats. President Obama’s 44-point lead with these voters in 2012 cemented the narrative: “Shifting demographics” (shorthand for more nonwhite voters) would doom Republicans.

    But 2016, and especially the 2024 elections, shattered that idea. A year ago, Trump lost the Latino vote by just 3 points, down from 25 in 2020, according to Pew. Trump carried 14 of the 18 Texas counties within 20 miles of the border, a majority-Latino region. The shift was so significant that Texas Republicans, under Trump’s direction, are redrawing congressional districts to suppress Democratic representation, betting big that Republican gains made with Latinos can clinch the midterms in November 2026.

    To counter Republican gerrymanders in Texas, Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Democrats pushed their own redistricting plans, hoping to send more Democrats to the House. They too are banking on Latino support — but that’s not a sure bet.

    Imperial County offers a cautionary tale. This border district is 86% Latino, among the poorest in California, and has long been politically overlooked. It was considered reliably blue for decades; since 1994, it had backed every Democratic presidential candidate until 2024, when Trump narrowly won the district.

    Determined to understand the recent shift, during summer break I traveled in Imperial County, interviewing local officials in El Centro, Calexico and other towns. Their insights revealed that the 2024 results weren’t just about immigration or ideology; they were about leadership, values and, above all, economics.

    “It was crazy. It was a surprise,” Imperial County Registrar of Voters Linsey Dale told me. She pointed out that the assembly seat that represents much of Imperial County and part of Riverside County flipped to Republican.

    Several interviewees cited voters’ frustration with President Biden’s age and Kamala Harris’ lack of visibility. In a climate of nostalgia politics, many Latino voters apparently longed for what they saw as the relative stability of the pre-pandemic Trump years.

    Older Latinos, in particular, were attracted to the GOP’s rhetoric around family and tradition. But when asked about the top driver of votes, the deputy county executive officer, Rebecca Terrazas-Baxter, told me: “It wasn’t immigration. It was the economic hardship and inflation.”

    Republicans winning over voters on issues such as cost of living, particularly coming out of pandemic-era recession, makes sense, but I am skeptical of the notion that Latino voters are fully realigning themselves into a slate of conservative positions.

    Imperial voters consistently back progressive economic policies at the ballot box and hold a favorable view of local government programs that deliver tangible help such as homebuyer assistance, housing rehabilitation and expanded healthcare access. In the past, even when they have supported Democratic presidential candidates, they have voted for conservative ballot measures and Republican candidates down the ticket. Imperial voters backed Obama by a wide margin but also supported California’s Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriage. This mix of progressive economics and conservative values is why Republican political consultant Mike Madrid describes Latino partisanship as a “weak anchor.”

    The same fluidity explains why many Latinos who rallied behind Sen. Bernie Sanders in 2020 later voted for Trump in 2024. Both men ran as populists, promising to challenge the establishment and deliver economic revival. For Latinos, it wasn’t about left or right; it was about surviving.

    The lesson for both parties in California, Texas and everywhere is that no matter how lines are drawn, no district should be considered “safe” without serious engagement.

    It should go without saying, Latino voters are not a monolith. They split tickets and vote pragmatically based on lived economic realities. Latinos are the youngest and fastest-growing demographic in the U.S., with a median age of 30. Twenty-five percent of Gen Z Americans are Latino, myself among them. We are the most consequential swing voters of the next generation.

    As I assume many other young Latino voters do, I approached my first time at the ballot box with ambivalence. I’ve long awaited my turn to participate in the American democratic process, but I could never have expected that my first time would be to stop a plot to undermine it. And yet, I feel hope.

    The 2024 election made it clear to both parties that Latinos are not to be taken for granted. Latino voters are American democracy’s wild card — young, dynamic and fiercely pragmatic. They embody what democracy should be: fluid, responsive and rooted in lived experience. They don’t swear loyalty to red or blue; they back whoever they think will deliver. The fastest-growing voting bloc in America is up for grabs.

    Francesca Moreno is a high school senior at Marlborough School in Los Angeles, researching Latino voting behavior under the guidance of political strategist Mike Madrid.

    Francesca Moreno

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  • Commentary: Proposition 50 is a short-term victory against Trump. But at what cost?

    One of the great conceits of California is its place on the cutting edge — of fashion, culture, technology, politics and other facets of the ways we live and thrive.

    Not so with Proposition 50.

    The redistricting measure, which passed resoundingly Tuesday, doesn’t break any ground, chart a fresh course or shed any light on a better pathway forward.

    It is, to use a favorite word of California’s governor, merely the latest iteration of what has come to define today’s politics of fractiousness and division.

    In fact, the redistricting measure and the partisan passions it stirred offer a perfect reflection of where we stand as a splintered country: Democrats overwhelming supported it. Republicans were overwhelmingly opposed.

    Nothing new or novel about that.

    And if Proposition 50 plays out as intended, it could make things worse, heightening the country’s polarization and increasing the animosity in Washington that is rotting our government and politics from the inside out.

    You’re welcome.

    The argument in favor of Proposition 50 — and it’s a strong one — is that California was merely responding to the scheming and underhanded actions of a rogue chief executive who desperately needs to be checked and balanced.

    The only apparent restraint on President Trump’s authoritarian impulse is whether he thinks he can get away with something, as congressional Republicans and a supine Supreme Court look the other way.

    With GOP control of the House hanging by the merest of threads, Trump set out to boost his party’s prospects in the midterm election by browbeating Texas Republicans into redrawing the state’s congressional lines long before it was time. Trump’s hope next year is to gain as many as five of the state’s House seats.

    Gov. Gavin Newson responded with Proposition 50, which scraps the work of a voter-created, nonpartisan redistricting commission and changes the political map to help Democrats flip five of California’s seats.

    And with that the redistricting battle was joined, as states across the country looked to rejigger their congressional boundaries to benefit one party or the other.

    The upshot is that even more politicians now have the luxury of picking their voters, instead of the other way around, and if that doesn’t bother you maybe you’re not all that big a fan of representative democracy or the will of the people.

    Was it necessary for Newsom, eyes fixed on the White House, to escalate the red-versus-blue battle? Did California have to jump in and be a part of the political race to the bottom? We won’t know until November 2026.

    History and Trump’s sagging approval ratings — especially regarding the economy — suggest that Democrats are well positioned to gain at least the handful of seats needed to take control of the House, even without resorting to the machinations of Proposition 50.

    There is, of course, no guarantee.

    Gerrymandering aside, a pending Supreme Court decision that could gut the Voting Rights Act might deliver Republicans well over a dozen seats, greatly increasing the odds of the GOP maintaining power.

    What is certain is that Proposition 50 will in effect disenfranchise millions of California Republicans and Republican-leaning voters who already feel overlooked and irrelevant to the workings of their home state.

    Too bad for them, you might say. But that feeling of neglect frays faith in our political system and can breed a kind of to-hell-with-it cynicism that makes electing and cheering on a “disruptor” like Trump seem like a reasonable and appealing response.

    (And, yes, disenfranchisement is just as bad when it targets Democratic voters who’ve been nullified in Texas, North Carolina, Missouri and other GOP-run states.)

    Worse, slanting political lines so that one party or the other is guaranteed victory only widens the gulf that has helped turn Washington’s into its current slough of dysfunction.

    The lack of competition means the greatest fear many lawmakers have is not the prospect of losing to the other party in a general election but rather being snuffed out in a primary by a more ideological and extreme challenger.

    That makes cooperation and cross-party compromise, an essential lubricant to the way Washington is supposed to work, all the more difficult to achieve.

    Witness the government shutdown, now in its record 36th day. Then imagine a Congress seated in January 2027 with even more lawmakers guaranteed reelection and concerned mainly with appeasing their party’s activist base.

    The animating impulse behind Proposition 50 is understandable.

    Trump is running the most brazenly corrupt administration in modern history. He’s gone beyond transgressing political and presidential norms to openly trampling on the Constitution.

    He’s made it plain he cares only about those who support him, which excludes the majority of Americans who did not wish to see Trump’s return to the White House.

    As if anyone needed reminding, his (patently false) bleating about a “rigged” California election, issued just minutes after the polls opened Tuesday, showed how reckless, misguided and profoundly irresponsible the president is.

    With the midterm election still nearly a year off — and the 2028 presidential contest eons away — many of those angry or despondent over the benighted state of our union desperately wanted to do something to push back.

    Proposition 50, however, was a shortsighted solution.

    Newsom and other proponents said the retaliatory ballot measure was a way of fighting fire with fire. But that smell in the air today isn’t victory.

    It’s ashes.

    Mark Z. Barabak

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  • California Republicans sue to block Congressional redistricting plan

    By Brad Brooks

    (Reuters) -California Republicans filed on Monday their second legal challenge against Governor Gavin Newsom’s redistricting plan, which aims to give Democrats five more Congressional seats amid a nationwide scramble for advantage in 2026 elections.

    The lawsuit filed by Republican lawmakers argues that the redistricting plan goes against the California constitution and requirements that political maps be drawn by an independent redistricting body.

    “This is an issue about good governance in the state of California,” said Corrin Rankin, chairwoman of the California Republican Party, at a press conference announcing the legal action. “Californians deserve to have the right to choose our legislators.”

    The effort by Newsom and Democrats in California’s legislature to rework the state’s Congressional maps was passed last week. It came in response to Texas Republicans pushing through new Congressional maps in that state that could give the GOP five more seats in Congress, as urged by President Donald Trump.

    Trump is asking several Republican-led states to redraw their Congressional maps ahead of next year’s midterm elections in an effort to retain control of the House.

    California Republicans had already filed one lawsuit to stop Newsom’s redistricting plan, but it was rejected by the state’s supreme court last week.

    On Monday, lawmakers filed an emergency petition before the top court against the California legislature and California Secretary of State Shirley Weber.

    “The Constitution’s guardrails on redistricting are essential to ensuring that Californians are spared from the political influence and inherent turbulence of perpetual map-drawing in the hands of the Legislature,” the lawsuit read.

    Weber’s office declined to comment.

    Hannah Milgrom, a spokeswoman for Newsom, said in a written statement that the Republican legal challenge would fail.

    “Trump’s toadies already got destroyed once in court. Now, they are trying again – to protect Trump’s power grab and prevent the voters from having their say … They will lose,” she said.

    Trump told reporters in Washington on Monday that his administration could challenge California’s redistricting with its own lawsuit. Newsom on X said, “bring it.”

    The Texas redistricting plan that passed the Senate early on Saturday is also the target of legal action.

    A group of 13 Texas residents filed a lawsuit against their Governor Greg Abbott over the weekend, arguing the redistricting plan was racially discriminatory.

    (Reporting by Brad Brooks in Colorado; editing by Donna Bryson and Nia Williams)

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  • Cruz, Paxton issue dueling endorsements in Texas attorney general GOP primary

    Attorney General Ken Paxton on Monday endorsed his former top deputy, Aaron Reitz, to succeed him, giving Reitz a significant boost in the four-candidate Republican primary to be Texas’ top civil lawyer.

    Paxton’s endorsement comes after Sen. Ted Cruz, a former solicitor general of Texas, backed Rep. Chip Roy for attorney general. Both Reitz and Roy have served as Paxton’s legal deputies and Cruz’s chief of staff throughout their tenures.

    But while Paxton and Roy publicly split in 2020, when Roy called for Paxton to step down after the attorney general’s senior staff reported him to the FBI for alleged bribery and abuse of office, Reitz has positioned himself as the heir to Paxton’s movement, calling himself the attorney general’s “offensive coordinator.”

    In his endorsement, Paxton agreed with that assessment, crediting Reitz with handling some of the office’s most high-profile — and controversial — cases.

    “He drove our Texas v. Biden docket and spearheaded some of our most consequential battles — on border security, immigration, Big Tech, Covid tyranny, energy and the environment, pro-life, Second Amendment, religious liberty, free speech, and election integrity,” Paxton said in a statement. “Aaron Reitz is the only candidate who is fully vetted, battle-tested, proven, and ready to be Attorney General.”

    Reitz and Roy’s careers working for prominent Texas Republicans have mirrored each other in numerous ways.

    Roy was the first top aide tapped by both Cruz and Paxton in their current roles. He served as Cruz’s first chief of staff from 2012 through 2014, helping pioneer Cruz’s strategy during the 2013 government shutdown over Obamacare, and then was hired by Paxton as the newly elected attorney general’s first assistant attorney general.

    Roy held that position as Paxton’s second in command through early 2016, at which point Roy left after Paxton incited a dramatic staff shake-up in the wake of the embattled attorney general’s first legal troubles. Roy went on to be elected to Congress in a Central Texas district in 2018, a position he has held ever since.

    Reitz’s career played out in the reverse order. He was Paxton’s deputy attorney general for legal affairs from 2020 to 2023 before leaving to be Cruz’s chief of staff through early 2025. He then went on to a short stint at the Department of Justice this year before resigning to announce his run for attorney general.

    Cruz, a former Texas solicitor general under then-Attorney General Greg Abbott, endorsed Roy on Saturday. While noting that Texas is “blessed” to have a strong slate of conservatives running for the position and that he is friends with each candidate, Cruz said he has known Roy for nearly two decades and, during that time, Roy has consistently displayed the “courage, integrity and conviction” required to be attorney general.

    “As my very first chief of staff, Chip has been a close friend and ally of mine for over 12 years,” Cruz said in a statement. “We have been in more fights together than I can count, and I know Chip will always, always, always fight for conservative values.”

    Both Cruz and Paxton had previously been letting the attorney general race, the first prominent statewide seat to open up for Texas Republicans in years, play out without weighing in. But Roy’s entry into the race Thursday appears to have upended both men’s calculations.

    Roy received further endorsements from some of Congress’ most conservative members, including a fellow Texan, Rep. Keith Self of McKinney. He also won the backing of Reps. Lauren Boebert, R-Colorado, Byron Donalds, R-Florida, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.

    State Sens. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston and Joan Huffman, R-Houston are also running to succeed Paxton. Paxton is forgoing running for a fourth term to instead challenge Sen. John Cornyn in a primary.

    Both Reitz and Roy have positioned themselves as the ideological heirs to Paxton’s conservative legal movement, which has put Texas at the forefront of high-profile cases on religious liberty, abortion and election law.

    Calling himself the “only pro-Paxton candidate in the race”, Reitz pledged to continue his old boss’ fights.

    “Under Ken Paxton, Texas has been a shining example for the conservative movement on how to fight and win against the enemies of Law, Order, and Liberty,” Reitz said in a statement. “My promise to Texans is that I will keep my foot on the gas and energetically carry on Paxton’s legacy.”

    Though Paxton and Roy have split over the former’s conduct, Roy said in an interview with conservative radio host Mark Davis Thursday that the two share a similar conservative worldview.

    “Ken and his team have done a great job fighting to defend Texas,” Roy said in the radio interview. “We’re going to continue that legacy going forward.”

    More all-star speakers confirmed for The Texas Tribune Festival, Nov. 13–15! This year’s lineup just got even more exciting with the addition of State Rep. Caroline Fairly, R-Amarillo; former United States Attorney General Eric Holder; Abby Phillip, anchor of “CNN NewsNight”; Aaron Reitz, 2026 Republican candidate for Texas Attorney General; and State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin. Get your tickets today!

    TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.

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  • Texas GOP passes the House gerrymander Trump asked for

    Texas Republicans approved a new, aggressively gerrymandered congressional map early Saturday morning, moving forward with a power grab pushed by President Donald Trump.

    The GOP-controlled state Senate approved the map on a party-line vote after hours of debate that began Friday morning. Republicans used a procedural move to block a Democratic senator’s plans to filibuster the bill, forcing it to a vote — one final show of force from GOP leadership after weeks of partisan fighting.

    The map could ultimately help flip as many as five seats for the GOP starting with next year’s midterms. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is set to quickly sign the legislation, capping off a turbulent few weeks in Texas over Republicans’ now-successful effort to further skew the maps in the GOP’s favor ahead of the 2030 census.

    Under the new map, Republicans in Texas are aiming to earn 30 House seats — up from their current 25 — as they attempt to hold onto control of the chamber in what could be an unfavorable environment for them next year. Republicans currently have just a three-seat majority in the House, so the new Texas map alone will significantly affect their chances.

    The unusual offcycle redistricting effort in Texas has set off a contentious national tit-for-tat. California formally launched its preemptive retaliation on Thursday, with lawmakers approving a ballot measure redrawing the state’s map to create five new Democratic seats to offset Texas. That measure —which would temporarily circumvent the state’s independent redistricting commission — now goes to voters on the November ballot, a gerrymander Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has cast as necessary to preserve democracy.

    But Republicans could soon have the advantage as a redistricting battle escalates nationwide: The White House is pressuring other GOP states, like Indiana and Missouri, to take on their own redistricting gambits. Democratic governors in New York and Illinois have vowed to fight back, but have so far taken no concrete steps to do so.

    Democrats and civil rights groups have vowed to challenge the legality of the map, and will likely argue that Republicans unlawfully took race into consideration when redrawing the lines.

    Republicans, however, contend that they redrew the districts explicitly for partisan purposes and did not account for race or ethnicity.

    “I did not take race into consideration when drawing this map,” said state Sen. Phil King, the Texas Republican who wrote the redistricting legislation, at a committee hearing. “I drew it based on what would better perform for Republican candidates.”

    Racial gerrymandering claims are one of the last remaining ways to challenge a political map in federal court, since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2019 barred them from policing partisan gerrymandering. The new map – which was drawn using 2024 election data – creates four new majority-Hispanic districts, drawn to reflect Hispanic voters’ shift toward the GOP.

    Texas House Democrats protested the maps by leaving the state for two weeks, depriving Republicans of the ability to conduct legislative business. Those lawmakers returned on Monday — clearing the way for Republicans to quickly pass the legislation. Democrats racked up thousands of dollars in fines for ducking their legislative duties, and when they returned, House Speaker Dustin Burrows sought one last punishment: He ordered law enforcement to chaperone the Democrats to ensure they would be present for passage of the map.

    One Democrat, state Rep. Nicole Collier, refused to sign a permission slip allowing an officer to monitor her movements, instead staging a three-day sit-in on the House floor.

    “When I press that button to vote, I know these maps will harm my constituents — I won’t just go along quietly with their intimidation or their discrimination,” Collier said from the chamber.

    The Senate passed its map on Saturday morning after thwarting an attempted filibuster from another Democrat who planned to stage one last protest against the legislation. But Republicans made a procedural move that ended debate and the chamber approved the map along party lines.

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  • When the White House calls, do state lawmakers listen?

    On the eve of the Texas House voting on a new congressional map, President Donald Trump ordered his “Republican friends” in the state legislature to get it to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk “ASAP.”

    They’re taking heed — the state House passed the map on Wednesday and the state Senate is expected to do so this evening, just days after Democrats ended their out-of-state protest and returned to Austin — clearing the way for passage by the end of the week. Trump’s direct message to Texas Republicans is the president applying his standard pressure campaign playbook that has worked on Capitol Hill to a new audience: state lawmakers.

    When Trump wants something, he’ll often directly ask for it himself. And the president really wants to see GOP states take up mid-decade redistricting to carve out more Republican seats.

    Texas Republicans, including Abbott, initially didn’t want to take on the gambit. But the White House forced their hand, setting off a redistricting arms race across the country that Republicans are well-positioned to win. Should states like Indiana, Missouri and Florida move forward with mid-decade mapmaking, Republicans could pick up as many as 10 new seats ahead of the midterms, and it’s unclear at this point if any Democratic-led states beyond California will jump in to blunt the GOP advantages.

    Indiana is the latest target of the White House’s political operation, and Trump’s allies are even making the unusual consideration of backing primaries to Indiana state lawmakers who won’t accept the mission — an unusually direct involvement from a president in a state legislature. Some Indiana Republicans have expressed public resistance to falling in line — like state Rep. Ed Clere, who told POLITICO that “under no circumstances will I vote for a new map.”

    Clere, a longtime member from Southern Indiana, said he doesn’t want to see emergency special sessions called unnecessarily, and he believes too many procedural and legal hurdles stand in the way. “What Texas and California are doing is simply wrong for America,” he said. “It is the political equivalent of the cold war concept of MAD — mutually assured destruction. Indiana needs to take the high road.”

    Democrats are mostly powerless to respond to the White House’s intrusion into state legislatures. “I cannot recall another time that this has happened,” said Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democrats to state legislatures. “At the core here, the president is pressuring these lawmakers to change the maps, because that is the only way that Republicans can win.”

    Indiana Gov. Mike Braun has put the onus on the legislature to take up redistricting. While legislative leaders have not revealed their plans, the pressure campaign is working on the congressional delegation, which one by one has come forward in support. And state lawmakers have been summoned to a White House meeting Aug. 26, according to invitations reviewed by POLITICO, where redistricting will likely be top of the agenda.

    Another state that is surely on the White House’s radar: Ohio, which — unlike the handful of states choosing to remake their maps — is required under state law to redraw its map ahead of 2026. The White House may apply similar pressure to Buckeye Republicans to go for a maximalist approach, as Republicans there debate whether to carve out two or three seats during their process.

    “You have to appreciate the hands-on engagement,” said Indiana Republican strategist Marty Obst, who predicted that Indiana will convene a special session on redistricting. “If [state lawmakers] know that the White House is active, and they know for the president himself this is a top priority, it’s going to be very hard for them not to carry that out.”

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  • Texas’ Republican-controlled House approves new maps to create more winnable GOP congressional seats

    It’s been over 24 hours since Republican Texas House Speaker Dustin Burr said Democrats would be released into the custody of *** designated Department of Public Safety officer after Monday’s session. The doorkeeper will lock the doors, while other Democrats complied. State rep Nicole Collier refused. I am exercising my constitutional right to oppose. Instead. Settled in at her desk to spend the night. Collier posted on social media that she refused to sign away my dignity. I feel like this is wrong, that they are exercising this type of control over another person. It’s un-American. Texas House conservatives aim to put *** redistricting bill on the floor Wednesday after the redistricting committee voted to advance new congressional maps. GOP. Efforts to redraw maps would likely create 5 more GOP leaning seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. In order to secure the vote, Republicans need *** quorum of lawmakers, which Democrats had previously skipped out on by leaving the state. Their 15 day standoff ended Monday when they returned, and Democratic legislators in California agreed to consider employing similar. Districting maneuvers as Republicans have done in Texas. We didn’t ask for this fight. They brought this fight to us, and California cannot stand down if other states are attempting to cheat and rig the election in 20. On Tuesday, the California Senate committee voted 4 to 1 to advance *** bill that redraws that state’s congressional boundaries. I’m Sherelle Hubbard reporting.

    Texas Republicans on Wednesday took the first step toward approving new congressional maps that would give their party as many as five new seats in the House of Representatives, spurring what’s likely to be a national battle over redistricting.The approval by the Texas House of Representatives came at the urging of President Donald Trump, who pushed for the extraordinary mid-decade revision of congressional maps to give his party a better chance at holding onto the U.S. House of Representatives in next year’s election. The maps need to be approved by the state Senate and signed by Gov. Greg Abbott before they become official.Texas state legislative Democrats delayed the vote by two weeks by fleeing the state earlier this month in protest, and were assigned round-the-clock police monitoring upon their return to ensure they attended Wednesday’s session.The approval of the Texas maps is likely to prompt California’s Democratic-controlled state Legislature to approve a new House map creating Democratic-leaning districts. Unlike in Texas, the California map would require approval by voters in November before it becomes official.Democrats have also vowed to sue to challenge the new Texas map and complained that Republicans made the political power move before passing legislation responding to deadly floods that swept the state last month.

    Texas Republicans on Wednesday took the first step toward approving new congressional maps that would give their party as many as five new seats in the House of Representatives, spurring what’s likely to be a national battle over redistricting.

    The approval by the Texas House of Representatives came at the urging of President Donald Trump, who pushed for the extraordinary mid-decade revision of congressional maps to give his party a better chance at holding onto the U.S. House of Representatives in next year’s election. The maps need to be approved by the state Senate and signed by Gov. Greg Abbott before they become official.

    Texas state legislative Democrats delayed the vote by two weeks by fleeing the state earlier this month in protest, and were assigned round-the-clock police monitoring upon their return to ensure they attended Wednesday’s session.

    The approval of the Texas maps is likely to prompt California’s Democratic-controlled state Legislature to approve a new House map creating Democratic-leaning districts. Unlike in Texas, the California map would require approval by voters in November before it becomes official.

    Democrats have also vowed to sue to challenge the new Texas map and complained that Republicans made the political power move before passing legislation responding to deadly floods that swept the state last month.

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