In an extraordinary move brokered with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, dozens of Texas House Democrats aim to deny a quorum as the GOP is set to draw new maps.

In an extraordinary move brokered with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, dozens of Texas House Democrats aim to deny a quorum as the GOP is set to draw new maps.

The roughly 30 Democrats are expected to stay for the week in a plan brokered with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who had met with the Texas caucus late last month and has directed staff to provide logistical support for their stay. A news conference with the governor and Texas Democrats is expected later Sunday.

Last week, Texas Republicans released a proposed new congressional map that would give the GOP a path to pick up five seats in next year’s midterm elections. It followed President Donald Trump’s public pressure for a new map in the state as he works to retain a majority in Congress in what historically is a difficult year for the party holding the White House.

The proposed map would shift district lines in ways that would target current Democratic members of Congress in and around Austin, Dallas and Houston, as well as two already endangered Democrats representing south Texas districts that Trump carried last year.

    • @[email protected]English
      29•9 days ago

      What’s worse is that they’re basically challenging California to do the same to make up for the loss.

      Once that happens, it’s kind of the beginning of the end of the Union. When that precedent is set, states will start ignoring the actual will and representation of the people and just start drawing whatever lines they need to pack the seats. Every state for themselves. With the current judicial branch compromised and the executive branch an utter joke, this will be the last branch of government to suffer irreparable wounding.

      What’s even worse is we don’t have a choice. If we are to have states that don’t bow down to fascism and white nationalism, we will HAVE to do this to survive. States will start forming alliances to make their redistricting more effective, and then those alliances will start turning into factions, which will eventually become nation-states.

      Just remember where you were when the midterm results are announced, it will be marked in history books someday.

      Haha we won’t have books in the future. It will all be Grok.

      • @[email protected]English
        1•9 days ago

        Once that happens, it’s kind of the beginning of the end of the Union.

        Eh, not really. States could all choose to give 100% of their representatives to their majority party. That’s basically how the Electoral College works, and while it’s not optimal it also isn’t the end of the Union.

        • @[email protected]English
          1•8 days ago

          I’m not saying it’s going to be an overnight Civil War, it’s the beginning of a long, irreversible erosion process that could get very chaotic and economically destabilizing for the entire continent for the next century. Say goodbye to the American wealth we’ve all gotten so used to and start looking at how developing nations are structured.

          The only way I see this turning out even remotely good in our lifetimes is if there is a sudden and near-term disaster that results in a majority of America suddenly turning to some new, charismatic figure who actually wants to do good things and implements some kind of “New Deal 2.0” and we see reconstruction in our lifetimes under a revised and ratified constitution.

          So yeah, keep an eye on your bingo card that says “AI will kill most of us and then maybe save us.” Or aliens. Or nuclear war.

        • @[email protected]English
          3•9 days ago

          We do have a lot of local elections with community support across much of the country. We mostly only see the stories where this process has been trampled or ignored, but we often lose sight of just how massive the country is and get absolutely no insight into how local jurisdictions work or don’t work. There are vast stretches of the US where the people are getting on just fine (by societal standards) and vote for their local school boards, their mayors and sheriffs, etc.

          The system is strained and in many places completely collapsed, particularly when it comes to federal representation, but we have to understand that there’s still value in our country. If we all worked harder to preserve that and reclaimed our flag much earlier we might have had a stronger fighting chance.

        • @[email protected]English
          2•9 days ago

          It won’t make things better in our lifetimes. When the federal and state relationships break down, so do all the things that make us comfortable.