The Texas House OK'd GOP-favored redistricting. California intends to
counter with map of its own
[August 21, 2025]
By JIM VERTUNO and NICHOLAS RICCARDI
The national redistricting battle enters its next phase Thursday as
California Democrats are scheduled to pass a new congressional map that
creates five winnable seats for their party, a direct counter to the
Texas House's approval of a new map to create more conservative-leaning
seats in that state.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has engineered the high-risk strategy in
response to President Donald Trump's own brinkmanship. Trump pushed
Texas Republicans to reopen the legislative maps they passed in 2021 to
squeeze out up to five new GOP seats to help the party stave off a
midterm defeat.
Unlike in Texas, where passage by the Republican-controlled state Senate
and signature by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott are now all that's needed
to make the maps official, California faces a more uncertain route.
Democrats must use their legislative supermajority to pass the map by a
two-third margin. Then they must schedule a special election in November
for voters to approve the map that Newsom must sign by Friday to meet
ballot deadlines.
The added complexity is because California has a voter-approved
independent commission that Newsom himself backed before Trump's latest
redistricting maneuver. Only the state's voters can override the map
that commission approved in 2021. But Newsom said extraordinary steps
are required to counter Texas and other Republican-led states that Trump
is pushing to revise maps.
“This is a new Democratic Party, this is a new day, this is new energy
out there all across this country,” Newsom said Wednesday on a call with
reporters. “And we’re going to fight fire with fire.”
Texas Democratic lawmakers, vastly outnumbered in that state's
legislature, delayed approval of the new map by 15 days by fleeing Texas
earlier this month in protest. They were assigned round-the-clock police
monitoring upon their return to ensure they attended Wednesday’s
session.
That session ended with an 88-52 party-line vote approving the map after
more than eight hours of debate. Democrats have also vowed to challenge
the new Texas map in court and complained that Republicans made the
political power move before passing legislation responding to deadly
floods that swept the state last month.
A battle for the US House control waged via redistricting
In a sign of Democrats’ stiffening redistricting resolve, former
President Barack Obama on Tuesday night backed Newsom’s bid to redraw
the California map, saying it was a necessary step to stave off the
GOP’s Texas move.
“I think that approach is a smart, measured approach,” Obama said during
a fundraiser for the Democratic Party’s main redistricting arm.
The incumbent president’s party usually loses congressional seats in the
midterm election, and the GOP currently controls the House of
Representatives by a mere three votes.
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California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas announces a legislative
package to advance a partisan effort to redraw California
congressional map at a press conference on Monday, Aug. 18, 2025, in
Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Tran Nguyen)
Trump is going beyond Texas in his push to remake the map. He’s
pushed Republican leaders in conservative states like Indiana and
Missouri to also try to create new Republican seats. Ohio
Republicans were already revising their map before Texas moved.
Democrats, meanwhile, are mulling reopening Maryland’s and New
York’s maps as well.
However, more Democratic-run states have commission systems like
California’s or other redistricting limits than Republican ones do,
leaving the GOP with a freer hand to swiftly redraw maps. New York,
for example, can’t draw new maps until 2028, and even then, only
with voter approval.
The struggle for — and against — Texas redistricting
Texas Republicans openly said they were acting in their party’s
interest. State Rep. Todd Hunter, who wrote the legislation formally
creating the new map, noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed
politicians to redraw districts for nakedly partisan purposes.
There was little that outnumbered Democrats could do other than fume
and threaten a lawsuit to block the map. Because the Supreme Court
has blessed purely partisan gerrymandering, the only way opponents
can stop the new Texas map would be by arguing it violates the
Voting Rights Act requirement to keep minority communities together
so they can select representatives of their choice.
House Republicans’ frustration at the Democrats’ flight and ability
to delay the vote was palpable during the Wednesday vote.
House Speaker Dustin Burrows announced as debate started that doors
to the chamber were locked and any member leaving was required to
have a permission slip. The doors were only unlocked after final
passage more than eight hours later.
Republicans issued civil arrest warrants to bring the Democrats back
after they left the state Aug. 3, and Abbott asked the state Supreme
Court to oust several Democrats from office. The lawmakers also face
a fine of $500 for every day they were absent.
___
Associated Press journalists John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, and Sara
Cline in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, contributed to this report.
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