Texas Gov. Greg Abbott moves to amp up the pressure on Democrats who fled in redistricting standoff

Austin, Texas – The Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, promised to call “special session after his special session after his special session” in response to the Democratic legislators who fled the State to block redistribution legislation, claiming that they will have to stay outside of Texas for years to prevent him from becoming law.

“We are in the process while we are currently talking about looking for, preparing to stop the Democrats who could be in Texas, could be elsewhere,” a republican, in NBC News in an interview with the governor’s manor on Thursday evening.

“But I’m going to tell you too, the Democrats act as if they would not come back until it is a problem,” said Abbott. “This means that they will not return before 2027 or 2028, because I will call a special session after a special session after a special session with the same articles of the agenda there.”

More than 50 Democratic legislators fled the state earlier this week to prevent the State House from moving forward with the Congress Congress proposed by the Republican majority, designed to increase the number of seats held in the GOP before the mid-term elections of next year.

The State House led by the Republicans approved civil arrest mandates for the missing legislators, and Abbott filed a complaint with the Supreme Court of the State aimed at withdrawing the Democratic chief of the Chamber of his functions for “the intentional abandonment of his constitutional duty”.

Abbott said he had not spoken to President Donald Trump about the potential role of the federal government in the implementation of the confrontation. Trump said earlier this week that the FBI “may” have to “get involved, although an administration manager also told NBC News earlier this week that he was not planned to use federal agents to arrest Texas legislators who had left the state.

“I will not disclose, but everything may be involved or not,” said Abbott on Thursday when asked if the FBI had a legitimate role to play. “All I can say is that we are going to use all the tools that we can make sure that these fleeing democrats will be responsible.”

Abbott said that a redrawing up of the state congress card was necessary because “the law and the facts have changed since we resumed the lines in 2021”, stressing a federal court of appeal which judged that several minority groups could not form a coalition to challenge a political card as racial gerrymander.

But Abbott also underlined the results of the last elections as a political justification for the redistribution of mid-December, instead of waiting for the next national census after 2030.

“Many people who voted Republican, who voted for Donald Trump, have been trapped in democratic districts,” said Abbott. “And so when you look at the facts, when you look at the law, there are all the reasons to move forward and trace the lines so that we can make sure that each voter will have the opportunity to vote for his candidate of choice.”

Trump won 56% of the votes in Texas in 2024. The Congress Congress card could lead the Republicans to control 30 of state congress districts – almost 80%. The Republicans currently control 25 of the 38 districts of the State Congress.

Abbott rejected the idea that the new map could give Republicans a disproportionate representation, pointing to Illinois, with its democratic delegation of the Democratic Congress and other states.

“What has surfaced because of Texas that makes the redistribution are the way all the blue states of the country have Gerrymande of their states. Look at the disproportionate lack of republican representation in the Congress, California, Illinois, Massachusetts – who has no member of the Congress which is republican, New York,” said Abbott.

Some of these Blue State Governors have sworn to retaliate and push their own states to draw new borders of the Congress if Texas does, although they can face important obstacles due to the various redistribution processes in their states.

“The governor has no unilateral authority in these states to take action,” said Abbott about these possible reprisals. “They have committees and commissions and things like that. But the fact is: look at the card of Illinois. It is drawn in such a way that they cannot even bring another republican out. It is a joke.”

The current acknowledgment ends to stop the special legislative session that Abbott called for Texas, also blocking action on other priorities, including help for victims of devastating floods in the center of Texas last month. The Republican leaders of the House of States have first chose to do red -cutting legislation, but all the bills of the Legislative Assembly are now on break without the present quorum.

“There is only one thing that denies our ability to have the legislation adopted. And it was these democrats who fled the state, turned their back on their voter companions,” said Abbott. “And these Democrats will lose their jobs in the next elections, if they are not expelled before, because they do not hear their voters who need it desperately.”

“All help with their voters who were injured by these floods is delayed and denied by abandoned Democrats,” said Abbott.

All this fueled Abbott’s argument to the Supreme Court of the State that the representative of the State Gene Wu, the president of the Caucus Democrat of the Chamber, violated his oath and abandoned his seat by fleeing for Illinois.

“If the rupture of the quorum is authorized to succeed, then a third of the Democrats of the Chamber will be able to dictate what is the rule of law per 100% of all the Texans,” said Abbott about his trial, adding that the Supreme Court of the State would be suitable that the Democrats do not have this power.

“These Democrats, they are the antithesis of what a Texan is,” said Abbott. “Oh, things have become difficult. Do not fight, let’s go. These are stops. These are cowards, and their cowardice will make them come out of the office.”

Wu, in a Tuesday press release, replied to Abbott’s trial saying that “his constitutional duty is not to be a voluntary participant” in the special session which includes the Congress card.

“Deptering to the governor a quorum was not the abandonment of my office, it was an accomplishment of my oath,” Wu said in the press release. “Unable to defend his corrupt agenda on his merits, Greg Abbott is now desperately looking to silence my dissent by removing an official duly elected from his functions.”

Ryan Chandler reported to Austin and Bridget Bowman reported in Washington, DC