After a long day of debate, the Texas House of Representatives approved a map of the Congress favored by the Republicans on Wednesday night that could turn to five red districts fusing Democratic seats in the areas of Houston, Austin and Dallas-Forth Worth to form new Republican seats and making two more competitive Rio Grande Valley districts.
The districts currently held by Democratic representatives to Green, Marc Veasey, Julie Johnson, Greg Casar and Lloyd Dogget are potentially attacked.
The vote occurred weeks after state Democrats denounced the redistribution of unorthodox medium decade districts such as shameless gerrymandering to increase the number of seats of the Congress of the Republican Party.
The new map does not seem significantly weaken any seat controlled by the Republican Party, but experts have said that it would depend on the durability of Hispanic support to Republicans in 2024 to take half of the periods next year. The maps have gone through some small adjustments since they were first introduced in July.
The Texas speaker of the Dustin Burrows Chamber, R-Lubbock, supervises a debate on a map of the US Congress in Texas during a special session, on August 20, 2025, in Austin, Texas.
Eric Gay/AP
It is likely that the districts redistribution plan, which was pressed by President Donald Trump, passes. The map could go to the state Senate as soon as the end of the week and then would go to Governor Greg Abbott for his firm.
At a press conference after the vote, the representative of the President of the Democratic Caucus of the House of Representatives, Gene Wu, acknowledged that the Democrats had lost this round.
“This part of the fight has ended, but it is simply the first chapter,” Wu said, he added later that a lawsuit against the new maps will join soon, but not even after Abbott signs the legislation.
The Democrats of the House of Representatives tried to stop the deliberations for hours during the Wednesday’s floor session before the final vote with several long -shooting proposals. Wu proposed an amendment to the consideration of the maps table until the archives of Jeffrey Epstein are launched by the United States attorney general, Pam Bondi, but WU amendment was dismissed as non -German the matter in question. The members also rejected an amendment of representative Chris Turner to kill the bill and several others tried to obtain amendments at the table or sink the maps, everything was in vain.
Texas State Representative, Harold Dutton Jr., D-Houston, speaks while with Democrats during the debate on a map of the US Congress. In Texas during a special session, on August 20, 2025, in Austin, Texas.
Eric Gay/AP
Before the final vote, the Democrats denounced the efforts of the Republicans as anti -democratic and said they were working only at Trump’s instances.
“You may not understand Gerrymandering, you may not understand the redistribution of districts, but I hope you understand, cheat and steal, because this is what people do, people like Donald Trump, people like the Texas Republican Party, when they can’t win, they deceive,” Wu said.
Democratic representative Joe Moody said: “These maps are deepening the struggle for color communities that will only worsen because a small man in DC demanded it. This is where the division becomes dictatorship, the government against people. Some people here are winning so much that they cannot see what we are all losing.”
Democratic representative Harold Dutton told Republicans: “I don’t think you win.
During the comments of the Democrats of the Democrats who accused the Republicans of advancing with the maps without their contributions while presenting several amendments, the representative of the Republican Party Todd Hunter, who was the author of the bill, retreated, particularly after the representative Gervin Hawkins made similar hints, that the Chamber could not do any work because the Democrats sank the State.
The president of the Democratic Caucus of the Chamber of Texas, Gene Wu, debates the newly presented draft Redistribution of Districts, bill 4 of the House of Representatives during a meeting of the House of Representatives in the State Capitol on August 20, 2025, in Austin, Texas.
Brandon Bell/Getty images
“You are the owner of the strike, you said that you did that, but you do not enter this body and you say that we did not include yourself. You left for 18 days, and that is wrong,” said Hunter.
The special session was delayed after the Democrats left the State to avoid a quorum, despite Abbott’s arrest threats and other republican leaders.
Some Democrats returned to the state house on Monday and allowed the legislature to reach a quorum. The 88 Republicans of the House of Representatives voted for the bill and 52 of the 62 Democrats in the Chamber voted against.
A handful of the Democrats of the Texas House of Representatives rejected the police escorts to ensure that they would not leave the State again. They spent during the night at the House of Texas in solidarity with state representative Nicole Collier, who had refused to sign a “permission receipt” that allowed him to leave the state’s capitol with an escort of application of the law.
“Look, I’m not going to lie. I want to cry, but I’m too angry,” Collier said after the camera vote. “I want to cry, but I’m too furious.”
She added: “My feet hurt, my back hurts, but I think of people who do not have a home, they have no bed to sleep, who have no job to work. I think of people who do not win habitable wages. I think about people who do not have medical attention. I can fix my back, but what are we going to do for them? … The fact that I am still angry and furious means that I still want to fight.”
The Capitol of the State of Texas also took care of a threat of social networks on Tuesday night that led to the evacuation of the land and the building, but the democratic legislators who were already in the building remained inside.
After the vote, Abbott said he was planning to add legislation proposed to the special session that would punish legislators who deny a quorum.
“We need to make sure that dishonest legislators cannot hijack the important de Texan business during a legislative session fleeing the State,” Abbot said in a statement.
The protesters meet in the roundabout outside the House of the House of Representatives in the Texas Capitol while the legislators discuss a map of the US Congress in Texas during a special session, on August 20, 2025, in Austin, Texas.
Eric Gay/AP
The Republicans continued to take the victory over the bill that approved the Texas Chamber, and even before he died, a challenging note sounded.
“It will not silence the majority in the state of Texas. You can make your tantrum, you can leave, you can execute, and you can ignore the will of the rest of the voters,” said Republican state representative Katrina Pierson before the bill approved her final vote in the Chamber. “But honestly is the time to choose a new narrative. Racist rhetoric is old.”
Abbott, who had placed the redistribution of districts on the agenda of the two special legislative sessions he called, wrote in a statement congratulating the members of the Republican Chamber that the Democrats had “avoided their duty, useless.”
“I congratulate the president’s burrows and the Republican members of the Texas House of Representatives for approving Congress districts that better reflect the real votes of the Texans,” Abbott wrote. “While the Democrats avoided their duty, in uselessness, and escaped to other states, the Republicans remained in the course, remained at work and remained faithful to Texas. I will sign this bill once the Senate passes and reaches my desk.”
California Democratic governor Gavin Newsom, who has been pressing a plan to draw new Maps of Congress in California in response to Texas or other states led by Republicans, wrote his, wrote in a publication about X, “Congratulations to @Gregbott_TX: Now he will become the story as one of the laspdogs more than Donald Trump.
In another publication, he simply wrote: “He is in Texas.”
The California Legislature will assume and vote on the redistribution legislation of districts on Thursday.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul, in her own publication, wrote “Game On”. Hochul has expressed support for the reduction of the maps of the New York Congress, but state legislators have said that the first maps could be in force is probably 2028.
