Texas Democrats returned to their state on Monday as California lawmakers are set to convene in the state capitol to kick off a rapid push to get voters to approve a new congressional map that could add as many as five Democratic seats in the US House.
The California effort is in response to Texas’s effort to redraw the congressional map there to add five Republican seats. On Friday, Texas Republican governor Greg Abbott called a second special session after Democrats remained out of the state for two weeks, denying Republicans a quorum to conduct legislative business.
The Democrats said last week they would return once California moved ahead with its effort to offset the Texas plan, all but ensuring that Texas’s new maps will pass.
Related: How did we get all this gerrymandering? A short history of the Republican redistricting scheme
In a statement on Monday, Gene Wu, the chair of the Texas house democratic caucus, called the two-week quorum break a success.
“We killed the corrupt special session, withstood unprecedented surveillance and intimidation, and rallied Democrats nationwide to join this existential fight for fair representation – reshaping the entire 2026 landscape,” he said. “We’re returning to Texas more dangerous to Republicans’ plans than when we left. Our return allows us to build the legal record necessary to defeat this racist map in court, take our message to communities across the state and country, and inspire legislators across the country how to fight these undemocratic redistricting schemes in their own statehouses.”
The new California map, released on Friday, would create three new safely Democratic districts and two new districts that are Democratic leaning, but still competitive.
Legislators need to send the plan to a statewide referendum in November because the California constitution requires districts to be drawn by an independent redistricting commission. If voters approve the plan, it would take effect until the end of the decade, when mapmaking power would return to the independent commission.
Internal polling presented to lawmakers showed voters favored the measure 52% to 41%, with 7% undecided, according to the local television station KCRA.
The legislature could hold floor votes to send the measure to voters for approval as soon as Thursday, KCRA reported.
Republicans currently hold a razor-thin three seat majority in the US House and Donald Trump has pushed to redraw district boundaries ahead of next year’s midterm elections, in which the president’s party typically loses seats. Republicans are also poised to redraw congressional districts in Ohio, Missouri, and Florida, as well as potentially Indiana.
Democrats have signaled they will try to redraw districts in other states where they hold power at the state level, like New York and Maryland, though they don’t have as many opportunities to draw districts as Republicans do.
