The Texas #Redistricting Fight Has Been the Testing Ground for the #Trump Administration’s Latest Legal Strategy
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The administration has been testing a strategy of using the courts as leverage to force political outcomes. In #Texas, the state’s leaders and conservative activists have been willing, if not eager, collaborators.
Ossum speech:
"Texas State Rep. #AnnJohnson clapped back at #GOP members amid Wednesday's redistricting vote.
“If you knew you could win this next election, you wouldn’t be taking this effort to try to steal five seats from elected officials that members of color elected to represent them in Washington D.C.”
Ossum speech:
"Texas State Rep. #AnnJohnson clapped back at #GOP members amid Wednesday's redistricting vote.
“If you knew you could win this next election, you wouldn’t be taking this effort to try to steal five seats from elected officials that members of color elected to represent them in Washington D.C.”
"It’s an especially striking counterpoint to President Biden, who credited Black women with his 2020 victory and made a point of breaking the glass ceiling for them during his presidency with the appointments of people like Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court and Cook to the Federal Reserve Board."
#Trump#Republicans#Texas#Misssissippi#WhiteSupremacy #gerrymandering #redistricting #racism #slavery
/14
"Capital cities—often characterized by dynamic multiculturalism and a liberal political culture—tend to be unfriendly terrain for populist demagogues like Trump or Viktor Orbán, whose constituencies are typically concentrated in rural areas. But capital cities are also where state power is most concentrated, making them convenient stages for shows of force against liberal institutions and movements."
"On the road to authoritarianism, [what Texas Republicans are doing] is a whole factory of red flags.
It lays bare the political power grab driving the Trump administration’s expansion of the police power. Although administration officials claim to be combating crime, they are setting up a one-state political system that will answer only to MAGA."
~ Heather Cox Richardson
#Trump#WashingtonDC #fascism #military#Texas #redistricting #gerrymandering
/3
Update: Several Texas Democrats who signed documents agreeing to leaving the state's House chambers with a police escort will rip up those documents and return to spend the night on the floor with state Rep. Nicole Collier, @CNN reports.
#NicoleCollier#Texas#TexasDemocrats#Redistricting#USPolitics
Update: Several Texas Democrats who signed documents agreeing to leaving the state's House chambers with a police escort will rip up those documents and return to spend the night on the floor with state Rep. Nicole Collier, @CNN reports.
#NicoleCollier#Texas#TexasDemocrats#Redistricting#USPolitics
Texas Democrat Nicole Collier has been locked in the state's House chambers since yesterday because she refused to be escorted from the building by state troopers — a requirement of GOP Speaker Dustin Burrows, who says this is to prevent another walkout by Democratic representatives. “I refuse to sign away my dignity as a duly elected representative just so Republicans can control my movements and monitor me with police escorts,” said Collier, who has represented District 95 in Fort Worth since 2013. Here's more from @time.
#NicoleCollier#Texas#TexasDemocrats#Redistricting#USPolitics
"This is an effort to change the very basic nature of American democracy. This is the institution of American authoritarianism, and it is happening right here in front of us. And if we don’t call it that, and if we don’t recognize that all of these things are tied together, we are going to be powerless to stop it."
~ David Daley
#Trump#Republicans#VoterSupression #redistricting#MailInBallots #gerrymandering #elections
/4
https://newrepublic.com/article/199237/trump-accidentally-lets-slip-dark-truth-plot-rig-midterms
"If Democratic leaders were so unelectable, the Republicans would not go to such lengths to rig district voting maps and keep Democratic voters from the polls. Indeed, while voter fraud is vanishingly rare, the Republicans are using the specter of it to engage in election fraud: manipulating the mechanics of an election to favor one side over another.
~ Heather Cox Richardson
#Trump#Republicans#VoterSupression #redistricting#MailInBallots #gerrymandering
/3
“At bottom, Trump’s rant clearly signals his intent to use presidential power in every conceivable way he can to swing the midterm elections against Democrats.”
~ Greg Sargent
#Trump#Republicans#VoterSupression #redistricting#MailInBallots #gerrymandering #elections
/2
“Trump’s claims are so far from anything even remotely legal or constitutional that I doubt even the corrupted federal judiciary will have much truck with it.”
~ Josh Marshall
#Trump#Republicans#VoterSupression #redistricting#MailInBallots #gerrymandering #elections
/1
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-elections-and-the-oppositions-strategic-depth
After Republican Sen John Cornyn of Texas called on the FBI to help locate & #arrest Democrats who left the state to block a vote on a new congressional map, Trump said, “They may have to.”
“A lot of people have demanded they come back. You can’t just sit it out. You have to go back, you have to fight it out,” said Trump.
#law#AbuseOfPower #gerrymandering #redistricting #democracy #elections
https://apnews.com/live/donald-trump-news-updates-8-5-2025#00000198-7c2b-dc4c-adfc-fc3f02bc0000
#Texas House rules allow for fines of $500 every day the #Democrats are absent. The #House also issued civil warrants for the missing lawmakers to be arrested & returned to the House.
#Trump#FBI #law#AbuseOfPower #gerrymandering #redistricting #democracy #rigged #elections
After Republican Sen John Cornyn of Texas called on the FBI to help locate & #arrest Democrats who left the state to block a vote on a new congressional map, Trump said, “They may have to.”
“A lot of people have demanded they come back. You can’t just sit it out. You have to go back, you have to fight it out,” said Trump.
#law#AbuseOfPower #gerrymandering #redistricting #democracy #elections
https://apnews.com/live/donald-trump-news-updates-8-5-2025#00000198-7c2b-dc4c-adfc-fc3f02bc0000
NY Gov #KathyHochul: “I'm tired of fighting this fight w/ my hand tied behind my back. … #politics is a political process.…we’re sick & tired of being pushed around when other #states don’t have the same aspirations that we always have had. I hold those dear. But I cannot ignore that the playing field has changed dramatically. Shame on us if we ignore that fact & cling tight to the vestiges of the past. That era is over. Donald #Trump eliminated that forever.”
“We’re not going to tolerate our #democracy being stolen in a modern-day stagecoach heist by bunch of law breaking cowboys,” New York Gov. #KathyHochul said Monday, flanked by several of the [#Texas] lawmakers who fled. “If #Republicans are willing to rewrite rules to give themselves an advantage, then they’re leaving us with no choice: We must do the same. You have to fight fire with fire.”
#law#ElectionLaw #gerrymandering #redistricting #midterms #elections#Trump
https://apnews.com/article/us-election-2026-texas-redistricting-136cfeddc717f9fc69337bd3d39b1819
#law#ElectionLaw #midterms #elections#Trump#GregAbbott #rigged
#law#ElectionLaw #midterms #elections#Trump#GregAbbott #rigged
“All options must be on the table — including Democratic state legislatures using their power to fight back & pursue #redistricting mid-cycle in order to protect our #democracy,” the group’s president, Heather Williams, said in a statement.
#Democrats in #California have said they could hold a special election in November to ask voters to adopt a ballot measure that would give Democrats more favorable districts next year.
#Texas#Democrats to flee state, blocking plan to pad GOP’s control of #Congress
By leaving, Democratic state legislators can stall a #Republican plan that would give the #GOP 5 more seats to protect their narrow #House majority.
#law #gerrymandering#Trump #rigged #midterms #elections
https://apnews.com/article/texas-democrats-leave-state-congressional-map-vote-b8b96080dfae00111664bbfb72fc304b?utm_source=onesignal&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=2025-08-03-Breaking+News
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