Democrats Announce Return to Texas, Ending Walkout Over Redistricting Plan

By Kayla Guo, The Texas Tribune

AUSTIN, TX — Texas House Democrats announced they would return to Austin on Monday, ending a two-week walkout over a GOP mid-decade redistricting plan and paving the way for the map’s passage.

“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,” Rep. Gene Wu of Houston, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said in a statement.

Over 50 Democratic lawmakers left Texas earlier this month for Illinois and elsewhere in a bid to stall passage of a congressional map that is designed to give the GOP five additional U.S. House seats in next year’s midterm election.

Republican state leaders issued civil arrest warrants, sought to extradite absent members from Illinois, launched investigations and sought to declare at least one Democrat’s seat vacant. The Legislature ended the first special session early on Friday because of the walkout, with Gov. Greg Abbott promptly calling a second overtime session with virtually the same agenda as the first one.

Though Democrats won’t have the votes to defeat the map on the floor, they framed their protest as a victory for sinking the first special session and building a national appetite among blue state leaders for their own partisan redistricting efforts in retaliation to Texas’ plan. And they said that the end of the walkout only marked the next phase of their plan to fight the map in court.

Some have criticized the Democrats for neglecting their duties as elected officials by leaving the state to prevent a vote. They also fled to Illinois, which is one of the most heavily gerrymandered states in the country — though it's in favor of Democrats — prompting some to call their stance hypocritical.

“We’re returning to Texas more dangerous to Republicans’ plans than when we left,” Wu said. “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.”

California unveiled a new congressional map Friday that would give Democrats up to five new U.S. House seats, which state voters would have to adopt in a November special election.

Republicans were moving quickly to advance Texas' map, with a Senate committee approving the plan again on Sunday and House Speaker Dustin Burrows promising last week to complete all items on Abbott’s agenda, “and even some more,” by Labor Day weekend.