The confrontation of Texas can reshape Congress

Dozens of Democrats in Texas have been left secretly in a dramatic effort to prevent Republicans from making a vote that could determine the balance of power in the US Congress.

Republican ruler Greg Abbott issued orders to be arrested on the horizon – and a fine of $ 500 a day. He also threatened to expel them from his position.

Democrats left because at least two -thirds of the legislative body are 150 members who should be present to move forward in a vote on the reintering of the electoral map in Texas. The plan will create five other seats that tend to Republicans in the US House of Representatives.

This high risk battle may seem strange and confusing – but it is a battle that can spread to other states before the national elections for the next year. In her heart, it is a naked battle for political power, which it can make more effectively and who can keep it.

The US House of Representatives consists of 435 legislators who have been elected every two years. They represent areas with limits specified in the operations set by state governments.

Who draws lines and how can it go a long way in forming the ideological inclination of the boycott and the possibility that it will be elected democratically or Republican.

Currently, the House of Representatives is located on the edge of a knife with 219 Republicans and 212 Democrats. There are four vacancies that three democrats and one Republican in the private elections later fill this year.

It will not take much to shift in the political winds of Democrats to regain control of the House of Representatives in the renewal elections next year. The party that controls the lower Congress room has powers that extend beyond merely set the legislative agenda for the next two years, as important as this.

Parliament leaders can launch comprehensive investigations into presidential procedures, as Democrats have done in the second half of Donald Trump, and Republicans have been in the past two years of Jo Biden. They can also search on politics and government closure. They can even vote to dismiss a president, as Democrats did in December 2019, and the Republicans excelled during Biden’s presidency.

Trump appears to focus on taking steps to improve the possibilities of avoiding a similar fate in his second term. According to what was installed in mid -time races and encourages legislators in Texas to draw new maps for Congress that can increase the possibility of winning the Republicans in more home seats from there.

The boycott lines are usually reinforced every 10 years, after a national census, to reflect the transformations in the population within the states and between them. The destiny circles were regularly redistributed in 2021.

In some states, the process is determined by independent commissions, but in other cases, the legislative bodies of the state are responsible for the withdrawal of the line-and the results can be designed frequently by the party in power to give their side a distinctive advantage.

In North Carolina, for example, the lines of Republicans gave its party 10 of the 14th home seats in the state in the national elections for the past year, although Trump only won the state with a thin margin.

Democrats in Illinois have 14 seats out of 17 seats in the state, while former Vice President Kamala Harris won the state by 54 %. If Trump is a way, maps lead to five seats in the next year, the Republicans will control 30 seats from 38 seats in the state. Last year, Texas won 56 %.

The Republican Paul in Texas has leaders in the democratic -controlled states that call for a response, which can lead to the re -division of the “arms race” that is spread throughout the country.

For example, California Governor Gavin New Yoshom has requested the legislators in his term, as Democrats control 43 seats out of 52 seats, to find ways to increase their advantage. Conservative Cathy Hotchol in New York and JB Pritzker in Illinois issued similar calls.

“Everything on the table,” Pritzker wrote in a post on social media. “We have to do everything we can stand and respond – we do not sit and doubt the side lines when we have the ability to stop them.”

Democrats at the level of al -Qaeda, who were frustrated by the inability of the national political leaders of their party to prevent the agenda of Trump administration policy, may welcome such a confrontation language. Malays, such as California and New York, have laws that stipulate that they are drawn by a committee of the two parties to establish CBC circles.

Such efforts were the result of pushing political considerations from the process of re -dividing the circles, but now some Democrats see that these moves are unilateral disarmament that gave Republicans an advantage in struggle for the majority of the House of Representatives.

“I am tired of fighting this battle with my hand tied behind my back,” Hachol told reporters in Capitol in New York in Albani on Monday. “With all due respect to good government groups, politics is a political process.”

She said that the “stadium” had changed dramatically during the second period of Trump and Democrats need to adapt.

Democrats may not have the final statement. Republicans are already looking beyond Texas for more places to pick up seats. It was reported that Vice President JD Vance is thinking on a trip to Indiana later this week to pressure the new provinces in that state. Florida ruler Ron Desantis recently said his Republican -dominated country may perform a similar operation.

Despite its explicit political designs, all this is a fair game under the United States Constitution – at least the way the narrow majority of the United States Supreme Court in a historic case 2019.

The party “Gerrymandering”, as the process sometimes, has a long tradition in American policy – which creates repeatedly the circles of strange circles that extend for miles to include or exclude voters based on their political affiliation, and all of this with the aim of giving one party an electoral majority.

The Republic Step in Texas is not even without a precedent. In 2003, Republican leaders re -set up their Congress maps to enhance their electoral advantage.

Even the state’s Democrats responded in a similar way – leaving the state to delay the legislative measures. The re -division of circles in the end passed after a sufficient amount of Democrats returned.

There is a danger in all of this, even for the party that the clouds do. While the aim of this is to increase the number of seats in which victory is possible, in the elections where one side exceeds expectations, it can apparently flip the safe seats.

Texas, and other countries re -divide the circles, an electoral map that does not escape a political flood, can create losses that can be avoided in the ballot box.

In near elections, however, every seat is important. And if the renewal elections in the next year continue the last trend of political battles that were defined narrowly, then what happens in the legislative bodies of the state during the next few months can have exciting political consequences in Washington, DC – and therefore, through America.

Follow the transformations and turns in the second Trump state with the North American correspondent Anthony Zurer weekly American policy is not owned Newsletter. Readers in the United Kingdom can Subscribe here. Those can outside the United Kingdom Subscribe here.