Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) slammed Republican lawmakers as “cheaters” amid their mid-decade redistricting push.

During a Tuesday (August 19) appearance on CNN’s “The Source,” Crockett called out Republicans over their attempt to manipulate political maps for power. Texas GOP lawmakers are aiming to pass a new congressional map that could give Republicans five additional House seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

“The Republicans, they are cheaters all day, every day. But we have never tried to match their energy until now. And I applaud it,” Crockett said Tuesday.

The Texas congresswoman went on to praise Democratic efforts in California to retaliate with their own redistricting plan.

“This is a dangerous road to travel down, and I do applaud those in California that say, if you want to play with us, we will play back,” Crockett said. “You can stop this right now if you just say, hey we will stop in Texas, because California doesn’t go into play unless Texas does.”

Dozens of Texas Democrats left the state earlier this month to break quorum and block the GOP redistricting plan. Upon their return on Monday (August 18), Republican House Speaker Dustin Burrows required Democratic lawmakers to sign a “permission slip” agreeing to 24-hour police escorts to ensure their attendance during future redistricting votes.

Crockett argued that Republicans have a consistent pattern of weaponizing redistricting.

“If you will recall, when we look at North Carolina, as soon as they ended up with a Republican majority in that Supreme Court, what did they do? They decided to take their map from seven… and instead they added an additional three seats for the Republicans,” she said. “So now it’s 10-4. Well, when you look at the voting, nothing looks like 10-4.”

The congresswoman also condemned new rules requiring Democratic lawmakers to accept DPS escorts to leave the chamber.

“As a former Texas State Rep, let me be clear: LOCKING Rep. Nicole Collier inside the chamber is beyond outrageous,” Crockett wrote Monday on X. “Forcing elected officials to sign ‘permission slips’ and take police escorts to leave? That’s not procedure. That’s some old Jim Crow playbook.”

CA Supreme Court denies GOP petition to delay vote on new congressional maps

California Democrats introduced a plan last week that could slash five Republican-held House seats in the liberal-leaning state while bolstering Democratic incumbents in other battleground districts.

The move comes in direct response to efforts by Texas Republicans to redraw House districts in order to strengthen the GOP hold on the chamber in 2026.

A plan aims to boost the Democratic margin to 48 of California’s 52 congressional seats, according to a source familiar with the plan who was not authorized to discuss it publicly. That’s up from the 43 seats the party now holds. It would need approval from lawmakers and voters, who may be skeptical to give it after handing redistricting power to an independent commission years ago.

The first draft of California’s redrawn congressional district maps has been released.

In addition, the proposal would generously pad Democratic margins in districts for competitive seats anchored in Orange County, San Diego County and the Central Valley farm belt, giving Democrats a potential advantage as Texas Republicans try to sway the tissue-thin balance of the House.

Legislators are making fast work on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s redistricting proposal this week — but not without some procedural hiccups led by Republicans who oppose the effort.

Elections committees in both the state Assembly and Senate on Tuesday, Aug. 19, heard the legislation that would call a special election in November over proposed new, partisan congressional maps.

The upper chamber’s hearing was relatively straightforward — albeit some Senate Republicans who are not members of the committee were upset they were not allowed to ask questions.

Meanwhile, on the Assembly side, sparks flew throughout Tuesday’s hearing, as the two GOP members of the lower chamber’s Elections Committee accused Democrats of rushing through the approval process and denying them adequate time to ask all their questions.

Assemblymember David Tangipa, R-Fresno, proposed an amendment that would have stated that any member of the legislature who votes for ACA 8 shall not run for Congress in any of the proposed congressional districts. ACA 8 is the legislation that would authorize new, temporary congressional district maps that would only go into effect if other, Republican-led states adopt gerrymandered maps of their own.

“If everybody here is saying that they are doing this to protect democracy,” Tangipa said, the legislature should “make sure that they don’t have a vested interest.” He cited news reports that alleged Senate Pro Tem Mike McGuire asked for a district to be drawn specifically for him to be able to win should he run for Congress.

But Democrats shot down his proposal, tabling consideration of the amendment.

Throughout the Assembly hearing on ACA 8, there were fiery exchanges between Democratic and Republican members on the committee, prompting the chair to call for order multiple times.

After more than half an hour of questions by Tangipa, Committee Chair Gail Pellerin, D-Santa Cruz, moved on to hear from other committee members.

Vice Chair Alexandra Macedo, R-Tulare, later criticized Pellerin, saying she was given less than five minutes to ask her questions — and had not gotten through all of them — before the committee voted along party lines to advance ACA 8.

Assemblymember Steve Bennett, D-Ventura, meanwhile, said Democrats prefer to play by long-established rules related to elections and the peaceful transfer of power. “But when autocrats change the rules and the norms that we are using to decide who has power, we can either fight back or we can potentially permanently lose the ability ever to fight back again in the future,” he said.

The Assembly committee on Tuesday also advanced SB 280, a bill calling for a statewide special election on Nov. 4 for Californians to vote to amend the state constitution to allow for the gerrymandered, temporary congressional maps.

The panel also held an informational hearing to discuss AB 604, specifying the boundaries of the maps.

The three Assembly hearings, combined, lasted several hours and stretched well into the late afternoon.

This week — the legislature’s first upon returning from summer recess — is expected to be a long one. Floor votes on the redistricting legislative package are scheduled to take place on Thursday, according to Democratic leadership’s schedule.

Earlier Tuesday, legislative Republicans asked the state’s Supreme Court to intervene and hit the brakes on the redistricting efforts in the statehouse. They alleged, in a court filing, that the legislation calling for a special election and establishing the new congressional maps needed to be published for 30 days before any action could be taken by the legislature.

Meanwhile, the Senate’s hearing on the same redistricting proposals only lasted a few hours.

Senate Republicans criticized the committee for not allowing non-committee members to sit and ask questions as well. Sen. Steven Choi, R-Irvine, was the only member of the minority party allowed to ask questions during the hearing since he is the committee’s vice chair.

“I’m extremely disappointed by the actions of my colleagues this morning. As the lone Republican on the committee, this should have been an opportunity to provide balance and accountability,” Choi said. “But instead of allowing open discussion, they chose to shut down dissenting voices, and by extension, the voices of Californians themselves. This is not how democracy is supposed to work.”

Jeanne Raya, a San Gabriel resident who served on the initial independent commission in 2010, touted their work then, saying it resulted in greater representation among women as well as AAPI, Black and Latino Californians.

Raya decried efforts in Texas to add five GOP-represented congressional seats at the behest of President Donald Trump, but she told senators she is also opposed to partisan redistricting efforts in California.

“I would celebrate replacing any congressional member who has forgotten his or her oath to serve their constituents and protect the Constitution,” said Raya, who noted she is a registered Democrat.

“But this can’t be at the expense of the California Constitution nor the California voters who mandated fair, nonpartisan redistricting. Does the threat by Texas Republicans call for a retaliatory strike? We witness daily the chaos and mistrust created by revenge politics in Washington,” Raya said. “That is not a model for the responsible government Californians deserve. That’s not a model for spending millions of dollars on a gamble that different congressional districts will produce the sought-after change.”

Sen. Monique Limon, D-Santa Barbara, said legislators have received “thousands” of messages of public feedback from the online portal that went up Friday, soliciting input on the proposed maps.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Chad Bianco said he submitted more than 12,000 petitions from Californians who oppose the redistricting proposal to both elections committees on Tuesday.

“Thousands of Californians have spoken, and their message is simple: Stop rigging, gerrymandering and disenfranchising,” Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff, said. “Voters deserve to choose their leaders — not the other way around.”

But those who support the redistricting proposal called it a much-needed effort to counter what’s taking place in other, Republican-led states, in particular, Texas. Legislators and experts who testified during the committees said they preferred independent commissions drawing congressional boundary lines but viewed this effort as necessary to protect democracy.

“These are extreme attacks on our core democratic principles, and these attacks must be met with decisive action,” Sara Sadhwani, who serves on California’s independent commission, told senators.

“It brings me no joy to see the maps that we passed fairly by the commission to be tossed aside for this new set of maps,” she said. “The commission is an excellent process … but I do believe this is a necessary step in a much bigger battle to shore up free and fair elections in our nation.”

When asked about the cost of a special election, Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, D-Riverside, who chairs the Senate’s election committee, said, “$200 million we believe is a drop in the bucket in comparison to the federal funding we’d get back that we are losing today,” a reference to the Trump administration’s spending policies.

By Joseph Ax, Brad Brooks and Steve Gorman

(Reuters) -Texas lawmakers on Wednesday passed a new congressional district map intended to flip five Democratic-held U.S. House seats to Republican control in next year’s midterm elections, a key step in an increasingly acrimonious partisan battle as California Democrats lined up their own redistricting effort.

Texas Republicans undertook the rare mid-decade redistricting at the behest of President Donald Trump, who says he wants to bolster the odds of preserving his party’s slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives amid political headwinds.

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Democrats have accused Trump and the Republicans of a bid to unfairly rig the outcome of the 2026 midterm races.

Texas Republicans were able to proceed after dozens of Democratic lawmakers on Monday ended a two-week walkout from the statehouse in Austin that had deprived the House of the quorum needed to hold a vote.

The bill to redraw the map passed by a 88-52 vote along party lines. Once the Texas House and Senate have agreed on a version it will go to Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, who has said he will sign it.

House debate in Texas came on the eve of floor action expected in California’s state Senate for a redistricting package championed by Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom to redraw his state’s congressional map to flip five Republican seats into the Democratic column.

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Newsom and his Democratic allies in the state legislature are aiming to achieve fast-track passage of their newly drawn map by Friday, in time to place it on the ballot for voters in a special election aimed for November 4.

Democratic-controlled California is the nation’s most populous state while Republican-led Texas ranks No. 2. Their clash over political boundaries may be just the beginning.

Other Republican states — including Ohio, Florida, Indiana and Missouri — are moving forward with or considering their own redistricting efforts, as are Democratic states such as Maryland and Illinois.

The Texas map would shift conservative voters into districts currently held by Democrats and combine some districts that Democrats hold.

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PARTY POWER VS DISCRIMINATION

Republicans, including Trump, have openly acknowledged that the new map is aimed at increasing their political power. The party currently controls 25 of the state’s 38 districts under a Republican-drawn map that was passed four years ago.

Democrats and civil rights groups have said the new map further dilutes the voting power of racial minorities in violation of federal law and have vowed to sue.

Redistricting typically occurs every 10 years after the U.S. Census to account for population changes. Mid-decade redistricting has historically been unusual. In many states, both Democratic and Republican lawmakers manipulate the lines to favor their party over the opposition, a practice known as gerrymandering.

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Redrawing lines strictly for the purpose of favoring one party over the other has been generally accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court, while redrawing political lines on the basis of racial or ethnic discrimination is a violation of the federal Voting Rights Act.

Texas Democrats on Wednesday raised multiple objections to the redistricting measure before the final vote.

Democratic Representative John Bucy said from the House floor that the new maps were clearly intended to dilute the voting power of Black, Latino and Asian voters, and that his Republican colleagues’ bending to the will of Trump was deeply worrying.

“This is not democracy, this is authoritarianism in real time,” Bucy said. “This is Donald Trump’s map. It clearly and deliberately manufactures five more Republican seats in Congress because Trump himself knows the voters are rejecting his agenda.”

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Republicans argued the map was created to improve political performance and would increase majority Hispanic districts.

Bucy was among the Democrats who fled the state to deny the Texas House a quorum.

In ending their walkout and voluntarily returning on Monday, Democrats said they had accomplished their goals of blocking a vote during a first special legislative session and persuading Democrats in other states to take retaliatory steps.

Nationally, Republicans captured control of the 435-seat U.S. House in 2024 by only three seats. The party of the president historically loses House seats in the first midterm election, and Trump’s approval ratings have sagged since he took office in January.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax, Brad Brooks and Steve Gorman; Editing by Donna Bryson, Daniel Wallis and Leslie Adler)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A California legislative hearing turned into a shouting match Tuesday as a Republican lawmaker clashed with Democrats over a partisan plan to rewrite U.S. House maps to win Democrats more seats.

A committee voted along party lines to advance a new congressional map in response to a Republican redistricting effort in Texas that President Donald Trump wants. California Democrats do not need any Republican votes to move ahead.

Assemblymember David Tangipa, one of two Republicans on the committee that was considering the proposal Tuesday, spent 30 minutes asking questions of his colleagues before being told to make time for other members, prompting some boos from audience members. When the committee began voting, he shouted for more time.

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At times during the hearing, lawmakers interrupted one another until the chair, a Democrat, called for order.

“This is not the way we conduct our hearing,” Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, who chairs the committee, said as she called for order several times after hours of discussion.

Tangipa argued that California should spend its resources on other issues such as health care. Lawmakers are expected to schedule a Nov. 4 special election to put the new maps before voters, and they haven’t revealed a cost estimate for the unexpected election. California Republicans estimated a special election could cost more than $230 million.

“I’m asking how much this costs because the state is in a massive deficit and it’s so personal to me,” Tangipa said after the vote. He said his stepsister died a few weeks ago after a Medicaid provider refused to sign off on services she needed.

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California begins voting on proposed congressional map

Tuesday’s hearings were the first chance for California residents to tell lawmakers how they feel about the new congressional boundaries. A hearing in the Senate was far calmer, and the proposal passed easily.

California Democrats said they are pushing back against Trump and his desire to reshape U.S. House maps to his advantage in an expanding fight over control of Congress ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The California Legislature is expected to approve a proposed congressional map and declare a Nov. 4 special election by Thursday to get required voter approval.

In Texas, state Rep. Nicole Collier stayed at the Capitol overnight and into Tuesday to protest a Republican requirement that she and some of her Democratic colleagues have around-the-clock law enforcement surveillance after they ended a two-week walkout that delayed a vote on the Trump-backed map.

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On Tuesday, eight other Texas Democrats said they’ll join Collier in spending the night on the House floor.

State Department of Public Safety officers are shadowing the lawmakers to ensure they return to the Capitol and do not leave Texas again. To leave the House floor Monday, the Democrats had to sign what they called “permission slips” agreeing to the surveillance.

Texas’ Republican-controlled House scheduled a vote for Wednesday on the new map.

California Republicans mount an opposition campaign

Dozens of residents from up and down the state, leaders of local Republican groups and the conservative California Family Council showed up to a hearing Tuesday to voice opposition to Democrats’ plan.

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Some said the process has been shrouded in secrecy because the map was drawn without meaningful public input. Others said they would rather lawmakers focus on addressing issues instead of trying to bypass a bipartisan redistricting process.

“There’s different needs and different requirements for everybody,” Jim Shoemaker, a Republican running for Congress in a district south of Sacramento, said in an interview. “But if you have somebody that just has a little portion of an area, they’re not going to represent the people the way they should because they’re looking at the wrong thing.”

Labor union members and several key Democratic political allies said the partisan plan is needed to protect democracy and to fight back the president’s aggressive agenda.

Public remarks may have little sway, though, as Democratic leaders are determined to rapidly advance the proposal.

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Some Republican lawmakers filed an emergency petition with the state Supreme Court arguing Democrats are violating the state constitution. They assert that lawmakers can’t vote this week because the constitution requires new legislation to have a 30-day wait for public review.

Democrats hold 43 out of California’s 52 U.S. House seats and want to win five more. The proposal would try to expand that advantage by targeting battleground districts in Northern California, San Diego and Orange counties, and the Central Valley. Some Democratic incumbents also get more left-leaning voters in their districts.

Texas Democrats have police escorts

In Texas, Republican legislative leaders assigned state troopers to watch their Democratic colleagues and ensure they don’t flee the state again, as they did recently to block a vote on new maps. Suburban Dallas Rep. Mihaela Plesa said one followed her on her Monday evening drive back to her apartment in Austin after spending much of the day on a couch in her office. She said he went with her for a staff lunch and even down the hallway with her for restroom breaks.

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“This is a waste of taxpayer dollars and really performative theater,” Plesa said in a telephone interview.

A message seeking comment was sent Tuesday to the Department of Public Safety.

A national brawl unfolding

Redistricting typically occurs once at the beginning of each decade after the census. But Trump is looking to use mid-decade redistricting to shore up Republicans’ narrow House majority and avoid a repeat of the midterms during his first presidency. After gaining House control in 2018, Democrats used their majority to stymie his agenda and twice impeach him.

Nationally, the partisan makeup of existing district lines puts Democrats within three seats of a majority. Of the 435 total House seats, several dozen districts are competitive, so even slight changes in a few states could affect which party wins control.

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Vertuno reported from Austin, Texas. Associated Press writer Sophie Austin in Sacramento and John Hanna from Topeka, Kansas contributed to this report.

Trân Nguyễn And Jim Vertuno, The Associated Press