Texas parsing can redo the Congress

Dozens of Texas Democrats secretly left the state in dramatic efforts to stop Republicans to vote that can determine the balance of power in the US Congress.

Republican Governor Greg Abbot issued orders to be arrested in the form – and fined $ 500 a day. He also threatened them to be expelled.

The Democrats have left, because at least two-thirds of the 150-member legislative body must be present to continue the vote on the Texas election map. The plan to create five other places in the House of Representatives.

This big struggle may seem both fancy and confusing – but it can extend to other states to national intermediate elections next year. At the heart of it, it is a naked struggle for political power that can possess it most effectively and who can keep it.

The US House consists of 435 legislators who are elected every two years. They represent the districts with the borders identified in the state -established processes.

Who holds the lines and how it can go a long way in shaping the ideological inclination of the area and the likelihood that he chose a Democrat or Republican.

At the moment, the house rests on the edge of the knife with 219 Republicans and 212 Democrats. This year there are four vacancies that can be filled with three Democrats and one Republicans in a special election.

Democrats do not need a great change in political winds to return control of the House of Representatives in the next year’s intermediate elections. And the party that manages the Congress lower house has powers that go far beyond the simple establishment of the legislative agenda over the next two years as it may be.

The House of Representatives’ leaders can launch extensive investigations of presidential actions, as Democrats did in the second half of the first term of Donald Trump, and Republicans have done Joe Biden in the last two years. They can also deepen policy issues and cause the government shutdown. They can even vote for the impeachment of the president, as the Democrats did in December 2019, and the Republicans discussed during Biden’s presidency.

Trump appears to be focused on taking action to improve the chances of avoiding such fate in the second term. It is reported to have focused on intermediate races and urges Texan legislators to attract new cards in Congress, which can increase the likelihood of Republican conquest from there.

District lines are usually redone every 10 years after the national census to reflect the shifts from the population inside and between the states. The latter regularly planned redistribution occurred in 2021.

In some states, this process is established by independent commissions, but other legislative bodies of the state are responsible for the ruler and the results can often be produced by the party, the authorities to give their side the obvious advantage.

For example, in the North Carolina, the Republican lines gave their party 10 of 14 seats in the national elections last year, although Trump only won the state for a slim stock.

Democrats in Illinois occupy 14 out of 17 places at home, and former Vice President Kamal Harris won the state out of 54%. If Trump has its way and cards lead to an increase in five seats next year, Republicans will control 30 of the state. Last year he won Texas with 56%.

In the Republican push in Texas there are leaders in controlled by democratic states calling for a response, which can go to the redistribution of “weapons racing” that extends across the country.

For example, California Governor Govin Newsma asked legislators in his state, where Democrats control 43 out of 52 places, find ways to increase his advantage. Katiel’s governors wanted in New Yar and JB Pritzker in Illinois.

“Everything is on the table,” Packer wrote in a social media report. “We have to do our best to get up and fight back – we do not sit and complain about the sidelines when we have the opportunity to stop them.”

Mass democrats, many of whom were disappointed with the inability of the party’s national political leaders to block the Trump administration’s policy, may welcome such a confrontational language. States such as California and New York have laws that provide Congress counties, which will be drawn up by a two -party commission to create compact constituencies that are compact and fair.

Such efforts have resulted in the result of pushing for the removal of political reasons from the process of reorientation, but now some Democrats view these steps as unilateral disarmament, which gave Republicans an advantage in the fight for most of the House of Representatives.

“I was tired of fighting this struggle related to my back,” Hochul told reporters in New York Capitol in Albani on Monday. “With all respect for good government groups, politics is a political process.”

She said that “game conditions” changed dramatically during Trump’s second term, and the Democrats should set up.

However, the Democrats may not have a final word. Republicans are already looking outside Texas to get extra places to pick up the places. The JD Vance Vice President is reportedly considering a trip to Indiana at the end of this week to push new district lines in the country. Recently, Florida Governor Ron Sandys said his state, where Republicans prevail, could take a similar process.

Despite its obvious political projects, all this is a fair game on the US Constitution – at least how the narrow majority of the US Supreme Court has interpreted it in the iconic case of 2019.

The guerrilla “Hermanding”, as it is sometimes called the process, has a long tradition in politics in the US – one that often creates a tive constituencies that are stretched on miles to include or exclude voters based on their political affiliation, all with the purpose of giving one party.

The Republican step in Texas is not even without a precedent. In 2003, Republican leaders exceeded their Congress cards to increase voters.

The state’s democrats even responded in a similar way – leaving the state to detain the legislative process. The rethinking eventually passed after the Democrats returned.

There is a risk in all this, even for a line involved. While the goal is to maximize the number of places where the victory is likely, in the election, when one side exceeds expectations even seemingly safe places, can turn the parties.

Texas and other states of redistribution can create an electoral card that does not undergo political origin, which will otherwise avoid losses in the ballot box.

In close elections, however, every place is considered. And if next year’s intermediate elections continue the recent tendency of narrowly accepted political battles, what is happening in the state legislative bodies over the next few months may have dramatic political consequences in Washington – and thus across America.

Follow Trump’s second term with the weekly North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher Policy in the US is not caused Bulletin. Readers in the UK can Sign up here. Those outside the UK may Sign up here.