Reorganization of electoral districts: Democrats in Texas boycott vote on constituencies

A dispute between Republicans and Democrats in the parliament of the US state of Texas with potentially national importance is pussy. A meeting in the capital Austin began in the afternoon (local time) without most democratic MPs: They had left the state the day before to boycott a vote on the new delimitation of Texan constituencies for the elections to the US House of Representatives in Washington.

The Republicans under US President Donald Trump hope to expand their majority in the national parliamentary chamber in the congress elections in November 2026.

The Texas Democrats therefore “fled” into the democratically ruled states of Illinois and New York to prevent the necessary quorum for the vote. They also succeeded, as the Republican chairman of the Texas House of Representatives, Dustin Burrows, criticized at the opening of the meeting in Austin.

The boycott of the Democrats is not a new, but a rare form of protest in the parliaments of individual states. With particularly controversial topics, there have been similar actions in the past.

The targeted pulling of constituency boundaries against which the Democrats protest is called “gerrymanening” in the USA. Both parties use this tactic to systematically gain advantages in elections; Recently, however, Republican -run states played a central role. In the “gerrymandering”, constituencies are manipulated in such a way that the voices of the faster of the opposing party are either concentrated or shattered – with the aim of reducing their influence.