Texas Democrats ready to stay in Illinois 'as long as it takes’ to fight GOP congressional maps
Texas state Rep. Aicha Davis said she packed a couple of bags for her one-way trip to Chicago.
“I'm ready to be here for however long this takes,” the Dallas-area Democrat told the Sun-Times on Monday. “As long as it takes.”
Davis is among the dozens of Democratic Texas state legislators taking refuge in Illinois to deny Lone Star Republicans the quorum needed to vote on new legislative maps that would favor more GOP members in the midterm election, potentially smoothing the way for President Donald Trump’s agenda to advance in Congress.
“I absolutely cannot allow for the people in my area and across Texas to lose their voice and their vote, and so I'm just willing to do whatever it takes,” Davis said. “I feel bad that we had to get to this point because of what's going on with the call for redistricting in Texas — and I really, really feel bad because we had those horrible July 4th floods when we lost over 100 Texans. Instead of focusing on that, here we are.”
But it’s what her party had to do to fight maps drawn outside the usual post-census period that would wipe out two majority-Black districts in Texas, according to Davis. You’re taking away half the vote for Black Texans, and that is unacceptable,” she said.
At a news conference at the IBEW Local 701 headquarters in Warrenville, Monday night, U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi called the situation a “man-made catastrophe for democracy" while standing alongside some of the 40 Texas Democrats taking refuge in Illinois.
But he also said it was a chance for Democrats to show constituents they are willing to stand up against Republican incursions into political norms after criticisms of responses by Democrats to recent power grabs from Trump and state Republicans.
“We have to recognize we’re at this crossroads,” Krishnamoorthi told the Sun-Times on Monday night. “Democrats can either play nice, or we can say if they go down that path, two can play at that game."
U.S. Rep. Al Green warned of further consequences if Trump and Texas Republicans weren’t stopped.
“It’s not just Texas, it’s the United States of America," Green said.
Texas House Rep. Ana-Maria Rodriguez Ramos said that although she wasn’t sure how the connection to Illinois was made, ideological alignment and strong support from Gov. JB Pritzker brought them here.
That support extended to action — Krishnamoorthi said if federal or Texas authorities were to attempt to come after them, Illinois officials were willing to step in. The Republican-dominated Texas House on Monday issued civil arrest warrants for absent Democrats, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered state troopers to help find and arrest them, but lawmakers physically outside Texas are beyond the jurisdiction of state authorities.
U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly said what Texas Republicans are attempting "affects the whole country," adding that if Texas Republicans are ultimately successful in redistricting, Democrats in states like Illinois would be willing to do the same to counteract it. It echoes what party members from other states, such as California, have said in recent days.
“Stay as long as you want," Kelly said. "We believe in what you’re doing. ... We are ready to fight fire with fire.”
Pritzker, who welcomed the Texas Democrats on Sunday night, is in Boston this week for the National Conference of State Legislatures. A campaign spokesperson said Pritzker “will continue to spotlight Trump’s Texas Takeover with legislators from across the country.”
Like other Democratic governors including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Pritzker has said he’s open to reworking Illinois’ legislative maps — which already heavily favor Democrats — to carve out more seats to retaliate against GOP-led states that do so.
Illinois Republican Party Chair Kathy Salvi called that hypocrisy, claiming Pritzker “gerrymandered Illinois’ maps to hell and back, creating one of the most partisan maps in history” with districts approved by Democratic supermajorities in Springfield in 2021.
“Instead of standing on his own political soapbox, Pritzker can lead the charge against gerrymandering by getting his own house in order and fixing Illinois’ rigged maps,” Salvi said in a statement.
Pritzker has countered that though Illinois Democrats approved maps in the year after U.S. Census results were released, Texas Republicans were “cheating mid-decade by rewriting the rules because their cult leader Donald Trump tells them to do it.”
Pritzker on Sunday commended the Texas Democrats for answering “one of the most challenging calls of public service that has ever been asked of you.”
“You've had to leave behind your families, your full-time jobs, your communities, and you did it to protect the voting rights of the people that you represent and voters all across this nation,” Pritzker said. “We are very pleased to welcome you and to stand in solidarity with you and send a clear message to all Americans: we will not let power go unchecked or let your voices and their voices go unheard.”
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin stopped short of calling for Illinois to “fight fire with fire” and map out districts that would expand Illinois Democrats’ 14-3 advantage in the state’s congressional delegation.
Trump was "prepared to take away districts that are now marginally minority districts and that's troubling to me,” Durbin said at an unrelated news conference Monday. “As far as Gov. Pritzker is concerned, I don't know what his intentions are, but like him, I want to go with all the options."
As for Davis and her fellow Texans, she says they’re not worried about $500-per-day civil fines she and her colleagues face, or Abbott’s issuance of arrest warrants for the fleeing Democrats.
“There's a lot of different things they're threatening us with, but the one thing they're not saying is that, yes, there are some issues with this map that we need to look at,” Davis said. “We had hearings around the state, and 99% of the folks who came and testified, hundreds of people, said that they didn't like what was going on with those maps.”
Contributing: Tina Sfondeles, AP