News

(AUSTIN, Texas) — A showdown is unfolding in Texas as Gov. Greg Abbott threatens to remove Democrats who have fled the state in protest of Republican-led effort to create a new congressional map.

Abbott said Texas House Democrats have until 3 p.m. local time on Monday to return to the statehouse for the special session or risk losing their jobs. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton suggested Democrats who left should be arrested and forcibly brought back.

The response from the Texas House Democratic Caucus to Abbott’s threat was, “Come and take it.”

Democratic members who left the state are slated to hold various events throughout the day Monday in New York, Massachusetts and Illinois.

The proposed congressional map, backed by President Donald Trump, could create up to five new Republican seats and help Republicans keep control of the House in the 2026 midterm elections. Consideration of the bill had been set for Monday, but cannot proceed if Democrats deny a quorum.

The first press conference with Texas Democrats on Monday was with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul in Albany.

“We won’t sit on the sidelines while Republicans try to rig the system to give Donald Trump more unchecked power,” Hochul said in a statement. “Texas Democrats are standing up for the future of our democracy, and I’m proud to stand with them in the fight against disenfranchisement.”

Texas House Democrats who have gone to Massachusetts for the National Conference of State Legislators summit will be joined by Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker for a press conference in Boston on Monday at 1 p.m. ET. Then, Texas House Democrats who have gathered in Illinois will hold a press conference with Democratic members of Congress in Chicago.

Pritzker on Sunday accused Trump of “rigging” the new Texas maps out of desperation and worry that due to his policies, he was in danger of losing House Republican majorities in Washington. The Illinois governor also warned the newly-proposed maps set a dangerous precedent across the country.

“This is not just rigging the system in Texas,” Pritzker said. “It’s about rigging the system against the rights of all Americans for years to come.”

Abbott, in his warning to Texas House Democrats, said leaving the state in protest amounted to “abandonment or forfeiture of an elected state office.”

“Real Texans do not run from a fight,” Abbott said in the statement. “But that’s exactly what most of the Texas House Democrats just did. Rather than doing their job and voting on urgent legislation affecting the lives of all Texans, they have fled Texas to deprive the House of the quorum necessary to meet and conduct business.”

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(AUSTIN, Texas) — Democratic statehouse legislators are planning to leave Texas on Sunday in order to break the quorum of a special legislative session in which Republican state legislators are aiming to pass a new congressional map that could create up to five new GOP seats.

The move comes after a marathon public hearing on the plan in the state Capitol on Friday and less than a week after state Republican legislators proposed the new maps. Republicans hold a majority in the Texas state legislature; Democrats had said they would consider all options to stop the maps from being passed, although their options for striking back have been limited.

“We’re not walking out on our responsibilities; we’re walking out on a rigged system that refuses to listen to the people we represent. As of today, this corrupt special session is over,” state Rep. Gene Wu, who chairs the House Democratic Caucus, said in a statement.

After news broke of Democratic legislators breaking quorum, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wrote in a post on X that Democrats who left should be arrested and brought back to the state capitol.

“Democrats in the Texas House who try and run away like cowards should be found, arrested, and brought back to the Capitol immediately,” he wrote. “We should use every tool at our disposal to hunt down those who think they are above the law.”

Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott issued a blistering statement Sunday evening, accusing the House Democrats who fled the state and prevented quorum of doing so for illegitimate reasons. He said their premeditated decision could result in forfeiture of elected state office and demanded they must return when the statehouse reconvenes for special session at 3:00 p.m. CT on Monday or risk losing their jobs.

“This truancy ends now. The derelict Democrat House members must return to Texas and be in attendance when the House reconvenes at 3:00 PM on Monday, August 4, 2025. For any member who fails to do so, I will invoke Texas Attorney General Opinion No. KP-0382 to remove the missing Democrats from membership in the Texas House,” part of Abbott’s statement read.

The Texas House Democratic Caucus issued a four-word response to Abbott’s letter, “Come and take it.”

The walkout itself cannot stop the passage of the bill, but Democrats aim to run out the clock on the 30-day special legislative session, which would mean Abbott would have to call another one. Texas House Democrats previously broke quorum in 2021 to try to stop an elections bill and in 2003 to try to stop a similar redistricting effort by Republicans. Republicans eventually managed to pass the bills both times.

President Donald Trump has previously said he wanted Texas legislators to draw five new Republican districts.

More than 51 legislators are leaving the state, denying the state House the two-thirds majority out of 150 legislators it needs to have a quorum. An exact number of how many of the 62 Democratic legislators from the state House were leaving was not immediately available.

Democrats who break quorum risk accruing a $500-a-day fine, according to the state House rules, and potential legal action.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, speaking with “War Room” host and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, said on Thursday, “The House rules and the Senate rules both allow for these people to be arrested if they leave … The challenge is, if they go out of state, we lose jurisdiction, and that — it’s been a challenge in the past, but in the end, as long as the governor is willing to keep calling sessions, ultimately they have to come home.”

Paxton also said he was not worried about defending the maps in court: “We’ve got, we’ve got good maps. And the legislature has the right to draw the maps they want. They’re politically based, not race-based. And if they’re politically based, then they’re defensible.”

Some of the Democratic legislators fleeing the state will appear on Sunday evening with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker at a press conference. Pritzker has been a staunch supporter of Texas Democrats and has floated the possibility of getting Illinois’ own congressional maps redrawn if Texas redraws its maps. Illinois’ maps have been criticized by outside observers as highly partisan in favor of Democrats.

In late June, the chair of the Texas Democrats, Kendall Scudder, flew from Dallas to Oklahoma to see Pritzker, who was giving remarks at the state Democratic Party’s dinner. The pair had a private meeting during that time to talk about the possibility of lawmakers fleeing the state to Illinois — and if they were to flee the state, that they would have a place they would feel safe and supported.

Since then, Pritzker and Texas Democrats have been in touch, and a small group of them traveled to Chicago in July when members of the delegation left for Illinois and California for brief meetings.

Pritzker and his team have been helping behind the scenes to help find hotels in the area for the Democrats, help their operation, and grease the wheels so things go smoothly for them as they head to Illinois.

The bill containing the maps had been scheduled to be taken up on the state House floor on Monday.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Derek Dooley, a former University of Tennessee football coach, is launching a bid Monday for the Senate in Georgia, entering a shifting political landscape as candidates vie for coveted endorsements and the chance to unseat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff.

Dooley is leaning on his football background in his campaign launch, highlighting the fact that he is a political outsider and likening his views on sports to the world of politics.

“The foundation of football is the American Spirit. You work hard, you play by the rules, you keep fighting when adversity hits — you have a fair shot at achieving your dreams,” Dooley’s campaign says in his release.

“As a coach, I wanted that for all my players. As your next U.S. Senator, I want that for all Georgians — and all Americans.”

His campaign is betting on his newcomer status to appeal to voters, launching a “Georgia First” campaign aiming to make the case to voters that politicians put themselves first rather than their constituents.

Dooley is the son of legendary University of Georgia football coach Vince Dooley and has close personal ties to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. Kemp spent time with Dooley’s family growing up and roomed with Derek Dooley’s brother in college.

Vince Dooley, who passed away in 2022, endorsed Trump for president in 2016, appearing with him on stage at a rally in Atlanta.

“You’re the one who’s going to make America great again,” Dooley said, according to the University of Georgia’s student newspaper, the Red & Black.

Republicans are trying to avoid the outcome of their 2022 cycle in the state, when Herschel Walker, another football legend, lost to Sen. Raphael Warnock in a bruising campaign plagued with abortion allegations and questions on his readiness to serve in the Senate.

It led to the Peach State splitting the ticket between the Senate and gubernatorial races, where key candidate disparities appeared between Kemp and Walker. Republicans are now hoping to take back one of the two Democratic-held seats.

However, rather than a clear nominee, the field in the Georgia Republican primary continues to grow after several Republicans launched or mulled bids following Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s announcement that he will not run for the seat.

Dooley will, thus far, face off against Republican Reps. Mike Collins and Buddy Carter. Both congressmen have used their strong support of President Donald Trump and his agenda to boost their campaigns, as looming large over the candidates are the sought-after endorsements from Trump and Kemp.

Unlike the other candidates’ launches, Dooley doesn’t center his messages around his support for Trump as heavily as the others did.

Carter proclaimed himself as a “MAGA warrior” and Collins touted his close work with the president on passing the Laken Riley Act. Dooley, on the other hand, offers more of a biographical summary in his announcement, briefly praising Trump for producing results and saying at the end of his video that he’ll work with the president.

The battle for the primary comes as Kemp, who was seen as one of the strongest Republican candidates for the midterm cycle, officially decided not to run for the Senate in May, saying it wasn’t the “right decision” for him.

Since then, he has sought to work with the Trump administration to coalesce the field around a candidate in hopes of avoiding yet another midterm loss.

Trump met with Kemp earlier this summer to discuss the state’s Senate primary. The White House and Kemp have aimed to avoid a messy primary and have engaged with each other on the best approaches.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.