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Texas Democrats at a press conference in Illinois. Photo: Mark Black/FR171635 AP/AP/dpa
Keystone
A dispute between Republicans and Democrats in the parliament of the US state of Texas with potentially national significance is coming to a head. A session in the capital Austin began this afternoon (local time) without most of the Democratic representatives: They had left the state the previous day to boycott a vote on the new delimitation of Texas constituencies for the elections to the US House of Representatives in Washington.
The Republicans under US President Donald Trump are hoping to expand their majority in the national chamber of parliament in the congressional elections in November 2026.
The Texas Democrats therefore "fled" to the Democratic-ruled states of Illinois and New York to prevent the necessary quorum for the vote. They succeeded in doing so, as the Republican chairman of the Texas House of Representatives, Dustin Burrows, criticized at the opening of the session in Austin.
The Democrats' boycott is nothing new, but it is a rare form of protest in the parliaments of individual states. There have also been similar actions on particularly controversial issues in the past.
The targeted drawing of constituency boundaries, against which the Democrats are protesting, is known as "gerrymandering" in the USA. Both parties use this tactic to systematically gain an advantage in elections; most recently, however, Republican-led states in particular have played a central role. In gerrymandering, constituencies are manipulated in such a way that the votes of the opposing party's supporters are either concentrated or fragmented - with the aim of reducing their influence.
04.08.2025, 22:47
