August 5, 2025: Abbott asks Texas Supreme Court to remove key Democrat from office in showdown over redistricting

Our live coverage of the redistricting battle has concluded for the day. Please scroll through the posts below to learn about today’s developments.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott speaks to members of the news media at the White House in Washington, DC, on February 5.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is seeking consequences for the Democratic lawmakers who fled the state to forestall a vote on new congressional maps.

The Texas House failed to reach a quorum for the second day in a row because dozens of Democrats have fled, preventing the legislature from having the two-thirds quorum necessary under its rules to take action.

Abbott and other Republicans are seeking to redraw the map to make five US House seats more favorable for the GOP in next year’s midterm elections.

Here’s what you should know:

Abbott seeks consequences:

White House involvement:

Reactions:

CNN’s Annie Grayer, Tori B. Powell, Molly English, Steve Contorno, Aditi Sangal, Eric Bradner and Adam Cancryn contributed reporting.

Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick arrives for an event at the White House on May 1, in Washington, DC.

Texas Lieutenant Gov. Dan Patrick predicted the state Senate will pass the redistricting map next week.

As lieutenant governor, Patrick oversees the Texas Senate.

On the same show, Attorney General Ken Paxton said the state has limited options to deal with the Democrats who fled the state.

Officials can either wait for those who fled to return “because eventually they have to come home,” or they can file motions like Gov. Greg Abbott did this evening to try to vacate their seats.

“This is a new thing, it’s never been tried before, but we think it has a very good possibility of being successful,” Paxton said of the petition to the Texas Supreme Court.

This post has been updated with comments from Paxton.

Ross Miller, Texas attorney and president of the Democratic Lawyers Association of Texas, said there’s no legal precedent he can find to justify removing Democratic members from their seats for fleeing the state to avoid Republicans gerrymandering effort.

But Miller conceded the longer Democrats are outside of the state, there is potential political liability.

“The narrative at some point can turn against them. And I think at some point, they are going to have to return,” said Miller.

But for now, the Democrats are speaking to the desire of their voters that want to see them put up a fight, he said.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has asked the state Supreme Court to hold on ruling on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s petition against absent state Democratic Rep. Gene Wu until Friday, which is the deadline that state House Speaker Dustin Burrows set for Democrats to return to the chamber and establish quorum.

Paxton’s statement argued that only his office or the offices of a district or county attorney could bring the type of case that Abbott filed before the Texas Supreme Court.

His statement came shortly after Abbott announced his filing with the Texas Supreme Court — which in turn came a few hours after Paxton’s office had suggested it would seek the removal of renegade Democrats if they did not return to Texas by Friday.

Texas Rep. Gene Wu speaks during a news conference in Aurora, Illinois, on Tuesday.

Texas Rep. Gene Wu accused Gov. Greg Abbott of using “the law as a weapon to silence his people,” and defended his decision to flee the state to forestall a vote on new congressional maps.

Abbott this evening asked the Texas Supreme Court to remove Wu from office. He said that by fleeing the state, the lawmaker and his fellow Democrats had abandoned their duty to Texas.

But Wu said his actions were “a fulfillment of my oath.”

“Let me be unequivocal about my actions and my duty. When a governor conspires with a disgraced president to ram through a racist gerrymandered map, my constitutional duty is to not be a willing participant,” Wu said. “When that governor holds disaster relief for 137 dead Texans and their families hostage, my moral duty is to sound the alarm — by any means necessary.”

Democratic National Convention chair Ken Martin also defended Wu, saying in a statement that he and his fellow Democrats “are performing their duties as elected officials by standing up for the rights of Texans to have free and fair elections.”

Martin called Abbott’s plea for Wu’s removal “morally repugnant” and “a weak attempt at Trump-style intimidation.”

Post is updated with Ken Martin’s statement.

Rep. Kevin Kiley arrives for the House Republican Conference caucus meeting in the Capitol on February 5, in Washington, DC.

GOP Rep. Kevin Kiley of California is not afraid to take on his own party when it comes to the redistricting battle that started in Texas, undertaken at President Donald Trump’s behest, but that is now having major implications across the country.

The California Republican, whose seat could be endangered by Democratic efforts to redraw the maps in his state, told CNN that he recently spoke with House Speaker Mike Johnson to make his pitch for why he believes “the onus really lies on the speaker of the House” to put a stop to the redistricting fights breaking out across the country.

Kiley also introduced legislation today that would prohibit mid-cycle redistricting nationwide, including the Republican-led effort in Texas. He told CNN he has spoken with members of the Trump administration about his newly introduced legislation.

Although Kiley said he understood why Trump felt like Republicans deserved more seats in Congress due to what he sees as issues with the 2020 census, he claimed that Trump may not have understood the domino effect the Texas fight would have.

But beyond Republican leadership, Kiley said Democrats led by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries have a role to play as well, arguing that most lawmakers in both parties do not support this redistricting effort.

Halfway between the 2020 and 2030 census is not the normal time to be talking about redistricting, or gerrymandering, but the issue has nonetheless taken over the political conversation.

Here’s what to know:

What is redistricting? According to the Constitution, a national census every 10 years establishes the number of residents in each state. US House districts are then apportioned to the states based on each state’s population. As states grow, they can gain seats. But if their population shrinks compared with those of other states, they can lose seats. But the Constitution leaves it to states to determine who, exactly, those members of Congress will represent. In states with more than one US representative, the process of drawing congressional maps is known as redistricting.

What is gerrymandering? It’s the drawing of political maps for partisan gain. Republicans and Democrats both do it, but Republicans have more openly embraced the process. In practice, it’s the equivalent of politicians picking their voters instead of the other way around, which is an inversion of the democratic process. North Carolina, for instance, leans ever-so-slightly toward Republicans in presidential elections, but thanks to gerrymandering, 10 of its 14 congressional seats are held by Republicans. Democrats have done the same in multiple states they control.

Is it legal? Sure is, at least under federal law. The conservative majority on the Supreme Court so took away federal courts’ power to review politically gerrymandered districts in a 2019 case. “Federal judges have no license to reallocate political power between the two major political parties,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote at the time, drawing the criticism of liberals on the court.

Read our full breakdown on gerrymandering.

Texas Representative Gene Wu, center, speaks in front of Democratic members of Congress and Texas House Democrats during a news conference on Tuesday in Warrenville, Illinois.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott asked the state Supreme Court today to remove Democratic Rep. Gene Wu from office — one of more than 50 quorum-breaking Democratic House members who fled the state to forestall a vote on new congressional maps.

Abbott and other Republicans are seeking to redraw the state’s congressional lines to make five US House seats more favorable for the GOP in next year’s midterm elections. Democrats, who are out of power in Texas, are preventing the state House from having the two-thirds quorum necessary under its rules to take action.

They left the state Sunday, fleeing to Illinois, New York and Massachusetts ahead of House Speaker Dustin Burrows’ move Monday to issue civil arrest warrants to have state troopers compel them to return to the House. Those warrants, experts said, are unenforceable outside Texas.

Abbott had warned over the weekend that he would seek to remove Democratic lawmakers who did not return to the House by Monday.

“Representative Wu and the other Texas House Democrats have shown a willful refusal to return, and their absence for an indefinite period of time deprives the House of the quorum needed to meet and conduct business on behalf of Texans,” Abbott said.

His lawsuit asked the Republican-dominated state Supreme Court to rule by 5 p.m. Central time Thursday. The state House is scheduled to return to session Friday afternoon, though Democrats have offered no indication they intend to return.

“When asked by CNN on Monday if Abbott had the power to remove legislators from office, Wu responded: Absolutely not. And that’s very clear.”

CNN has reached out to Wu for comment tonight on Abbott’s lawsuit.

This post was updated with Wu’s response Monday to a question from CNN about the governor’s power.

Indiana Gov. Mike Braun’s spokesperson said Vice President JD Vance will visit Indianapolis on Thursday to meet with Braun and the Republican leaders of the House and Senate at the Statehouse, amid the White House’s push for deep-red states to redraw their congressional district lines ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

Spokesperson Molly Craft said that “no specific topic of discussion was confirmed,” but Braun this afternoon told local reporters that conversations about redistricting mid-decade would be “exploratory.”

Vance’s communications director William Martin confirmed the meeting to CNN in a statement tonight, saying that the the vice president will “discuss a variety of issues” with state officials.

Indiana’s legislature is part time and isn’t scheduled to return until January. Braun could call the supermajority Republican legislature into a special session.

This post has been updated with a statement from Vance’s office.

Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey speaks during a press conference on Tuesday, in Boston.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey slammed redistricting efforts in Texas during a news conference after meeting with several Texas state legislators in Boston today.

The meeting comes after the Texas House of Representatives failed to reach quorum for the second day in a row due to absences among Democratic lawmakers protesting the GOP redistricting plans.

Surrounded by a mix of Texas state senators and representatives and joined by Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, Healey emphasized her support for the lawmakers’ efforts and answered questions about Massachusetts’ own maps, which were last redrawn in 2021.

When asked if the Commonwealth would participate in its own redistricting to retaliate, Healy demurred, saying the current maps in the state were fair, but that efforts like that of the Texas GOP had left blue states “no choice.”

“Isn’t it a sad state of affairs that that’s where we’re at, OK? And you know, Donald Trump, Greg Abbott, Ken Paxton, have left us no choice. That’s the reality. Nobody came looking for this, right? We had a system of free and fair elections. We have maps that are regularly drawn, voted on by legislatures, approved and signed off on by governors. This is the way the system works, until this, until this comes in, and so, you know, they’ve left us no choice. It’s not where anyone wants to be.”

Healey later pointedly added, “The Massachusetts maps, in my view, are fair. They were drawn after a robust process and signed into law by Republican Governor Charlie Baker.”

President Donald Trump takes questions from reporters after signing an executive order Tuesday, in Washington, DC.

President Donald Trump said today that the FBI “may have to” help find and arrest the Texas Democratic lawmakers who fled the state amid a battle over redistricting.

Trump accused the dozens of Democratic lawmakers of having “abandoned” Texas by leaving the state to deny the legislature the quorum needed to vote on a redistricting plan designed to create five more GOP House seats ahead of next year’s midterm elections. The Texas legislature adjourned today after failing to reach quorum for the second day in a row.

“I think they’ve abandoned the state,” Trump said. “You can’t just sit it out. You have to go back, you have to fight it out. That’s what elections are all about.”

If Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Gov. Greg Abbott were to attempt to follow through on threats to remove the absent House Democrats from office, it would raise a series of significant legal questions.

Chad Dunn, a longtime Texas voting rights lawyer and legal director of UCLA’s Voting Rights Project, said there is “no basis” for Paxton’s statement today. He said Paxton would have to prove in court that absent House members did not comply with a duty and demonstrated that they intended to vacate their office.

Quinn Yeargain, a state constitutional law expert at Michigan State University College of Law, argued that GOP threats might have more bark than bite.

“I am really not sure that a state court in Texas would have jurisdiction to arrive at the legal conclusion that a legislator has abandoned their office and that that court would have jurisdiction to issue as a remedy some order vacating the office,” Yeargain said. “That does not seem clear to me.”

But even if a court concluded that it does have the authority to decide the case, the question of whether a state lawmaker’s decision to leave the state constitutes “abandonment” under the law, as Abbott claims, is another major consideration for judges.

“What abandonment would mean in this context is that they went on a cruise around the world and had no desire to return, and therefore missed votes,” Yeargain said. “It cannot possibly apply to a situation where they’re strategically using the power that they have to prevent the legislature from meeting and conducting business.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said bribery is going to be one of the legal grounds asserted to seek a court ruling that declares seats of absent state House Democratic vacant, after which he will call for elections to replace them.

This comes after he ordered the Texas Rangers yesterday to investigate the Democrats who fled Texas on potential violations of state law, including bribery.

While Abbott did not give a clear timeline, he emphasized the urgency.

Paperwork will be filed immediately, he said. “Secondly, there will be requests for immediate responses from these courts knowing that they are dealing with an immediate timeline.”

ep. Zoe Lofgren speaks during a hearing on July 16, in Washington, DC.

Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren has reviewed conceptual maps for redistricting in California that could flip five of Republicans’ nine seats in the state, she told CNN.

Lofgren — who chairs the California Democratic caucus — wants her state to move quickly to counter the Republican redistricting maneuvers in Texas.

Lofgren helped brief California state lawmakers on Sunday to discuss redistricting options in California.

“We got a very favorable response from both the Senate and the Assembly,” Lofgren shared. “I think we can’t just sit around. I mean, you know, if (President Donald) Trump calls off the war we can stop, but we can’t just wait.”

For a second day in a row the Texas House failed to reach a quorum as dozens of Democrats have left the state in protest over GOP plans to potentially eliminate five Democratic US House seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Speaker Dustin Burrows said lawmakers will try to establish a quorum again on Friday, while the House members will be called into the chamber for a pro forma session for tomorrow and Thursday.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said he would seek court rulings against the Democrats if they don’t return by Friday “ensuring that their seats are declared vacant.”

If you’re just joining us, here’s a recap of where things stand:

CNN’s Arit John, Manu Raju, Fredreka Schouten, David Wright, Shania Shelton and Maureen Chowdhury contributed to this post.

Surrounded by empty seats, Texas lawmakers say the pledge as the House is called to order after Democratic lawmakers in Texas left the state to deny Republicans the quorum needed to redraw the state's 38 congressional districts, at the Texas State Capitol in Austin, Texas, on August 4.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that he would seek court rulings against state House Democrats who fled the state and don’t return by Friday, “ensuring that their seats are declared vacant.”

Paxton called Texas Democrats’ absence “a dereliction of their duty as elected officials.”

“If you don’t show up to work, you get fired,” he said in the statement.

Earlier today, Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows said he will try to establish quorum on Friday.

Speaker Dustin Burrows adjourned the Texas House of Representatives after the chamber failed to reach quorum for a second straight day.

Burrows said he met with the leadership of the Texas Department of Public Safety “to get a full briefing on their efforts to locate and return members who are actively trying to thwart the legislature from performing its duties.”

Remember: The Texas House yesterday authorized the warrants for dozens of Democratic lawmakers who didn’t appear and denied the Texas House a quorum necessary to move forward with redistricting. The warrants empowered state troopers to arrest the absent Democrats and bring them to the Capitol. But the Democrats who left the state fled to Illinois, New York and Massachusetts, three Democratic-led states outside Texas law enforcement’s authority without local officials’ cooperation.

Burrows said the lawmakers will try to establish quorum again on Friday.

Meanwhile, the lawmakers present in the state will be called into the chamber for a pro forma session for tomorrow and Thursday.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas sent a letter to the FBI today urging the federal agency to assist state law enforcement officials “to locate or arrest potential lawbreakers who have fled the state.”

Democrats have defended their move as a last-resort effort to stop what they believe is an extreme partisan gerrymander. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has issued civil arrest warrants, but legal experts say enforcement is limited outside of the state.

“I am encouraged by the strong leadership from Governor Abbott on this matter. Governor Abbott and Texas state law enforcement officers are doing what they can within the confines of the law, but federal help may be necessary,” Cornyn wrote.

The FBI declined to comment.

This post has been updated with additional information.

CNN’s Holmes Lybrand contributed to this post.

The Texas House has reconvened in Austin, though the legislative body still lacks a required quorum with more than 50 Democrats absent.