Democrats push back ahead of session to redraw Texas map
The emergency session to gerrymander five Republican House seats for Trump begins this week. Plus: Trump wants the Senate to cancel recess to confirm nominees.

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In tonight’s edition, House Democrats sound the alarm on the looming emergency legislative session that Texas state lawmakers will begin on Monday. Among other things, the session aims to redraw the state’s congressional map in the middle of the decade, cementing GOP gains and testing the limits of federal voting rights protections.
But let’s start with the latest demand from Donald Trump to John Thune.
The president is publicly pressuring the Senate Majority Leader to cancel the August recess to confirm his nominees, just as senators find themselves on the cusp of a long-awaited break after a grueling spring and summer.
“Hopefully the very talented John Thune, fresh off our many victories over the past two weeks and, indeed, 6 months, will cancel August recess (and long weekends!), in order to get my incredible nominees confirmed. We need them badly!!!” Trump posted Saturday evening on Truth Social.
The demand comes as Republican senators have already been directed by the administration to spend August promoting the recently passed reconciliation bill back in their home states. Notably, Trump made no mention of using the time to advance government funding bills ahead of the September 30 deadline, indicating where his priorities lie.
There’s growing speculation that Republican leaders may threaten to cancel the first week of recess as leverage to strike a nominations deal with Democrats. But after months of partisan warfare over reconciliation, rescissions and executive overreach, it’s unclear whether Democrats will be willing to play along.
Now, back to the Texas emergency session.
Texas state lawmakers will gavel in a special legislative session Monday with redistricting at the top of the agenda in a move that has drawn fierce backlash from Democrats, civil rights advocates and members of the state’s congressional delegation who say the timing couldn’t be worse.
Nearly two weeks after deadly flash floods swept through Kerr County, killing at least 107 people and leaving three still missing, critics argue the state should be focused on disaster response and public safety, not redrawing political lines to protect Republican power.
Investigations are now underway into the failures that contributed to the disaster, including why local officials failed to activate the federal Integrated Public Alert & Warning System, instead relying on a limited opt-in alert app that may have left residents unaware of the danger. Yet, as families mourn and search teams continue combing through the rubble, Governor Greg Abbott has convened the legislature to push a mid-decade congressional map overhaul that many see as a national political play orchestrated by President Trump, who told Republicans in the Texas delegation last week that he wanted at least five additional seats.
The top two House Democrats told me that the Republican special session has only strengthened their resolve to pass national redistricting standards the next time they control the House.
“One of our top priorities will continue to be to end extreme partisan gerrymandering across the country,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told me, adding that the Texas special session is just the latest reminder of why national standards are needed. “And so as part of our reform agenda and effort to combat and clean up corruption in this town, House Democrats will strongly champion the effort to end extreme partisan gerrymandering in the United States of America.”
House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) said the redistricting push is part of a broader anti-democratic pattern by Republicans.
“Making sure that the people of this country have the power at the ballot box is going to remain a top priority,” she said. “And what we are seeing from this Republican Party and from Donald Trump is a complete reversal of that.”
She pointed to the GOP’s governing agenda—cuts to health care, food aid, and public programs—as deeply unpopular policies Republicans are now trying to protect by changing the rules.
“Democrats have a very different vision of who government should work for. And that should be the American people,” Clark added. “Republicans just have a very different vision. It’s win at all costs.”
Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), who chairs the House Democrats’ campaign arm, argued that instead of adjusting their policies, Republicans are trying to redraw maps that shield them from accountability. But she told me that regardless of what map Republicans draw, Democrats are preparing to compete aggressively.
“We’re going to fight in every single district,” DelBene said. “We’re going to recruit great candidates. People are going to stand up for their communities. We’re going to take back the majority.”
Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) is a plaintiff in the ongoing litigation against Texas’s congressional map, told me that the state’s sudden push to redraw districts mid-decade appears designed to trigger a broader legal battle that could further weaken what remains of the Voting Rights Act.
Crockett, who testified before a three-judge panel in El Paso just weeks before the special session was announced, pushed back on GOP claims that the redistricting effort is strictly partisan.
“There may be a partisan result,” she said, “but the intent is to make sure that people of color don’t have representation.”
She argued that racial discrimination, not reverse discrimination, as some Republicans have claimed, is still a defining feature of how political power is distributed in Texas.
“If minority voices had the representation that looked like the state,” Crockett said, “then [Republicans] wouldn’t have as many seats as they have as it is.”
Crockett also placed the redistricting push within the larger backlash to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, linking it to anti-immigration rhetoric and declining white population growth documented in the 2020 Census.
“This was the first Census in which white people did not grow at all,” she said. “We are getting more and more colorful. One of the reasons we’re seeing this anti-immigration move is to stop some of the coloring of this country.”
For Crockett, the pattern is clear: “You would not have these policies that are specifically going after people based on things such as their race if they actually had voices that were representing them. I mean, it’s just common sense.”
Abbott outlined a 17-item agenda for the special session earlier this month that blends genuine crisis response with hard-edged partisan objectives.
Flood early-warning and recovery funding sit alongside bids to scrap the state’s standardized tests, cut and cap property taxes, criminalize providing certain hemp products to minors while tightening potency rules, add new abortion restrictions, bar taxpayer-funded lobbying, shield unsubstantiated police personnel complaints, police “sex-segregated” spaces and let the attorney general prosecute state election crimes.
By packaging mid-decade redistricting with disaster relief items and base-pleasing planks, Abbott provides Republicans with policy cover, while Democrats argue that the real priority is entrenching a fragile House majority rather than addressing the systemic failures exposed by the Kerr County floods.
A senior Democratic aide said that House leadership is deeply engaged in the Texas redistricting fight due to the high stakes involved in terms of both representation and power.
“Those are our seats,” the aide said, pointing out that Texas is a majority-minority state and arguing that Republicans are following the same playbook they used in North Carolina, where a previously balanced 7–7 map was redrawn to give the GOP a 10–4 advantage.
“Texas is hoping to do this when no one is paying attention,” the aide added, describing the mid-decade maneuver as a brazen bid to cement GOP control under the radar.
The aide also acknowledged that part of the urgency is about protecting Democratic incumbents but said the leadership is equally concerned with calling out what they view as misplaced priorities and a dangerous leadership vacuum in the wake of the Central Texas floods.
There’s a risk that Texas Republicans could overplay their hand.
By trying to squeeze out a few more red seats through aggressive map reengineering, they may inadvertently create what’s known as a dummymander—a gerrymander that backfires.
The more GOP voters they move into Democratic-held districts to make them competitive, the more they risk thinning their own margins elsewhere. That strategy can yield a map full of narrow wins rather than a few solid ones. And in a midterm year with shifting political winds, those narrow wins can vanish fast.
Jeffries warned last week that Republicans may be walking straight into their own trap.
“The problem that Republicans confront is that the Texas congressional map is already gerrymandered, and so this gerrymander may actually turn into a dummymander,” he said. “They are going to create a situation where four, five, six, seven, eight Republicans who are currently in safe districts are going to be on the front line of our efforts to flip seats, particularly in a midterm election where Donald Trump is deeply unpopular, and his signature ‘One Big Ugly Bill’ is deeply unpopular.”
In Jeffries’s view, the more Republicans push the limits of partisan power, the more likely they are to trigger a voter backlash.
“The American people are not going to stand for it,” he said. “And things aren’t going to get better for them politically. They’re only going to get worse.”
While Republicans move swiftly to redraw the map in Texas, Democrats are quietly preparing their own counteroffensive.
Party strategists are privately eyeing new opportunities in blue states like California, New York, New Jersey, Washington and Minnesota in hopes of offsetting GOP gains with aggressive new maps of their own. But with most of these states operating under independent commissions or court-drawn maps, Democrats face steep legal and institutional hurdles. Plus, there’s no guarantee any of the maps will actually be redrawn before 2026.
Nonetheless, Jeffries is expected to meet with New York Governor Kathy Hochul in August and has already begun discussions with California Governor Gavin Newsom about potential redistricting moves.
But the strategy is far from risk-free.
Even if the courts allow new maps, Democrats could walk away with no net gains. But with the base demanding a show of force and the GOP playing hardball in red states, Democratic leaders acknowledge they have little choice but to explore every option in the face of what Jeffries called an existential threat to the health, safety and economic well-being of the American people.
“As Democrats, we just want fair maps across the country,” he told reporters late last week. “And to the extent that governors in different states throughout the nation conclude that a reevaluation as to whether their current maps are as fair as possible should take place, that certainly is a decision that makes sense to me in this environment.”
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On the floor this week
The House
The House is scheduled to consider five bills this week, including three disapproval resolutions targeting Biden-era land management plans in Montana, North Dakota and Alaska. Backed by Republicans, the resolutions aim to block Bureau of Land Management rules that prioritize conservation and restrict certain energy and development activities on federal lands. Also up for debate is a border security measure focused on expediting the removal of undocumented migrants and a permitting reform bill designed to streamline environmental reviews for major infrastructure projects.
On the suspension calendar is a slate of bills, including bipartisan efforts to improve veterans’ services, expand educational access for military families and address workforce shortages at the VA. Lawmakers are also advancing a Coast Guard reauthorization bill that strengthens maritime safety and national security operations. Several financial services measures aim to protect seniors from fraud, make it easier for small and mid-sized businesses to raise capital and expand investment opportunities for everyday Americans. Finally, a pair of national security bills focuses on deterring Chinese aggression toward Taiwan and limiting the influence of the Chinese Communist Party in U.S. financial markets.
The Senate
The Senate will take up its version of legislation to fund military construction, veterans’ health care and housing for servicemembers, the first 2026 appropriations bill the chamber will consider. The House passed its 2026 MilCon-VA bill in late June.
The Senate will also vote on several Trump nominees beginning Monday evening to advance Terrance Cole to be Administrator of Drug Enforcement.
Additional nominees include Joshua Divine to be United States District Judge for the Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri, Cristian Stevens to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Missouri, Aaron Lukas to be Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, Bradley Hansell to be Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, Arielle Roth to be Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and John Hurley to be Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Crimes.
Committee watch
Monday, July 21
House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services (5:30 p.m. ET) – Markup of the fiscal 2026 Financial Services and General Government bill.
Tuesday, July 22
House Appropriations Committee (10:30 a.m. ET) – Markup of the fiscal 2026 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies bill.
House Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions (10:15 a.m. ET) – Hearing on enhancing transparency and oversight at Employee Benefits Security Administration.
House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations (10:15 a.m. ET) – Hearing on patient safety and oversight of the U.S. organ transplant system.
House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health (2:00 p.m. ET) – Joint hearing on Medicare Advantage: lessons learned and future opportunities.
House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations (2:00 p.m. ET) – Oversight hearing on VA employee bonus fraud and abuse.
Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration (2:30 p.m. ET) – Hearing on undocumented immigrants in the U.S. and immigration enforcement.
Wednesday, July 23
House Appropriations Committee (10:00 a.m. ET) – Markup of the fiscal 2026 National Security, State, and Foreign Operations bill.
House Armed Services Committee (10:00 a.m. ET) – Hearing on defense acquisition reform and NDAA implementation.
House Veterans’ Affairs Committee (10:15 a.m. ET) – Markup of over two dozen bills covering VA health care, benefits, rural access, and modernization.
Senate HELP Subcommittee on Children and Families (2:00 p.m. ET) – Hearing on school choice and literacy, focused on empowering families.
Thursday, July 24
House Appropriations Committee (10:00 a.m. ET) – Markup of the fiscal 2026 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies bill.
Senate HELP Committee (10:00 a.m. ET) – Hearing on expanding employee ownership to empower workers.
Friday, July 25
House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Technology Modernization (10:00 a.m. CT, Urbana, Illinois) – Field hearing on delivering services to rural veterans.
House Ways and Means Committee (10:00 a.m. PT, Las Vegas, Nevada) – Field hearing on how the GOP’s megalaw is impacting American workers.
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