Collin Anderson of the Washington Free Beacon reports a questionable decision by Democratic Texas legislators.
When Texas Democrats left the state on Sunday to deny their Republican counterparts the quorum needed to pass a new congressional map, they said they were fighting a “rigged-redistricting process.” They had an odd way of showing it.
Most of the state legislators boarded a 76-seat private jet flown out of a “state-of-the-art” private terminal at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, a Washington Free Beacon review of flight logs and photos found. That jet left Austin around 5 p.m. on Sunday and landed in Chicago some two hours later, a flight that likely cost tens of thousands of dollars. Upon arriving in the Windy City, the lawmakers held a press conference alongside Illinois governor and billionaire Hyatt hotel heir J.B. Pritzker (D.), who said Texas Republicans are “attempting to cheat” by redrawing their state’s congressional boundaries to carve out additional districts likely to elect Republicans.
Pritzker is quite familiar with the concept.
Illinois suffered the second-largest population decline in the country from 2010 to 2020, causing it to lose a congressional seat following the 2020 census. Pritzker, who took office the year prior, responded by spearheading an aggressive redistricting process that saw his partymates in the legislature pack five Republican-held districts into three. The move meant Illinois Democrats picked up a congressional seat even as their state lost representation. They now hold 82 percent of the state’s congressional seats; Kamala Harris carried just 54 percent of the vote in Illinois in 2024. The state’s House map is widely regarded as one of the most gerrymandered in the country.
Walkout participants said they plan to stay away from Austin for two weeks, when the special session is scheduled to end. In a statement released Sunday, Texas governor Greg Abbott (R.) threatened to “remove the missing Democrats from membership in the Texas House.”
