Gov. JB Pritzker on Tuesday opened the door further to a potential mid-decade congressional remap in Illinois, as Texas Democrats continued their Midwestern refuge and Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin vowed to fight GOP efforts “tooth and nail.”
“This is not the Democratic Party of your grandfather, which would bring a pencil to the knife fight. This is a new Democratic Party,” Martin said at an Aurora news conference alongside Pritzker and Texas Democrats. “We’re bringing a knife to a knife fight, and we’re going to fight, fight and fight.”
Texas Democrats are in Illinois, New York and Massachusetts to deny Republicans a quorum needed to approve new maps that would expand the state’s GOP congressional majority ahead of next year’s midterm elections, at the behest of President Donald Trump.
Trump on Tuesday added fuel to the fire, throwing his support toward the Texas remap.
“I got the highest vote in the history of Texas, as you probably know,” Trump said in a CNBC interview. “And we are entitled to five more seats.”
Even as Martin countered the president’s comments, saying, “No party is entitled to any district,” Democrats in New York, California and Illinois are threatening to redraw their own maps in retaliation — and the DNC is prepared to support them.
Pritzker, who is widely seen as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, has walked a fine line in voicing support for an Illinois remap, where Republicans hold just three congressional seats in a state that saw 43.8% vote for Trump last year. The maps Illinois Democrats approved in 2021 sealed in their political power for a decade — adding one Hispanic majority-blue seat in Congress and forcing two Republicans out of their districts.
An Illinois remap would reignite a war with the state’s Republicans, who have railed on the state’s redistricting process for decades.
On Sunday, Pritzker vowed, “All bets are off. Everything’s got to be on the table.” By Tuesday, the governor said an Illinois remap was “possible.”
“Here in the state of Illinois, it is possible,” Pritzker said. “It’s not something that I want to do. It’s not something that any of us want to have to do. We’re hoping that this will be successful — the fact that there’s no quorum in Texas. … But once again, we’re fighting for democracy. There are no rules anymore apparently, and so we’re going to have to play by a set of rules that, well, that are being set up in front of us, which frankly none of us believes is the right way to operate.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, also a potential 2028 presidential contender, said he would call a special election in November for voters to weigh in on a congressional map drawn by the Democratic-led Legislature. But he has also said he won’t move ahead if Texas stops its efforts.
“California will not sit by idly and watch this democracy waste away,” Newsom said Monday.
Martin told reporters the DNC is prepared to follow the lead of governors who opt for a remap to counter GOP efforts.
“Every governor and other electors are going to have to make their own decisions about what they do. All of them feel, as I do, that this is a serious matter that requires us to put every option on the table,” Martin said. “It’s up to the governors, the Democratic legislators and the people of those states to make the decisions on how best to move forward on this. And of course, we support their efforts. … We’re going to follow their lead. If they choose to do something, of course we’re going to support their efforts.”
Texas Democrats are continuing their efforts to thwart a quorum even after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday threatened them with civil arrest, and ordered state troopers to help find and arrest them. They also face $500-a-day fines. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said Abbott has no legal jurisdiction to pursue arrests of Texas Democrats staying in Illinois.
“Texas law enforcement officers have no authority to hunt down and make arrests of Texas legislators in Illinois based on a civil arrest warrant issued by the Texas House,” Raoul said in a statement released Tuesday. “The Texas House may have managed to issue civil arrest warrants without having a quorum, but those civil warrants carry no weight in Illinois.”
State Rep. Ramon Romero Jr. said that Texas Democrats didn’t abandon their state, but are “standing tall.”
“There’s others that are saying and warning us that they’re going to make us pay fines. I’ll pay that price for America,” Romero Jr. said. “And I think everyone behind me will say that would be a very small price for what we would save for these Americans that have fought so hard and against the maps that aim directly at Black and Brown voices.”
Contributing: AP