Power struggle in the USA
Texas is driving controversial new constituency cutting
Updated on August 21, 2025 – 01:51 a.m.Reading time: 3 min.
Newly tailored constituencies in Texas are intended to help Trump’s Republicans to secure their short majority in the US Congress elections in 2026. Your tactics – called “gerrymanening” – is highly controversial.
After a week -long power struggle, the Republicans in the Texan House of Representatives voted to re -cut several constituencies. The MPs passed the corresponding law in the evening (local time). No democrat voted for it.
Before the changes come into force, the Texas Senate and Governor Greg Abbott still have to agree. In view of the Republican majority in the Senate, however, this is a matter of form.
US President Donald Trump called on his party to bring the measure forward quickly. The new cutting of the constituency boundaries is essentially about the balance of power in the US Congress in Washington, which also consists of House of Representatives and the Senate.
Trump’s Republicans currently have a narrow majority in both chambers. Before the congress elections in November 2026, they want to change constituencies in their favor. The measure in Texas should secure up to five additional seats in the House of Representatives. The party also has an eye on constituencies in other states. The Democrats want to react with similar measures.
A bitter argument was preceded by the coordination in Texas. Numerous democratic MPs stayed away for more than two weeks in Austin; Some traveled in democratically governed states to block the quorum necessary for the coordination. The Republican leadership then threatened arrests, fines and further steps to the exclusion of the missing from the House of Representatives.
Finally, enough democrats returned. As the “New York Times” reported, among other things, some of them even had to accept a police accompaniment after their return to prevent another blockade. Some therefore stayed in the plenary hall in protest, while in the Capitol demonstrators protested against the Republican measure.
The Democrats tried to further delay the process with parliamentary angle trains and long speeches on the day of the vote. The Democratic MP Donna Howard accused the Republicans like many other critics of targeting minorities – they tend to choose rather democratically.
“This chamber wants to (…) Black and Latinos in Austin to take their voice in the congress,” said Howard. The measure was the “attempt by a handful of MPs to choose their voters themselves – for fear that voters will no longer choose them,” criticized the democrat.
