Overview

• The special session remains deadlocked without the 100-member quorum required to approve a mid-decade congressional map
• Republicans’ draft plan would create five GOP-leaning U.S. House districts by redrawing urban and minority-majority areas
• Gov. Greg Abbott has directed the Texas Department of Public Safety to arrest absent Democrats and signaled his intent to fill their seats
• Texas Democrats describe their walkout as a necessary blockade of a partisan gerrymander that they say dilutes Latino and Black voting power
• Gov. Gavin Newsom has offered California as a safe haven and denounced the redistricting bid as an assault on minority representation