Lawmakers travel to Illinois, New York and elsewhere to stop vote on Republicans’ redistricting plan
US politics – live updates
Texas Democrats in the state legislature denied Republicans a legislative quorum on Monday by leaving the state, preventing, at least for now, plans proposed by the White House to aggressively redistrict Texas’s congressional lines in their favor.
When the legislature gaveled in at 3pm local time on Monday, Republicans fell short of a quorum by eight votes after Democrats fled to Illinois, a legislative conference in Boston, New York and elsewhere.
In an extraordinary escalation, the state’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, said he he had ordered the Texas department of public safety to “locate, arrest and return to the House chamber any member who has abandoned their duty to Texans”.
