A Tussle in Texas

It’s an old trick: If you can’t win a vote, make sure it doesn’t happen.

That’s what Texas Democrats had in mind when they fled Austin on Sunday. If they’re elsewhere, their state’s Legislature won’t have enough members present to vote on a measure they revile: a new gerrymandered congressional map that would probably flip five blue districts to red. Those extra seats would give the G.O.P. a much more comfortable majority in Washington — and answer a fervent demand from President Trump.

So Democrats high-tailed it out of town. Some went to Chicago or Boston. Others to Albany, N.Y. They are giving press conferences to vent their outrage. Now, what started as a redistricting clash has turned into a nationwide game of hide-and-seek. Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, says he’ll oust Democratic lawmakers who don’t return for the vote.

Our reporters have been on the ground in Texas, Illinois and New York. Today, we’ll explain the situation.

The Texas plan

What does the state’s redistricting proposal look like? J. David Goodman, who reported from Austin, explains.

Republican lawmakers here hope to pick up five more seats in the U.S. House. (They currently hold 25 of the state’s 38 congressional seats.) So they want to either dramatically reshape, or completely relocate, five districts now held by Democrats. Three are in urban areas — in Houston and Dallas, and around Austin and San Antonio. The other two are along the Mexican border, where the majority Hispanic population has trended Republican in recent elections.

The map could also force veteran Democratic legislators to fight primary campaigns against young and promising members of the party. The new Austin seat, for instance, might pit Lloyd Doggett, a veteran congressman, against a rising progressive. Al Green, a vocal Trump opponent, has been drawn into a vacant district around Houston where several young candidates are already running.

This chart shows the effect by looking at the electorate in districts last year, in the presidential election between Trump and Kamala Harris, and in the hypothetical ones Texas may create:

The runaways

This is hardly the first time that lawmakers have fled a vote, explains Evan Gorelick, a writer for this newsletter. In 1787, the Pennsylvania sergeant-at-arms tracked down two Assembly members who tried stop the state from ratifying the Constitution. Some recent examples:

• Texas Democrats. They last bolted just four years ago — to block new voting restrictions that they said would disproportionately affect minority voters. That walkout lasted around five weeks.

• Oregon Republicans. They walked out several times to stall legislation limiting greenhouse-gas emissions. Then voters passed a ballot measure barring lawmakers from re-election if they accumulated 10 or more unexcused absences.

The Texan Democrats struck a defiant tone yesterday in response to Abbott’s threats. Several representatives fled to Albany, where they sat alongside New York’s governor in a press conference. “My grandmother says this: ‘If you allow yourself to be a rug, people will step on you,’” one lawmaker there, Jolanda Jones of Houston, told reporters. “We ain’t fleeing. We’re fighting.”

What’s next

Here’s J. David Goodman again to explain what might happen after Texas passes its plan.

Trump wants other red states to copy Texas before the 2026 elections. One person close to him recently told my colleague Shane Goldmacher that the strategy is “maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time.” So lawmakers in Missouri are looking at how to add another Republican district at the expense of a Democratic one. The G.O.P. is also looking at possible changes in Florida, Indiana, New Hampshire and Ohio.

Democrats are cooking up a response. For years, they argued that politics had no place in political mapmaking, and they backed independent, nonpartisan panels to decide the boundaries.

Now they may simply retaliate. In New York yesterday, the governor, Kathy Hochul, said that Texas had left Democrats no choice: “We must do the same.” She said they could amend the state’s Constitution to kill its independent redistricting commission.

California’s governor wants to redraw the state’s political map — and have voters approve it. In Illinois, where Democrats dominate state politics, the process would be simpler, but the boundaries are already quite gerrymandered. Still, the governor says, “all bets are off.”

In Texas, the runaway Democrats can stop Republicans from adopting the new maps for a time. But past walkouts failed after Democrats eventually went home. So the fight is likely to find a more conventional venue: the courthouse.

Jeffrey Epstein’s palatial townhouse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan was a place where he could flaunt, and deepen, his connections to the rich and powerful. The Times has reviewed photos and documents that offer a look inside the mansion. Among their revelations:

• Several prominent people wrote birthday messages for Epstein in 2016. They include Woody Allen, the linguist Noam Chomsky and the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak. A media mogul, in his message, suggested ingredients that “would enhance Jeffrey’s sexual performance.”

• There were also signed items: A chalkboard was preserved with a drawn map of Israel signed by Barak, and a framed dollar bill bore Bill Gates’s autograph and the words, “I was wrong!”

• A credenza was crowded with photos of Epstein alongside powerful people, including Pope John Paul II, Mick Jagger, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Fidel Castro and two presidents — Bill Clinton and Trump.

• Dozens of prosthetic eyeballs lined the entryway. A sculpture of a woman in a bridal gown, clutching a rope, hung in a central atrium. And in his office, Epstein kept a taxidermied tiger and a first edition of the 1955 novel “Lolita.”

See photos, and read more about Epstein’s Manhattan residence.

THE LATEST NEWS

Immigration

• Immigrants at the “Alligator Alcatraz” detention camp in Florida have bigger things to worry about than reptiles: The area is vulnerable to hurricanes and wildfires.

• The Trump administration is separating migrant children from their parents in what appears to be more targeted version of the mass family separation from Trump’s first term.

• The U.S. will make some foreign visitors pay cash deposits of up to $15,000 to help ensure they do not overstay their visas.

Trade

• Trump said he would apply additional tariffs to India because it continued to purchase oil from Russia. New Delhi called the move unreasonable.

• To get trading partners to make multibillion-dollar investments in the U.S., Trump is taking a page from a familiar playbook: “The Art of the Deal.”

More on the Trump Administration

• NASA’s acting administrator issued a directive to fast-track efforts to put a nuclear reactor on the moon.

• Harvard seemed ready pay $500 million to settle its battle with the government. The White House’s far cheaper, $50 million deal with Brown has complicated negotiations.

• Trump’s decision to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics has forced his allies into the awkward spot of criticizing an agency whose work they freely cited in the past, Luke Broadwater writes.

• The Trump administration said it would reinstall a Confederate statue in Washington that was toppled and set on fire during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.

More on Politics

• Elizabeth Warren went all out yesterday for Zohran Mamdani, who is running to be mayor of New York City. She scorned his opponents, defended his tax plans and joined him on the campaign trail.

• Representative Nancy Mace, a once moderate Republican who has become a Trump loyalist, will run for governor of South Carolina.

• Marjorie Taylor Greene asked the Justice Department’s pardon attorney to commute the more than seven-year sentence of George Santos, the disgraced former congressman.

International

• Seven months ago, a Jeju Air flight crashed in South Korea, killing 179 people. A Times investigation identified a series of missteps that made the crash much more deadly.

• Lawmakers in El Salvador recently granted the president, Nayib Bukele, power to run for re-election indefinitely. Some Salvadorans backed the move — his gang crackdown has made him very popular.

• After scoring a victory in Iran, Benjamin Netanyahu had the political capital to push for a truce in Gaza. But he squandered that opportunity, Patrick Kingsley writes.

• Brazil’s Supreme Court placed former President Jair Bolsonaro under house arrest as he awaited trial. He is accused of overseeing a plot to stay in power after losing the 2022 election.

Other Big Stories

• Tesla’s board gave Elon Musk $29 billion in company stock, saying it was intended to help retain him after a judge struck down his previous multibillion-dollar pay package.

• Shady companies are pumping out a flood of fake research papers. Scientists are alarmed.

• A minimum-wage proposal for hotel and airport workers in Los Angeles could strain employers already reeling from declining tourism.

• In Montana, a manhunt is still going for an Army veteran accused of killing four people in a bar on Friday. He appears to have disappeared into the wilderness.

OPINIONS

Why do young people smoke cigarettes, despite knowing the risks? Because smoking facilitates real-life interactions in an otherwise online world, Christine Emba argues.

Here are columns by Thomas Friedman on the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner and Thomas Edsall on Trump and the Supreme Court.

MORNING READS

Break free: You probably want to look at your phone less often. Here is practical advice from experts.

An Obama-era treat: A decade ago, fro-yo was everywhere. A young C.E.O. is trying to usher in another boom time.

Feed the lions: A Danish zoo is asking people to donate pets — like guinea pigs, rabbits and chickens — that are nearing life’s end to become dinner for predators.

Ask Well: “Why do I get so many headaches during the summer?”

Your pick: The most clicked article in The Morning yesterday tested readers’ fluency in the lingo of the tech industry by showing them billboards in San Francisco. Take the quiz here.

An educator: Razia Jan was a dynamic Afghan-born U.S. citizen and entrepreneur who, in the wake of Sept. 11, founded a school for girls outside Kabul that remains open despite the Taliban’s return to power. Jan died at 81.

SPORTS

Trending: The Yankees are 0-4 since last Thursday’s trade deadline: Closer Devin Williams blew the game against the Rangers in the ninth inning, and then Texas walked off in the 10th.

College basketball: After months of debate, the NCAA Tournament is staying at 68 teams for the 2026 season. The governing body said it would continue discussing expansion options for 2027.

Tennis: Novak Djokovic withdrew from the Cincinnati Open for the second consecutive year, meaning he will arrive at the U.S. Open having not played since Wimbledon.

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