Beto O'Rourke urges Democratic states to counter GOP redistricting efforts

Former U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke is calling on governors in Democratic states like California and New Jersey to redraw their congressional maps to offset the seats Texas Republicans hope to pick up as they undertake a rare mid-decade redistricting.

"We have to get off of defense and onto offense," the former candidate for governor and for the U.S. Senate told reporters after an outdoor rally on the Capitol grounds. "We have to quit waiting for them to hit first. We got to hit them first, and we got to hit them harder."

The rally called "Fight the Trump Takeover" came about an hour before the first legislative hearing on Republicans' plan to redraw Texas' congressional map. President Donald Trump and Republican legislators are looking to flip as many as five districts into the GOP column ahead of next year's midterm elections, when many political analysts foresee voters nationwide pushing back against the party's policies. The GOP already holds 25 of the state's 38 congressional districts that drawn up by state Republicans four years ago.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has said he's open to the idea as a counterweight to the redistricting effort in Texas called by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.

"If these guys are literally going to rig, de facto, the outcome of November next year, I can't just sit back passively," Newsom said in recently on his podcast. "When I look at the ground that these guys are leveling and the core tenets of our democracy, our republic being literally taken down in real time, I'd be in peril of being judged not to have lived if I don't at least explore an alternative to save our country."

O'Rourke who was among several prominent Texas political figures to fire up around 100 spectators who turned out in the 95-degree heat.

Other Democrats who spoke outside of the Capitol were focused on the daunting task of blunting the Republicans, who hold all of the levers of power in Texas.

"They're going to draw our districts into crazy shapes to guarantee the outcome they want," said state Rep. James Talarico of Austin, who is mulling a run for U.S. Senate next year. "And Texas is is the testing ground for this strategy. If they succeed here, they're going to do it in every red state across the country before the 2026 elections."

Democrats have sought to cast Abbott as the villain doing Trump's bidding in Texas to minimize any GOP losses in the midterms. Abbott, meanwhile, said in an interview earlier in the week that his goal is adopt a map that alleviates the concerns expressed by Trump's U.S. Justice Department that as many as four of Texas' present district were drawn with an illegal emphasis on race.

"I don't know what the map looks like (or) how many people in Congress it would add on the Republican side," the three-term Republican said. "But we will be working to ensure that we are going to draw maps that will provide the greatest opportunity for Texans to have the ability to vote for their candidate of choice. I have no preconceived information about what it would do to any district."

O'Rourke, who represented El Paso in the U.S. House from 2013 until 2019, said that trying to squeeze more Republican voters into Democrat-held districts could backfire.

"They're going to be at least five more vulnerable Republican-controlled districts that are going to be a little bit less of a lock for Republicans," O'Rourke said. "We got a field great candidates there. So, so what if we went from a scenario where we're dreading losing five seats to one where we're maybe picking up six or seven or eight? It sounds crazy, but look at Trump's first midterm election in 2018 we picked up 12 state House seats."