\u201cOur plan was to wake up the nation,\u201d Texas State Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins, D-San Antonio, told the crowd. \u201cOur plan is to fight in the courts. We hope they\u2019re fair this time. Our plan is to make sure our messaging gets to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Demonstrators march in support of Texas House Democrats toward Federal Plaza Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025, in Chicago. Legislators from Texas traveled to Illinois for several days in an effort to block a Republican-led congressional redistricting plan for their state. (John J. Kim\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
![\"Texas](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/CTC-L-Stand-with-Texas-10.jpg\")
\nTexas House Democrats, with members of their staff and local supporters, march during a demonstration Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025, in Chicago. Legislators from Texas traveled to Illinois for several days in an effort to block a Republican-led congressional redistricting plan for their state. (John J. Kim\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
![\"Demonstrators](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/CTC-L-Stand-with-Texas-13.jpg\")
\nDemonstrators march in support of Texas House Democrats toward Federal Plaza Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025, in Chicago. Legislators from Texas traveled to Illinois for several days in an effort to block a Republican-led congressional redistricting plan for their state. (John J. Kim\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/CTC-L-Stand-with-Texas-06.jpg\")
\nA pi\u00f1ata shaped like Donald Trump is placed on the lawn as demonstrators attend a rally in support of Texas House Democrats at Wrigley Square in Millennium Park Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025, in Chicago. Legislators from Texas traveled to Illinois for several days in an effort to block a Republican-led congressional redistricting plan for their state, supported by Trump. (John J. Kim\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
![\"Demonstrators](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/CTC-L-Stand-with-Texas-01.jpg\")
\nDemonstrators attend a rally in support of Texas House Democrats at Wrigley Square in Millennium Park Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025, in Chicago. Legislators from Texas traveled to Illinois for several days in an effort to block a Republican-led congressional redistricting plan for their state. (John J. Kim\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
![\"Demonstrators](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/CTC-L-Stand-with-Texas-02.jpg\")
\nDemonstrators attend a rally in support of Texas House Democrats at Wrigley Square in Millennium Park Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025, in Chicago. Legislators from Texas traveled to Illinois for several days in an effort to block a Republican-led congressional redistricting plan for their state. (John J. Kim\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
![\"Texas](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/CTC-L-Stand-with-Texas-04.jpg\")
\nTexas House Democrats attend a rally by local supporters at Wrigley Square in Millennium Park Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025, in Chicago. Legislators from Texas traveled to Illinois for several days in an effort to block a Republican-led congressional redistricting plan for their state. (John J. Kim\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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Demonstrators march in support of Texas House Democrats toward Federal Plaza Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025, in Chicago. Legislators from Texas traveled to Illinois for several days in an effort to block a Republican-led congressional redistricting plan for their state. (John J. Kim\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n
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The Texas Democrats intend to return to the Lone Star State Monday, according to a Texas House Democrats spokesperson and Texas State Rep. Armando Walle, D-Houston.<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s protesters directed much of their frustration at President Donald Trump, who has supported Texas Republicans\u2019 proposed map. The rally was one of more than 200 similar protests planned across the country, and follows other coordinated anti-Trump events like the No Kings protest<\/a> in June and Good Trouble Lives On protest<\/a> in July.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Trump is genuinely eroding away at our basic democratic freedoms, crippling the legal system, attempting to violate separation of powers,\u201d said Sophia Liu, a student at the University of Chicago who attended the protest Saturday.<\/p>\n
Protesters heard from members of the Texas delegation and local leaders, including U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez and Chicago Federation of Labor secretary and treasurer Don Villar. Then, they marched down Michigan Avenue and Adams Street to Federal Plaza, chanting \u201cWhose house? Our house\u201d and \u201cimmigrants are here to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n
Democrats around the country have attacked the Texas gerrymandering plan for its timing, saying redistricting shouldn\u2019t happen in the middle of the decade.<\/p>\n
As the Texas controversy moved further into the national spotlight, several other states have considered upping their own partisan gerrymandering efforts. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, proposed a ballot initiative Thursday to give Democrats five more U.S. House seats, the AP reported<\/a>. Gov. J.B. Pritzker said earlier this month that though he doesn\u2019t want to, he hasn\u2019t taken redistricting off the table<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Other Republican-controlled states, including Missouri, are also considering, or at least not opposed to, mid-decade partisan redistricting as well.<\/p>\n
Some protesters were uneasy at the prospect of back-and-forth partisan redistricting.<\/p>\n
Luke Hopkins, a current graduate student and former U.S. Marine\u00a0who lives in North Center, said he thinks Texas\u2019 redistricting efforts \u201care a clear abuse of power\u201d and \u201cnot what democracy is about.\u201d Still, California\u2019s response was somewhat \u201ctroubling,\u201d he said shortly after writing \u201cveterans against Trump\u201d in blue chalk at Federal Plaza.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to fight fire with fire sometimes,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think either is very good for democracy overall.\u201d<\/p>\n
But for Liu, California\u2019s pushback is necessary to make sure there\u2019s still meaningful opposition to Trump after the midterm elections.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can imagine, if another thing like the \u2018Big Beautiful Bill part two\u2019 came out,\u201d it would harm millions of Americans,\u201d she said, referencing the Republican-led federal legislation that heavily cut social services while increasing funding for immigration enforcement. \u201cAnd I think that\u2019s a greater harm than gerrymandering in the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the long term, Liu said she would support efforts to end all partisan gerrymandering.<\/p>\n
But Texas House Democrat leader, State Rep. Gene Wu, said the escalations between Texas, California and other states aren\u2019t simply a tit-for-tat political battle. Instead, he said, there was a clear \u201cattacking\u201d and \u201cdefending\u201d force \u2014 comparing the situation to \u201cRussia invading Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat California is proposing would only happen if Texas chose to do the wrong thing,\u201d Wu said.<\/p>\n
With California and other Democratic states\u2019 gerrymandering threats in place, Wu said he and his colleagues have a safety net to return to the state, where they are likely to lose the redistricting fight in the Republican-controlled Texas legislature.<\/p>\n
They look to legally challenge the Republican-drawn maps next, Wu said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur chances in court I think are good,\u201d he said. \u201cI know we don\u2019t trust the courts, but I think this is something that is so racist, so unconstitutional, that the courts cannot look away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Originally Published: August 16, 2025 at 2:09 PM CDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds of protesters gathered at Millennium Park Saturday afternoon to rally against redistricting efforts in Texas that could…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":151361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,69,8449,5386,1818,42495,88794],"class_list":{"0":"post-151360","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-federal-plaza","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-illinois","13":"tag-millennium-park","14":"tag-texas-house-democrats"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115040325134909766","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}