(The Center Square) – The war of words around political maps is heating up after Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker hosted Texas Democrats fleeing The Lone Star State to avoid voting on new Congressional boundaries.
Late Sunday, Pritzker hosted several Texas legislators in Illinois. They were evading voting for their state’s new maps being considered by majority statehouse Republicans.
“The largest democracy in the world. And yet a Texas governor with bended knee to Donald Trump because he’s afraid to lose an election fair and square,” said Texas state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, R-San Antonio. “He would rig these maps to have politicians pick voters so that he cannot have to deal with a Congress that will provide oversight, accountability, and real checks and balances like our founders wanted us to.”
Pritzker said the Texas GOP is doing President Donald Trump’s bidding and Democrats are strategizing how to respond.
“All bets are off when the cult leader and, you know, would be dictator of the United States tells Texas to mid-stream change the game when they know that they’re going to lose in 2026,” Pritzker said Sunday evening. “All bets are off. Everything’s got to be on the table.”
Illinois state Rep. Regan Deering, R-Decatur, asked whether there is a “bigger, more shameless fraud” than Pritzker.
“It’s just complete hypocrisy when our governor is standing there at the podium and having just drawn very unfair maps four years ago here in Illinois,” Deering told The Center Square Monday.
The maps Pritzker signed into law for Illinois in 2021 were given an “F” grade by Princton’s Gerrymandering Project and are considered among the most gerrymandered maps in the nation.
Pritzker downplayed criticisms of the map he signed in 2021 as gerrymandered to help Democrats, and avoided addressing his campaign promise that he’d only support a fair map making process. Sunday, he said Democratic leaders need to show people they have the will to fight.
“When you show people that you have the will to fight, well, they can muster the will to fight too,” Pritzker said. “Courage is contagious.”
Deering said Pritzker’s rhetoric could put others in danger and the Texas Democrats should get back to work.
“I just again think about the hypocrisy of, you know, our governor welcoming people that are requiring sanctuary from Texas. You know, you can’t have it both ways,” Deering said.
Texas state Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, said they are in the fight, but doing so by staying in Illinois.
“We’re all away from our families,” Wu said. “We’ve already been away from for, for six months because the legislature that we’ve been away from our jobs, we’ve not earned a lot of income, for this entire year. And, our salary for being in legislature is 600 bucks a month.”
Pritzker, a billionaire running for a third term as governor, said he will do everything he can to support the Texas Democrats’ ability to stay “as long as they need to and want to.”
