California Democrats are taking up their proposed constitutional amendment to temporarily redraw their congressional maps, hours after Republicans in the Texas House passed new maps of their own.

The California Senate was set to act on Thursday on newly drawn political maps aimed at giving Democrats five more seats in Congress, countering a partisan advantage President Donald Trump hopes to gain from a Republican redistricting plan in Texas.

The national redistricting battle enters its next phase Thursday as California Democrats are scheduled to pass a new congressional map that creates five winnable seats for their party, a direct counter to the Texas House's approval of a new map to create more conservative-leaning seats in that state.

Republicans are kicking off a gerrymandering arms race that Democrats can’t win, according to the analysis of most election watchers. The question now is whether Democrats can generate enough seats to give them a chance to retake the House in the future.

A plan by Texas House Democrats to block a Republican redistricting effort until the complete release of the Jeffrey Epstein files failed on Wednesday.

Democratic allies say walkout effectively drew national attention, as legislature begins second special session to pass redistricting

Democratic Texas state Rep. Nicole Collier on Wednesday interrupted a Zoom call promoting Democratic redistricting fights to say she was being threatened with a felony before abruptly leaving the bathroom where she had been speaking.

Mid-decade redistricting in California is also illegal under the state’s constitution. Newsom and state Democrats are leading a drive to change all that and hold a voter referendum on Nov. 4 to throw out those laws and circumvent the commission.