Former President Barack Obama praised Texas Democrats who left their state to block the passage of a GOP-led redistricting proposal. Former President Barack Obama is applauding Texas Democrats for leaving their state in an attempt to block the passage of a Republican-led redistricting effort.

A partisan move by Texas to redraw its congressional maps in the middle of the decade to secure five more GOP seats in the U.S. House set off a clamor to replicate the effort in statehouses controlled by both parties.

The process of changing congressional maps to try and ensure one party's victory over another — called gerrymandering — has typically been done more subtly.

Former President Barack Obama waded into the debate over redistricting in a zoom call with Texas House Democrats on Thursday, warning of a “systematic assault on democracy” spurred by Republican efforts to redraw congressional maps in Texas.

Barack Obama is praising the Democratic state lawmakers in Texas who broke quorum and fled their state last week in protest of their Republican colleagues’ aggressive redistricting effort that’s designed to award the GOP five additional seats in the U.