California's Newsom, Pelosi back Texas Democrats as GOP warns of more escalations over walkout

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared shoulder-to-shoulder Friday with Texas Democratic lawmakers in a show of support for their nearly weeklong walkout, which has blocked a vote on congressional redistricting maps sought by President Donald Trump in a widening national battle over U.S. House control.

Texas has been the epicenter of Trump’s push to gerrymander congressional maps to shore up Republicans’ narrow House majority before next year. But the standoff is threatening to spill into other states — including California, New York, Florida and Indiana — in an emerging proxy war for control of Congress in 2026.

California is moving toward a special election in November that Democrats hope could slash five Republican-held House seats in the liberal-leaning state, in direct response to the maneuvering in Texas.

“We are trying to defend democracy, as opposed to see it destroyed district by district,” Newsom said amid the crowd of lawmakers at the governor's mansion. “There are no rules for Donald Trump.”

Pelosi defended the Texas walkout, calling it “self-defense for our democracy.”

She said Democrats will not let Trump “pave over” free and fair elections in the country.

The appearance of nationally prominent Democrats Newsom — a potential 2028 presidential candidate — and Pelosi underscored the increasingly high stakes for a deeply divided Washington.

Earlier Friday the Texas House failed to meet a quorum for the third time this week as Democratic lawmakers continued to stay away from Austin.

Texas Republicans had warned they would escalate efforts to end the walkout if defiant Democrats do not return to the Capitol. But the lawmakers who bolted for points across the country Aug. 3 still were not back for Friday’s scheduled House floor vote.

Frustrated Republican leaders continued to ratchet up the pressure, including new and expanding efforts to try to remove Democratic lawmakers from office and seeking help from the FBI to assist state troopers trying to find them.

“We have all hands on deck, we are continuing to explore” options to force Democrats home, Speaker Dustin Burrows said after the chamber failed to reach a quorum. “We will keep pressing forward until the job is done. … Each one of you knows eventually you will come back.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who ran unsuccessfully for governor and Senate, in state district court, alleging that his political group, Powered by People, improperly gave money to cover costs for the absent Democrats and continued to raise more for them.

In an initial win for Republicans, Paxton said Friday that he had been granted a temporary restraining order halting the spending and fundraising while the case continues.

In a response on the social platform X, O'Rourke wrote, “They want to make examples out of those who fight so that others won’t.”

The news conference in Sacramento came several days after Texas Democrats appeared in Illinois with Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who said he supported the walkout “because they don’t want to live in a country where the president rigs elections for his side. That’s not democracy.”

One of the lawmakers in California, Texas State Rep. Ann Johnson, alluded to the national implications of the dispute, saying, “We recognize this is not just about Texas. This is about ensuring that the voters get to determine the outcome of their next election.”

As California Democrats privately prepare a proposal for new House district lines that would go to voters, Assembly member Isaac Bryan said, “This is not a turn-the-other-cheek moment while they continue to send blow after blow to the foundations of democracy.”

The Texas House is scheduled to reconvene Monday, but the dozens of Democrats who left the state have shown no signs of buckling.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit directly to the all-Republican state Supreme Court on Friday seeking to have 13 of the Democratic lawmakers immediately removed from office, or at least given a 48-hour warning that they must return or have their offices declared vacated.

The lawsuit argues that the lawmakers have effectively “abandoned” their office and duties, and they were singled out for making public statements that they left for the purpose of blocking the vote and disrupting House business.

"Their out-of-state rebellion cannot go unchecked, and the business of Texas must go on,” Paxton said.

Paxton's lawsuit includes Rep. Gene Wu, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, who also faces a similar lawsuit filed by Gov. Greg Abbott. Wu's legal team argued that the state constitution allows House members to be removed only by a two-thirds vote of the chamber, not the courts.

Wu said this week that quorum-breaking is not an abandonment of office but a legitimate form of dissent.

Abbott promised that he's willing to play the long game to get the bill passed.

“We have an agenda to pass priorities critical to Texans, and we will get it done. I’ll call special session after special session—no matter how long it takes—until the job is finished,” Abbott said on X.

The current special session ends Aug. 19, and the missing lawmakers already face mounting fines for every day they are gone and civil arrest warrants issued by the state House.

Trump wants five more seats out of Texas to potentially avoid a repeat of the 2018 midterms, when Democrats reclaimed the U.S. House and proceeded to thwart his agenda and impeach him twice.

The dynamics could embroil the 2026 midterm campaign in legislative and court battles testing Trump’s power over the Republican Party, Democrats’ ability to mount opposition and the durability of the U.S. system of federalism that balances power between Washington and the states.

Vertuno reported from Austin, and Blood from Los Angeles. Associated Press writers Nadia Lathan in Austin, Texas, and Kate Payne in Tallahassee, Florida, contributed. Payne and Lathan are corps members for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Texas House Speaker, Dustin Borrow, R - Lubbock, adjourns the House after a quorum was not met at the State Capitol, Friday, Aug. 8, 2025, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Rodolfo Gonzalez)

Texas House Speaker, Dustin Borrow, R - Lubbock, right, speaks with House Rep. Briscoe Cain, R - Deer Park, following a Republican Caucus meeting at the State Capitol, Friday, Aug. 8, 2025, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Rodolfo Gonzalez)

Democratic Texas Rep. Gene Wu, center, surrounded by other Texas House Democrats and Democratic members of Congress, speaks during a press conference at the Democratic Party in Warrenville, Ill., Monday, Aug. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Empty chairs belonging to House Democrats remain empty during session convocation in protest to a redistricting map in the State Capitol, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Rodolfo Gonzalez)

Rep. Nancy Pelosi speaks in support of the Texas Democratic lawmakers for their walk out to block a vote on a congressional redistricting plan sought by President Donald Trump, during a news conference in Sacramento, Calif., Friday Aug. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

Accompanied by California and Texas lawmakers, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, center, discusses the push to schedule a special election to redraw California's Congressional voting districts, during a news conference in Sacramento, Calif., Friday Aug. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

Texas House Speaker, Dustin Borrow, R - Lubbock, adjourns the House after a quorum was not met at the State Capitol, Friday, Aug. 8, 2025, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Rodolfo Gonzalez)

Texas House Speaker, Dustin Borrow, R - Lubbock, right, speaks with House Rep. Briscoe Cain, R - Deer Park, following a Republican Caucus meeting at the State Capitol, Friday, Aug. 8, 2025, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Rodolfo Gonzalez)

Democratic Texas Rep. Gene Wu, center, surrounded by other Texas House Democrats and Democratic members of Congress, speaks during a press conference at the Democratic Party in Warrenville, Ill., Monday, Aug. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Empty chairs belonging to House Democrats remain empty during session convocation in protest to a redistricting map in the State Capitol, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Rodolfo Gonzalez)

Federal immigration agents deployed to Minneapolis have used aggressive crowd-control tactics that have become a dominant concern in the aftermath of the deadly shooting of a woman in her car last week.

They have pointed rifles at demonstrators and deployed chemical irritants early in confrontations. They have broken vehicle windows and pulled occupants from cars. They have scuffled with protesters and shoved them to the ground.

The government says the actions are necessary to protect officers from violent attacks. The encounters in turn have riled up protesters even more, especially as videos of the incidents are shared widely on social media.

What is unfolding in Minneapolis reflects a broader shift in how the federal government is asserting its authority during protests, relying on immigration agents and investigators to perform crowd-management roles traditionally handled by local police who often have more training in public order tactics and de-escalating large crowds.

Experts warn the approach runs counter to de-escalation standards and risks turning volatile demonstrations into deadly encounters.

The confrontations come amid a major immigration enforcement surge ordered by the Trump administration in early December, which sent more than 2,000 officers from across the Department of Homeland Security into the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Many of the officers involved are typically tasked with arrests, deportations and criminal investigations, not managing volatile public demonstrations.

Tensions escalated after the fatal shooting of Renee Good, a 37-year-old woman killed by an immigration agent last week, an incident federal officials have defended as self-defense after they say Good weaponized her vehicle.

The killing has intensified protests and scrutiny of the federal response.

On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota asked a federal judge to intervene, filing a lawsuit on behalf of six residents seeking an emergency injunction to limit how federal agents operate during protests, including restrictions on the use of chemical agents, the pointing of firearms at non-threatening individuals and interference with lawful video recording.

“There’s so much about what’s happening now that is not a traditional approach to immigration apprehensions,” said former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Sarah Saldaña.

Saldaña, who left the post at the beginning of 2017 as President Donald Trump's first term began, said she can't speak to how the agency currently trains its officers. When she was director, she said officers received training on how to interact with people who might be observing an apprehension or filming officers, but agents rarely had to deal with crowds or protests.

“This is different. You would hope that the agency would be responsive given the evolution of what’s happening — brought on, mind you, by the aggressive approach that has been taken coming from the top,” she said.

Ian Adams, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of South Carolina, said the majority of crowd-management or protest training in policing happens at the local level — usually at larger police departments that have public order units.

“It’s highly unlikely that your typical ICE agent has a great deal of experience with public order tactics or control,” Adams said.

DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a written statement that ICE officer candidates receive extensive training over eight weeks in courses that include conflict management and de-escalation. She said many of the candidates are military veterans and about 85% have previous law enforcement experience.

“All ICE candidates are subject to months of rigorous training and selection at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, where they are trained in everything from de-escalation tactics to firearms to driving training. Homeland Security Investigations candidates receive more than 100 days of specialized training," she said.

Ed Maguire, a criminology professor at Arizona State University, has written extensively about crowd-management and protest- related law enforcement training. He said while he hasn't seen the current training curriculum for ICE officers, he has reviewed recent training materials for federal officers and called it “horrifying.”

Maguire said what he's seeing in Minneapolis feels like a perfect storm for bad consequences.

“You can't even say this doesn't meet best practices. That's too high a bar. These don't seem to meet generally accepted practices,” he said.

“We’re seeing routinely substandard law enforcement practices that would just never be accepted at the local level,” he added. “Then there seems to be just an absence of standard accountability practices.”

Adams noted that police department practices have "evolved to understand that the sort of 1950s and 1960s instinct to meet every protest with force, has blowback effects that actually make the disorder worse.”

He said police departments now try to open communication with organizers, set boundaries and sometimes even show deference within reason. There's an understanding that inside of a crowd, using unnecessary force can have a domino effect that might cause escalation from protesters and from officers.

Despite training for officers responding to civil unrest dramatically shifting over the last four decades, there is no nationwide standard of best practices. For example, some departments bar officers from spraying pepper spray directly into the face of people exercising Constitutional speech. Others bar the use of tear gas or other chemical agents in residential neighborhoods.

Regardless of the specifics, experts recommend that departments have written policies they review regularly.

“Organizations and agencies aren’t always familiar with what their own policies are,” said Humberto Cardounel, senior director of training and technical assistance at the National Policing Institute.

“They go through it once in basic training then expect (officers) to know how to comport themselves two years later, five years later," he said. "We encourage them to understand and know their training, but also to simulate their training.”

Adams said part of the reason local officers are the best option for performing public order tasks is they have a compact with the community.

“I think at the heart of this is the challenge of calling what ICE is doing even policing,” he said.

"Police agencies have a relationship with their community that extends before and after any incidents. Officers know we will be here no matter what happens, and the community knows regardless of what happens today, these officers will be here tomorrow.”

Saldaña noted that both sides have increased their aggression.

“You cannot put yourself in front of an armed officer, you cannot put your hands on them certainly. That is impeding law enforcement actions,” she said.

“At this point, I’m getting concerned on both sides — the aggression from law enforcement and the increasingly aggressive behavior from protesters.”

Law enforcement officers at the scene of a reported shooting Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

Federal immigration officers confront protesters outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

People cover tear gas deployed by federal immigration officers outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

A man is pushed to the ground as federal immigration officers confront protesters outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

A woman covers her face from tear gas as federal immigration officers confront protesters outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)