More than 50 Texas Democratic lawmakers who fled the state two weeks ago in protest of their Republican colleagues’ aggressive redistricting plans have returned, restoring a quorum and allowing the GOP’s effort to proceed.

The chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, Kendall Scudder, said in a statement Monday:

The Texas House Democrats successfully killed the first special session and blocked Republicans from voting on their racist map, which was designed to allow Donald Trump to continue harming American citizens and the working class. … Now that the nation is involved in this fight, some Texas Democrats are coming back to fight these racist maps in the legislature and then in the courts.

The Texas Democrats helped inspire a counteroffensive against gerrymandering in other states, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom vowing to “fight fire with fire” and have his own state’s congressional map redrawn. Last week, Newsom officially called for a Nov. 4 special election in which Californians would decide whether to allow the state Legislature to draw the electoral maps for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 election cycles, instead of an independent commission.

Before returning, Texas Democrats had issued a list of demands, which included the release of California’s new electoral map. The map, which was released Friday, is designed to secure the national Democratic Party five more seats in the U.S. House, offsetting the expected gains in Texas.

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The Democratic lawmakers broke quorum during Texas’ first redistricting special session when they fled Austin, the state capital, blocking their Republican colleagues from voting. Now that the Democrats have returned, the Texas House has enough members present to push the map through in the second special session, which began Friday.

The Democratic lawmakers who fled faced $500 daily fines during their absence, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, threatened to have them arrested.

During a Zoom call last week, former President Barack Obama told the Texas Democrats: “We can’t let a systematic assault on democracy just happen and stand by. And so because of your actions, because of your courage, what you’ve seen is California responding, other states looking at what they can do to offset this mid-decade gerrymandering that is highly irregular.”