Texas Republicans have escalated the penalties against Democrats as they enter a second week camped out in states across the country to block new U.S. House maps pushed for by President Donald Trump to win more seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

At the core of the fight in Texas over redrawing the state’s congressional districts is a debate over a time-honored right spelled out in the Constitution: Every two years, “the People” get to pick someone to represent their interests in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Texas Democratic lawmakers who left the state to block a Republican plan for congressional redistricting are pleading for donations to help cover their costs.

Texas and California are at the center of a national political power struggle that could reshape Trump's second presidency.

Dozens of Democratic state lawmakers in Texas have scattered across the country in a last-ditch effort to prevent Republicans from adopting U.S. House maps that President Donald Trump wants in place before the 2026 midterm elections.

Texas Democrats have fled the state in an effort to keep Republicans from approving a new U.S. House map that could boost their slim congressional majority next year.

A stalemate over the pace of confirmations has delayed the Senate’s yearly August recess for now as President Donald Trump declares that his nominees “should NOT BE FORCED TO WAIT.”.

Democrats are launching a nationwide summer blitz designed to force vulnerable Republicans to defend President Donald Trump’s big tax and spending bill, especially Medicaid cuts.

The Senate has confirmed Joe Kent, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the National Counterterrorism Center.

Democrats are again trying to revive the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.

A judge has ordered that eight university board members tapped by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin should be removed from their posts.

A new poll shows support for Israel’s military action in Gaza has dropped among U.S. adults, with only about one-third approving.

Senate Democrats are imploring President Donald Trump's administration to step up its role in addressing suffering and starvation in Gaza.

A key House committee is looking into the investigation of the late Jeffrey Epstein for sex trafficking crimes.

A new poll shows Americans’ views of the Supreme Court have moderated somewhat since the court’s standing dropped sharply after its ruling overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Texas Democrats on Thursday slammed the GOP's unusual push to redraw the state's House maps to win more seats ahead of the 2026 elections.

President Donald Trump has signed a bill to cancel about $9 billion that had been approved for public broadcasting and foreign aid.

Michael Whatley, chairman of the national Republican Party, plans to run for an open Senate seat in North Carolina in 2026, with the blessing of President Donald Trump, after Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara, passed on the seat.

Under intense pressure from President Donald Trump’s own supporters, his administration now is asking a federal court to unseal secret documents related to Jeffrey Epstein’s case.

Former Missouri congressman Billy Long was ceremonially sworn in as IRS commissioner on Friday.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will hold a news conference on Wednesday morning in Tampa.

House Republicans on Tuesday grilled the leaders of Georgetown University, the City University of New York and the University of California, Berkeley, in the latest hearing on antisemitism in higher education, accusing the schools of failing to respond adequately to allegations of bias or discrimination.

Senate Republicans are putting the popularity of Department of Government Efficiency spending cuts to the test this week.

Democratic President Joe Biden handed out subsidies to chipmakers and electric vehicle manufacturers.

Donald Trump has made tax cuts a central part of his political legacy.

The sprawling Republican budget bill approved by the Senate Tuesday removes a proposed tax on solar and wind energy projects but quickly phases out tax credits for wind, solar and other renewable energy.

News4JAX political analyst and head of the Jacksonville University Public Policy Institute Rick Mullaney joins News4JAX anchor Bruce Hamilton for this week’s Politics & Power episode.

A poll shows only 36% of Democrats say they’re “extremely” or “very” proud to be American, reflecting a dramatic decline in national pride that's also clear among young people.

The Senate parliamentarian has advised that a Medicaid provider tax overhaul central to President Donald Trump's tax cut and spending bill doesn't adhere to procedural rules.

Ten years after the Supreme Court ruled there's a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, the split between Republicans and Democrats on the issue is wider than it’s been in decades.

Republicans have suffered a setback over their plans to gut the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau in President Donald Trump's big bill.

Republican senators are looking into former President Joe Biden's ability to serve in office.

The U.S. State Department says it is restarting the process for foreigners to apply for student visas but says all applicants must have their social media accounts set to ‘public’ to allow review by officials.

Senate Democrats were shaken to the core after seeing videos of officers aggressively pushing California Sen. Alex Padilla out of a news conference with the Homeland Security secretary and eventually restraining him on the floor outside the room.

Former Jacksonville radio host and current conservative podcaster Mark Kaye is running for Congress in 2026.

House Democrats are searching for a new leader on the powerful House Oversight Committee after the untimely passing of their previous ranking member.

David Hogg says he will not fight to hold onto his leadership role in the Democratic National Committee.

President Donald Trump is looking to cancel $9.4 billion in spending already approved by Congress.

A new survey by the Pew Research Center finds little agreement between Republicans and Democrats in the media sources they trust.

After months of speculation, former U.S. Rep. David Jolly of Florida has confirmed the rumors and announced he will run for governor in 2026. The Republican turned Democrat said he believes he is the change Florida’s government needs.

The Senate has voted to block California’s first-in-the nation rule banning the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035.

House Republicans stayed up all night to pass their multitrillion-dollar tax breaks package.

Beginning next school year, the curriculum standards for Oklahoma high school students will including conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.

Tax breaks tallying more than $5 trillion.

Supporters of a measure to create a commission to study potential reparations for slavery in Maryland have rallied next to the Capitol and the governor’s residence to urge Gov. Wes Moore to sign the legislation.

Senate Democrats have blocked legislation to regulate a form of cryptocurrency after arguing that the bill needed stronger protections.

The Republican-led House has passed a bill that would rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America and direct federal agencies to update their documents and maps to incorporate the new name.

House Republicans appear to be backing off some, but not all, of the steep reductions to the Medicaid program as part of their big tax breaks bill.

Senate Democrats plan to force a vote in the coming weeks on a resolution to require more transparency from President Donald Trump’s administration about deportations to El Salvador.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said President Donald Trump’s 100 days in office have been an assault of Americans’ very way of life.

The Trump administration has frozen, stalled or otherwise disrupted some $430 billion in federal funds since the president took office — from federal disease research to Head Start for children to disaster aid.

President Donald Trump says he is bringing back Columbus Day.

Political analyst Daniel Cronrath joins News4JAX anchor Bruce Hamilton on this week’s episode of Politics & Power to look at the challenges for the Democratic Party if it hopes to make a generational shift.

Four House Democrats are visiting El Salvador in a bid to support Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man whom the Trump administration deported to a notorious Salvadoran prison.

Virginia Democrats are vying to shield their statehouse majority while flipping the governor’s mansion in November, and new reports show they have a cash advantage in those races against Republicans.

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has appeared at a town hall in suburban Atlanta to deliver full-throated support of President Donald Trump.

House Republicans have narrowly approved their budget framework.

Boxed into a vote on outlawing spending on gender affirming care for transgender prisoners, Georgia Democrats chose a third option Wednesday.

A new AP-NORC poll finds that while most Americans disapprove of President Donald Trump’s handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the conflict is not weighing as heavily on his public perception as it did on President Joe Biden.

Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego says he will block the confirmation of top leaders at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The Democrats are in a state of disarray and can’t get their messaging straight. The latest polls have President Donald Trump underwater. And people in the U.S. are drowning in a sea of economic uncertainty. Political analyst Daniel Cronrath joins Bruce Hamilton to discuss the cyclical nature of politics, voter attitudes and the economy -- and the lessons history teaches us.

Congressional lawmakers are scrambling to formulate a response to President Donald Trump’s slashing of the federal government as one group takes a front and center role: military veterans.

New Hampshire has tested out its new law requiring people to show proof of citizenship before registering to vote.

The Department of Homeland Security is making cuts to three key offices that oversee civil rights protections across its broad mission, suggesting that they were impeding immigration enforcement efforts.

Democratic lawmakers are courting online content creators, podcasters and celebrities in a bid to find new ways to boost their message to voters.

The Social Security Administration’s plan to require in-person identity checks for millions of new and existing recipients has drawn ire from lawmakers, advocacy groups and program recipients who are concerned that the government is placing barriers in front of people seeking to access their benefits.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer is postponing several scheduled events this week to promote his new book after some liberal groups had planned to stage protests.

Senate Democrats were grim Friday as they left Washington after a brutal 10-week stretch that consistently showed the limits of their new minority and culminated with a deeply personal rupture over how to best counter President Donald Trump.

The Democratic Party appears fractured as a torrent of frustration and anger has been unleashed on Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer.

The Education Department’s civil rights branch is losing nearly half its staff in the Trump administration’s layoffs.

The chairman of the House Republican campaign committee is already predicting his party will pick up seats in the midterm election that are some 20 months away.

Lindsey Boylan helped drive Andrew Cuomo from office in 2021 when the former aide came forward as the first woman to accuse the governor of sexual harassment.

A president’s address to Congress — even without the formal gloss of a State of the Union address — is typically a time for a call to national unity and predictable claims about the country being strong.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee are introducing two resolutions demanding the Trump administration turn over information about billionaire adviser Elon Musk’s potential conflicts of interest and firing of federal workers.

The Senate has rejected legislation aiming to bar transgender women and girls from participating in school athletic competitions designated for female athletes.

House Republicans have muscled their budget blueprint to passage, with a push from President Donald Trump.

The budget resolution from Republicans was on the agenda in the Senate, but the nearly all-night debate encompassed so much more.

Many U.S. adults believe the federal government is overspending.

President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, Todd Blanche, criticized the criminal cases against the Republican as “partisan lawfare” during his confirmation hearing to become the No. 2 Justice Department official.

President Donald Trump’s budget chief has sent an email to consumer protection agency employees telling them to stop working.

Democrats are opposing Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency as it turns its attention to the Education Department, with lawmakers raising questions about DOGE’s access to internal systems containing personal information on tens of millions of Americans.

Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee are demanding answers after they say President Donald Trump gave Elon Musk's staff access to sensitive and classified government information.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro will seek more money for public schools and public transit in his new budget proposal to lawmakers.

Elon Musk is rapidly consolidating control over large swaths of the federal government with President Donald Trump’s blessing.

The Senate has confirmed Doug Burgum as interior secretary.

The Justice Department has abandoned all criminal proceedings against President Donald Trump’s two co-defendants in the classified documents case against him in Florida, foreclosing the chance the case against them could ever be revived.

Nikki Fried, who has been the Chair of the Florida Democratic Party since 2023, has been re-elected to serve in the position for the next four years.

President Donald Trump unleashed an unprecedented barrage of executive orders after taking office this week.

The Senate has passed a bill that would require federal authorities to detain migrants accused of theft and violent crimes.

Virginia Democrats have preserved their Statehouse majority in special elections.

Two Florida House Representatives, Hillary Cassel and Susan Valdés, recently announced they were leaving the Democratic Party to join the GOP.

Republicans in Congress plan to move quickly in their effort to overhaul the nation’s voting procedures, seeing an opportunity with control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

The Washington Commanders' path to returning to nation's capital is clear after an on-again, off-again saga in Congress ended with a late reprieve.

Democrats in North Carolina were celebrating big wins in the swing state after the November election, including victories for governor and other top statewide offices.

President-elect Donald Trump has delivered a likely death blow to bipartisan congressional budget negotiations.

President-elect Donald Trump is accusing the Des Moines Register newspaper and its pollster of “brazen election interference” for publishing a poll the weekend before the election that showed Democrat Kamala Harris was leading by three percentage points in the midwestern state.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won't be the top Democrat on a prominent House committee next year.

A new poll finds that Democrats are feeling more pessimistic about the U.S. economy after Donald Trump's victory.

Senate Democrats failed in their bid to confirm a Democratic member of the National Labor Relations Board after the Senate rejected a razor-thin vote that hinged on the pivotal rejections of independent Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

President Joe Biden is threatening to veto legislation that would expand the federal judiciary.