The Rainbow PUSH Coalition is standing with Texas Democratic lawmakers who fled their state to halt a redistricting vote.

They spoke in Chicago on Saturday at a forum they dubbed, "Voting Rights in Peril," focusing on the federal Voting Rights Act, 60 years after it went into effect.

Texas Republicans want to redraw their state's congressional map ahead of the 2026 elections to potentially add five GOP congressional seats and help the party maintain a slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Democrats say the plan amounts to racial gerrymandering.

"They have found where the Black people are and the Brown people are, and they have divided us. They have cracked us and they have packed us into districts to dilute our voting strength, which effectively denies Black and Brown people the right to elect a representative of their choice," said Texas state Rep. Jolanda Jones.

Texas Republicans have taken retaliatory measures against the Democrats who fled the state to deny Republicans the quorum needed to vote on their redistricting plan – issuing fines and civil arrest warrants, and threatening to cut office budgets.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott also has filed a lawsuit seeking to remove one of the state's House Democratic leaders, Rep. Gene Wu, form office, calling him "the ringleader" of the Democratic effort to block a redistricting vote.