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    Newsom Wants California to Counter Texas on Redistricting

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    Gov. Gavin Newsom says California should redraw its own congressional districts if Texas tries to gerrymander its lines. His idea faces long odds.When Arnold Schwarzenegger, then the governor of California, urged voters to “terminate gerrymandering” 15 years ago, most welcomed the chance to take some power away from politicians.In 2010, more than 60 percent of voters approved a measure that put the job of drawing California’s congressional map in the hands of an independent commission instead of with partisan lawmakers.Now one of Mr. Schwarzenegger’s successors, Gov. Gavin Newsom, is threatening to blow up California’s system for a partisan purpose.As Texas considers an extraordinary middecade redrawing of its maps to help Republicans win more seats in Congress and to satisfy President Trump, Mr. Newsom has said California should counter with a similar move to help Democrats.Never mind that legal scholars have described his proposals as far-fetched. The longest of long shots. A path that would require political gymnastics and subvert California’s high-minded approach.Mr. Newsom, in suggesting that California play hardball politics, seems determined to show that he is a Democratic warrior trying to beat Republicans at their own game.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Newsom threatens to redraw California House maps in protest at Texas plan

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      Seeking to offset a Republican plan to pick up congressional seats in Texas, California Democrats say they are prepared to redraw the state’s 52 congressional districts in a longshot and controversial effort to pick up Democratic seats.Governor Gavin Newsom, seen as a likely presidential candidate in 2028, has been leading the threat in recent days. And Democratic members of California’s delegation in the US House appear to be on board.“We want our gavels back,” Representative Mark Takano, a California Democrat, told Punchbowl News. “That’s what this is about.” Democrats hold 43 of California’s 52 seats and reportedly believe they can pick up an additional five to seven seats by drawing new maps.Newsom is pushing the plan as Texas Republicans are poised to redraw its 38 congressional districts in a special session that begins next week. Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, put redistricting on the agenda at the request of Donald Trump, who wants Republicans to add five seats in Texas as he seeks to stave off a loss in congressional seats next year. The effort has been widely criticized by Democrats as an anti-democratic ploy to make Republicans unaccountable to their voters.Newsom’s plan in California is unlikely to succeed. More than a decade ago, California voters approved a constitutional amendment that stripped lawmakers of their ability to draw congressional districts and gave it to an independent redistricting commission. Newsom has only offered vague ideas for how to get around that requirement. He has suggested the legislature could call a quick voter referendum to potentially strip the commission of its power. He also said on Wednesday there was a possibility of the legislature trying to enact new maps on its own – a novel legal theory.“It’s not lawful in any way,” said Dan Vicuña, a redistricting expert at the watchdog group Common Cause. “It was clear that this was meant to be done one time after the census, through a public and transparent process that centers community feedback, and then to be not touched again until the next decade.”He added: “It’s not an invitation to them to circumvent the independent process and gerrymander maps in the middle of a decade. That would completely undermine the purpose of the independent process voters approved.”California’s independent commission has long been considered a model for making the process of drawing district lines fairer. There has been a bipartisan push in recent years to get more states to adopt commissions such as California’s, where ordinary citizens – Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated – have the power to draw district lines. After the 2020 census, four states – California, Arizona, Michigan and Colorado – used independent commissions. Democrats sought to require all states to use independent redistricting commissions in federal legislation that stalled in the US Senate during Joe Biden’s presidency.Russell Yee, a Republican who served on California’s commission, said that while he understood Newsom’s frustration, the only solution is redistricting reform at the federal level.“To abandon a commitment to fair and equitable election districts for partisan advantage is to sell family treasures at a pawn shop for a wad of quickly spent cash,” he said.Newsom has noted he supported creating the commission, but frames his willingness to redraw maps as the type of hardball Democrats should be more willing to play as Trump and Republicans have openly defied the law.“They’re playing by a different set of rules. They can’t win by the traditional game so they want to change the game,” Newsom said on Wednesday. “We can act holier than thou. We can sit on the sidelines, talk about the way the world should be. Or we can recognize the existential nature that is this moment.”Alex Lee, a state assemblyman who chairs his chamber’s progressive caucus, rejected that argument. “CA independent citizen redistricting (imperfect) is model for the nation,” he wrote in a post on X. “[Republicans] resort to cheating to win. We win by running clear platform for the working class and delivering.”Trying to push through a redrawing of California’s map could also undermine efforts by Democrats to convince voters of the grave dangers of Trump’s attacks on the rule of law. More

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      Texas Legislature Special Session Will Answer Questions About Redistricting, Floods

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      A special session of the Texas Legislature will address the deadly floods in Hill Country, but the fireworks will come from President Trump’s demand for a newly gerrymandered House map.A special legislative session in Texas, set to begin on Monday in the wake of the flood in Texas Hill Country, is shaping up to be an emotionally raw diversion into what Democrats say is the gerrymandering the state’s House districts.Lawmakers will also take up questions about the handling of the devastating July 4 floods, which killed more than 130 people, including at least 37 children. Nearly 100 Texans remain missing.But that bipartisan imperative will be complicated by a hard-edge partisan agenda for the session, dominated by President Trump’s push for the Legislature to redraw the state’s congressional district maps to be more favorable for Republicans. He wants his party to gain five seats in Texas in the 2026 midterm elections to help retain control of the U.S. House.Gov. Greg Abbott has asked lawmakers to also consider a dozen other items during the 30-day special session, including new hard-line conservative proposals to ban mail-order abortion pills, lower property taxes and regulate intoxicating hemp. And he wants lawmakers to consider a state constitutional amendment that would empower the state attorney general to prosecute election crimes.“It’s a wild situation,” said State Representative Jon Rosenthal, a Houston-area Democrat. “The past sessions I’ve been a part of have been of a very limited scope.”Most Texans’ attention will probably lie with the July 4 flood and what can be done to improve warning systems, such as placing outdoor sirens along flood-prone waterways like the Guadalupe River, where most of the deaths occurred.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A risky bet? Texas Republicans poised to redraw congressional map on Trump’s orders

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      At the behest of Donald Trump, Texas Republicans are poised to redraw their state’s congressional map to try and gain as many as five congressional seats, a move that is likely to further weaken the influence of the state’s fast-growing non-white population and could wind up backfiring on the party.The effort to redraw the map represents a blunt and undemocratic effort by Republican lawmakers to pick the voters who elect them, and comes at a time when many of the party’s positions are unpopular. The US president and national Republicans are making the push because the GOP holds a 220-212 advantage in the US House (there are three Democratic vacancies) and Trump’s party typically loses seats in the midterm elections, which will happen next year.But it’s a risky bet. Twenty-five of Texas’s 38 congressional districts are currently represented by Republicans, a result that was carefully engineered when lawmakers redrew the state’s congressional map in 2021. During that process, mapmakers focused on shoring up Republican seats instead of trying to pick up Democratic ones.In order to pick up new seats, Republicans will have to spread their voters from safe Republican ones into Democratic districts. It could allow them to pick up more seats, but also makes the Republican districts more competitive and potentially winnable by Democrats in a strong year.The number of seats Republicans are able to pick up “depends on how much risk Republicans want to take,” said David Wasserman, an analyst at the Cook Political Report who closely follows US House races. “Republicans could probably target three Democratic seats very easily, but once it gets to four or five, that could put additional Republican seats at risk.”When Republicans drew the existing map, they blunted the political influence of non-white voters in the state, who accounted for 95% of the state’s population growth over the last decade. The new maps could further weaken their ability to elect their preferred candidates.“The current maps are already blatantly racist and discriminate against voters of color, communities of color, all over the state,” said Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of the Texas chapter of Common Cause, a watchdog group. “There would be absolutely no way you get to five more Republican districts without just completely trampling on minority voting rights.”Two Democratic seats likely to be targeted are the ones in south Texas currently held by representatives Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, Wasserman said. Trump won both districts in 2024 and Republicans could easily tweak their boundaries to make them winnable. Democrats also represent four districts in the Houston area, and Republicans could shift the boundaries to try and pick up one or two districts depending on how aggressive they want to be.The Republican push to redraw the map comes as the state is still reeling from deadly floods that left at least 134 people dead with more than 100 people still missing. Democrats in the Texas legislature are reportedly considering walking out of the special session in order to deny Republicans a quorum needed to pass the maps. Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, has said he will assist in “hunting down” members who walk out and compel them back to the capitol.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTo justify redrawing the maps, Texas governor Greg Abbott pointed to a 7 July letter from the justice department claiming lawmakers had impermissibly sorted voters based on their race. Both the letter’s argument, and Abbott’s quick acceptance of it, raised eyebrows because Texas officials have said for years they did not consider race at all when they drew the maps.“My jaw dropped when I saw that letter,” said Mark Gaber, an attorney at the Campaign Legal Center, who is representing some of the plaintiffs suing Texas over the maps already in place. “Either the witnesses were not telling the truth or the entire premise of this special session and the mid-decade redistricting is false.”In its letter, the justice department pointed to four districts where it claimed voters had been unconstitutionally sorted by race. In two of those districts, two different groups of minority voters constitute a majority that can elect their preferred candidates. Another district is majority Hispanic. The final district it raised issue with was drawn after judges found intentional discrimination in a previous district.Several legal experts said those claims were highly questionable.“The DoJ letter is completely concocted and it reflects a complete misunderstanding of the law, but that’s not what they’re interested in,” said Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which is representing some of the plaintiffs challenging the current congressional map.“If I were them, I would be consulting legal counsel about the possibility of being found guilty of perjury in what they testified to under oath,” he added.Mapmakers may want to keep communities who share common interests together for reasons that have nothing to do with their race, said Michael Li, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice.Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School who worked on voting rights issues at both the justice department and White House said the letter was “nonsense”.“What they appear to articulate in the letters is the notion that any time there happens to be multiple minorities in a district, that’s a constitutional violation. And that’s like seven different versions of wrong,” he said. More

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      ‘Morally Offensive and Fiscally Reckless’: 3 Writers on Trump’s Big Gamble

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      Frank Bruni, a contributing Opinion writer, hosted a written online conversation with Nate Silver, the author of “On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything” and the newsletter Silver Bulletin, and Lis Smith, a Democratic communications strategist and author of the memoir “Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story,” to discuss the aftermath of the passage of President Trump’s One Big, Beautiful Bill.Frank Bruni: Let’s start with that megabill, the bigness of which made the consequences of its enactment hard to digest quickly. Now that we’ve had time to, er, chew it over, I’m wondering if you think Democrats are right to say — to hope — that it gives them a whole new traction in next year’s midterms.I mean, the most significant Medicaid cuts kick in after that point. Could Trump and other Republicans avoid paying a price for them in 2026? Or did they get much too cute in constructing the legislation and building in that delay and create the possibility of disaster for themselves in both 2026 and 2028, when the bill’s effect on Medicaid, as well as on other parts of the safety net, will have taken hold?Lis Smith: If history is any guide, Republicans will pay a price for these cuts in the midterms. In 2010, Democrats got destroyed for passing Obamacare, even though it would be years until it was fully implemented. In 2018, Republicans were punished just for trying to gut it. Voters don’t like politicians messing with their health care. They have been pretty consistent in sending that message.I’d argue that Democrats have an even more potent message in 2026 — it’s not just that Republicans are messing with health care, it’s that they are cutting it to fund tax cuts for the richest Americans.Nate Silver: What I wonder about is Democrats’ ability to sustain focus on any given issue. At the risk of overextrapolating from my home turf in New York, Zohran Mamdani just won a massive upset in the Democratic mayoral primary by focusing on affordability. And a message on the Big, Beautiful Bill could play into that. But the Democratic base is often more engaged by culture war issues, or by messages that are about Trump specifically — and Trump isn’t on the ballot in 2026 — rather than Republicans broadly. The polls suggest that the Big, Beautiful Bill is extremely unpopular, but a lot of those negative views are 1) among people who are extremely politically engaged and already a core Democratic constituency, or 2) snap opinions among the disengaged that are subject to change. Democrats will need to ensure that voters are still thinking about the bill next November, and tying it to actual or potential changes that affect them directly and adversely.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Elections

      Democrats Broach Potential Walkout to Block Texas Redistricting

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      Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, told Texas Democrats on a call on Tuesday that the moment required everyone to take extraordinary actions.National Democratic leaders are encouraging state Democrats in the Texas House to consider walking out of a special legislative session this month to block Republicans from redrawing the state’s congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.At the same time, President Trump held his own call on Tuesday with congressional Republicans in the state, urging them to carve out five new G.O.P. seats from those held by Democrats, according to a person briefed on that call, which was first reported by Punchbowl News.“Just spoke to our Great Congressmen and women of Texas,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media. He added, “I keep hearing about Texas ‘going Blue,’ but it is just another Democrat LIE.”The redistricting of House seats is supposed to come at the beginning of each decade, after new census data shifts populations and changes the number of seats granted to each state. Reapportionment in the middle of the decade is rare and almost always contentious, since it is driven by political considerations, not demographic shifts. In this case, Mr. Trump is openly trying to use new maps to stave off midterm Democratic gains that would potentially cost his party control of the narrowly divided House.“It is important that we fight back,” said U.S. Representative Lizzie Fletcher, a Democrat whose Houston district could be affected. “What is happening is absolutely an unacceptable betrayal of Texans.”During the Democratic call on Monday evening, which lasted for more than two hours, the Democratic leader in the U.S. House, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, and the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Ken Martin, spoke with about 40 Democrats in the Texas House.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in US Politics

      A deadly 1987 flood foreshadowed the Texas disaster. Survivors ask, ‘why didn’t we learn?’

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      The rain was pouring down in Texas in the early morning hours of 17 July 1987. James Moore, a reporter for a local NBC news station, was stationed in Austin when his editors called and told him to grab his camera operator and head to Kerrville, a Hill Country town about 100 miles (160km) away. They had heard reports of flash flooding on the Guadalupe River.“We just jumped in the car when it was still dark … we knew there were going to be problems based on how much rain there was,” Moore said. En route, he got another call over the radio that told him to head instead for the small hamlet of Comfort, just 15 miles from Kerrville.“They said: ‘Hey, head up towards Comfort,’” Moore recalled. “‘Something’s happened.’”At about 7.45am, a caravan of buses had left a children’s church camp at the Pot O’ Gold Ranch as they tried to evacuate the Guadalupe’s surging waters, which eventually rose nearly 30ft (9 meters) during the ferocious, slow-moving rainstorm. According to a report by the National Weather Service, a bus and a van had stalled on an overflowing river crossing. As kids rushed to escape the vehicles, they were hit by a massive wave of water – estimated to be a half-mile wide – that swept away 43 people. Thirty-three of them were rescued, but 10 children drowned.Moore arrived at a scene of chaos. Helicopters clattered overhead as people scrambled in a frantic search for the injured and missing. Then he and his camera operator caught sight of something horrifying.“We unfortunately found one of the bodies of the kids,” Moore said. “All we saw was the legs under a brush pile and we alerted the authorities.”View image in fullscreenNearly 40 years later, it felt like history repeating itself. Last week, in the early morning hours of 4 July, another flash flood hit the Guadalupe. This time, though, the wall of water was sizably bigger, and came in the middle of the night and during one of the area’s busiest holiday weekends. The death toll is now nearly 130 people with more than 160 still missing. The loss of life includes 27 campers and counselors from Camp Mystic, a girls’ camp several miles upriver from Comfort.Many who lived through the tragedy in Comfort see the 1987 flood as a harbinger for what washed through Hill Country on the Fourth of July.“[The 1987 flood] was called the ‘big one’ back then. This is 100 times over what we experienced,” said Emily Davis. She was a 10-year-old at Camp Capers, another church camp up the road from the Pot O’ Gold Ranch, when the 1987 flood hit. “Why didn’t they learn from this? Why wasn’t there a better system?”‘The risk is always there’After the Independence Day floods devastated Kerr county last week, Donald Trump described the scene as “a 100-year catastrophe”.“This was the thing that happened in seconds,” he added. “Nobody expected it.”But Hill Country is no stranger to these disasters, and has even earned itself the moniker “flash flood alley”. Its chalky limestone cliffs, winding waterways and dry rocky landscape have made it ground zero for some of the deadliest flash floods nationwide. Hill Country’s proximity to the Gulf of Mexico and its ocean moisture have also made it a prime target for drenching thunderstorms.The US Geological Survey calculates that the Guadalupe has experienced noteworthy flash floods almost every decade since the 1930s. In 1998, it recorded a flood that surpassed even 500-year flood projections. Other rivers in Hill Country, including the Pedernales and Blanco, have also seen deadly flash floods.“What makes Kerr county so beautiful, the reason why people want to go there … is literally the reason why it’s so dangerous,” said Tom Di Liberto, a meteorologist who formerly worked at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) and is now with the non-profit Climate Central. “The risk is always there.”View image in fullscreenDuring the 1987 floods, as in 2025, news reports and video footage captured a harrowing scene: the Guadalupe’s surging muddy waters downing 100ft-tall cypress trees, as dead deer and the siding of houses rushed by. Helicopters circling overhead trying to rescue people clinging to the tops of trees, stranded in the middle of the river.Davis said that even though she was just a kid, she remembers the helicopters and army trucks swarming the area. She even took a photo of one of the helicopters above with her Le Clic camera. Camp Capers was up a hill, she said, so the children there were able to shelter in place. But, she said, the mood was tense.“We were told that 10 didn’t make it,” Davis said. “It just became very haunted and eerie. I wanted nothing to do with that river.”View image in fullscreenThe day was marked by a series of awful events. One 14-year-old girl in the Guadalupe grabbed a rope hanging from a helicopter but was unable to hang on long enough and fell to her death. Another girl caught in the river’s waves kept trying to grab a helicopter rope, but lost strength and was swept away. A teenager, John Bankston Jr, worked to save the younger kids when the camp bus stalled, carrying them on his back to dry land. He was in the river when the wall of water hit. Bankston was the only person whose body was never recovered.Moore, the local reporter, said his TV station sent out a helicopter and they helped search for people. “We were flying up and down the river looking for survivors,” Moore said. “Later in the day, John Bankston Sr got in the helicopter and we flew him up and down the river for hours looking for his son.”“I covered a lot of horrific stuff, from the Branch Davidians and earthquakes and hurricanes and Oklahoma City,” said Moore, who is now an author. “And this one has haunted me, just because of the kids.”That year, the Texas water commission’s flood management unit made a dedication to the children who lost their lives in Comfort.“When something like this occurs, we must all look into ourselves to see if we are doing all we can to prevent such a tragic loss of life,” read the dedication, written by Roy Sedwick, then state coordinator for the unit. Sedwick wrote that he was resolved to promote public awareness and flood warnings in Texas, “so that future generations will be safe from the ravages of flash floods”.‘Are we doing enough to warn people?’The National Weather Service’s storm report from the 1987 flood in Comfort paints more unsettling parallels with last week’s tragedy. Up to 11.5in (29cm) of rain fell near the small hamlet of Hunt that day, causing the river to surge 29ft. A massive flood wave emerged and travelled down the Guadalupe to Comfort.During the recent floods in Kerr county, an estimated 12in of rain fell in a matter of hours during another heavy, slow-moving thunderstorm. This time, Hunt was the hardest hit, with the Guadalupe River again rising dozens of feet and setting a record-high crest of at least 37.5ft at its peak, according to the US Geological Survey. Many people along the river were given little to no warning.View image in fullscreenThe National Weather Service issued 22 alerts through the night and into the next day. But in the rural area, where cell service can be spotty, many residents said they didn’t get the alerts or they came too late, after the flash flood hit. No alerts were sent by Kerr county’s local government officials.Other parts of Hill Country, such as in Comal county and on the Pedernales River, have siren systems. When high flood waters trigger the system, they blare “air raid” sirens giving notice to evacuate and get to high ground.In Comfort, the 1987 tragedy still casts a shadow over the town. But on 4 July, the hamlet avoided much of the disaster that hit neighboring communities. Comfort recently worked to scrape together enough money to expand its own emergency warning system and installed sirens that are set off during floods. Over the last year, the volunteer fire department sounded the alarm every day at noon, so residents could learn to recognize the long flat tone.So, when the raging Guadalupe waters once again rushed toward Comfort over the holiday weekend, sirens echoed throughout the town. This time, the volunteer fire department confirmed, all residents evacuated in time and there was no loss of life.View image in fullscreenKerr county, meanwhile, had been looking at installing a flood siren system for the past decade. But the plan got mired in political infighting and ultimately stalled when the county was presented with a $1m price tag. Earlier this year, state lawmakers introduced a house bill to fund early warning systems across Texas that could have included siren towers along the Guadalupe. And even though the bill overwhelmingly passed in the house, it died in the senate. In the aftermath of the 4 July catastrophe, the state says it will now fund such a system.While it’s impossible to say whether such a warning system would have changed the outcome, given the vast expanse of Kerr county, experts say these types of weather events are going to keep happening and intensifying, so communities need to be prepared.“This is a conversation for the entire country when it comes to areas that are prone to flash floods,” said the meteorologist Di Liberto. “Are we doing enough as a society to warn people?” More

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      in US Politics

      Monday briefing: The ‘toxic cocktail’ of climate denial, federal cuts and the Texas floods

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      Good morning. The death toll from the catastrophic floods in Texas has climbed to 129, including at least 27 children and counsellors at Camp Mystic in Kerr County.With more than 160 people still missing, authorities warn that the number of casualties is likely to rise. On Sunday morning, some search operations were cancelled as heavy rain and strong winds battered the state once again.The flash floods, which swept through large parts of central Texas, are being described as one of the worst natural disasters in the state’s history. At Camp Mystic, rain gauges recorded 6.5in (16.5cm) of rainfall in just 180 minutes.In addition to the human cost, the floods have caused widespread destruction. According to a preliminary estimate by private forecaster AccuWeather, the economic toll could range from $18bn to $22bn (£13.2bn to £16.2bn).The floods struck as the climate crisis worsens, and as the Trump administration’s hollowing out of federal agencies has left critical services such as the National Weather Service under severe strain. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is also facing continued threats of defunding.Yet, despite the scale of devastation, there has been little public reckoning over climate breakdown or the erosion of essential public services. Instead, conspiracy theories have abounded.To understand how this catastrophe unfolded and the political response to it, I spoke to Oliver Milman, the Guardian US environment reporter. That’s after the headlines.Five big stories

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      In depth: What we know so farView image in fullscreenThe devastating floods began in the early hours of 4 July, Independence Day in the US. Oliver Milman told me that what started out as a seemingly small storm stalled in an area where two rivers in central Texas meet, and dumped an enormous amount of rain.“It caused the river to burst its banks, swept away homes, cars, flooded rivers and, most tragically, caught up on Camp Mystic,” Oliver said. “There’s still hope that some people could be rescued, but it’s certainly going to be one of the biggest, deadliest natural disasters in recent US history.”Oliver said there are several factors that could explain why this flood was so devastating. We also get into the responses from elected officials and other players.How much of this is down to the climate crisis?As the planet gets hotter, mostly because of humans burning fossil fuels, the atmosphere is able to hold more moisture. One meteorologist told Oliver that the Earth’s atmosphere is now like a giant sponge.“You’ve got more moisture in the atmosphere, and more energy because it’s getting hotter, and therefore you’re getting more of these extreme precipitation events happening in several places around the world, including parts of the eastern US. But the western half of the US seems to be getting more drought,” Oliver said. “So, very crudely speaking, half the country’s not getting enough rain, and the other half is getting too much in these intense downpours.”He pointed to some interesting statistics from the Environment Protection Agency: of the 10 heaviest precipitation single-day events in US history going back to 1910, nine have happened since 1995. “We’re clearly getting more and more of these events. There’s been research done showing they’re becoming more common in Texas and will continue to as the world heats up,” Oliver added.The geography of central Texas also made the floods more catastrophic. “It’s hilly and has these canyons, lots of rivers, and not much topsoil. So when rain hits, it flies off the ground very quickly. It’s known as “Flash Flood Alley” in some places, so that was a factor. The rain hit, and the devastation followed.”What impact have Donald Trump’s cuts had?The other factor, which Oliver likened to a toxic cocktail, is the political situation in the US.“The Trump administration has essentially tried to gut the federal workforce: firing scientists, firing weather forecasters, trying to eliminate large sections of the scientific agencies that deal with climate change. So you had a situation where a lot of National Weather Service offices, which track storms and issue warnings, were critically understaffed,” Oliver explained.Democrats have called for an investigation into whether the sweeping cuts introduced by the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), once led by Elon Musk, played any role in the disaster. The Trump administration has dismissed any suggestion that its policies had an impact.“The Trump administration has pushed back quite hard and said this was an act of God, there were adequate resources, and so on,” Oliver said. Yet, understaffing was an issue and there was a disconnect between the meteorologists issuing warnings and the emergency services, he said.“The National Weather Service issued a warning about dangerous flood conditions at 1.14am [on 4 July], but there wasn’t – and it’s still unclear why – coordination with emergency services to evacuate people, to mobilise resources in enough time. A lot of people are pointing fingers at the cuts Trump has made to the coordination services usually handled by the federal government.”And it’s not just Trump that people are focusing on. The week before the floods, Texas senator Ted Cruz, ensured that the “big, beautiful bill”, a Republican spending bill pushed through and signed by Trump on Independence Day, would include particular cuts.“It does a lot of things: cuts the social safety net, people lose health care, gives tax breaks to the wealthy, removes food assistance, guts support for clean energy,” Oliver said. “But one thing it also did was remove a $150m fund to improve weather forecasting at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Cruz personally inserted the language to cut that and then, tragically, just days later this storm hit his home state and killed many people. So there are a lot of questions being asked about his role and whether those cuts played a significant role.”Republicans have largely fallen into line on the Texas floods, lavishing praise on Trump, while avoiding questions around the effect of Doge.Has this moved the dial on the climate emergency?In Texas, the reaction on the ground has been one of disbelief and devastation, Oliver said. “There’s a lot of ‘thoughts and prayers’ rhetoric in Texas right now, a sense of rallying to help those in need. People are mainly stunned rather than immediately pointing fingers, although local officials are raising questions about how much warning they got from the National Weather Service. There are also concerns about the local government’s actions. There had been a plan to install an early-warning flood system along the river, but the idea was ditched because it was considered too expensive. So you’ve got this local angle, too.”Far-right players have descended on central Texas in a stunt they claim is part of a “disaster relief” effort. In a video posted by one group, they say their so-called “activists” are distributing supplies to survivors, but make clear that they are prioritising “their people” and “European peoples” in those operations.As is now common when disaster strikes, conspiracy theories are being spread, Oliver said, by rightwing influencers and elected representatives such as Marjorie Taylor Greene. “They have questioned the cause [of the flood], whether it’s weather modification, cloud seeding, some nefarious machine. There’s this irony: we are modifying the weather – it’s called climate change. But it’s not the kind of weather modification they’re talking about.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOliver isn’t surprised by this reaction. “People are now able to live in their own realities, sealed off from facts,” he said. “Whatever people believed before the storm, the storm just reinforced it. That’s become a recurring theme, not just in disasters but in politics more broadly. People are very entrenched here. I know that’s also an issue in the UK and Europe, but in the US things feel paralysed. I don’t know if this will move anyone’s opinion.”What else we’ve been readingView image in fullscreen

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      in Elections

      Texas Court Seals Records in Ken Paxton’s Divorce Case

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      The order meant details in the case, which involves allegations of adultery, would not be public as the Texas attorney general challenges Senator John Cornyn in the 2026 primary.A state court on Friday ordered records in the divorce of Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas to be sealed, a day after his wife, State Senator Angela Paxton, filed a petition that accused Mr. Paxton of adultery.The order to seal the records in the case, in the 429th District Court in Collin County, north of Dallas, came after a request from Mrs. Paxton’s lawyer. This means that further details of the high-profile split would not be available to the public in a case that could significantly affect the race for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas.Mr. Paxton, a firebrand conservative who is popular among Republican voters, is challenging Senator John Cornyn in the Republican primary in 2026. Mr. Paxton has been leading in public polling.In a statement on Thursday, Mrs. Paxton said that she had filed for divorce “on biblical grounds” and “in light of recent discoveries,” suggesting that new events in their relationship had prompted her decision. The divorce petition said that the couple had not been living together since June 2024 and that the grounds for divorce included that Mr. Paxton “has committed adultery.”Mr. Paxton said the couple’s relationship was strained by the pressures of public life and “countless political attacks” in his own statement on Thursday. He asked for privacy.The divorce announcement came as a shock in Texas. Mrs. Paxton had remained at her husband’s side through years of criminal investigations, a state court indictment for securities fraud and an impeachment at the State Capitol in which Mr. Paxton was accused of abusing his office by doing favors for a real estate investor who helped him conceal an extramarital affair.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More