Texas Republicans have voted to track down and arrest the more than 50 Democratic legislators who fled the state to prevent a vote on a controversial redistricting plan that would significantly favour conservatives.

The vote passed by 85 to 6, and came after Republican Gov Greg Abbott threatened bribery charges against the absent Democrats.

After the vote, the governor ordered state troopers to "to locate, arrest, and return to the House chamber any member who has abandoned their duty to Texans".

The proposed congressional map, unveiled last week by Republicans, would create more Republican seats in the US House of Representatives in Washington DC where they hold a slim majority currently.

At least two-thirds of the 150-member state legislative body must be present to proceed with the vote. The quorum became unreachable after more than 50 Democratic lawmakers left the state.

Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows told reporters after the vote that he had "signed the civil arrest warrants" for the Democrats.

Most of the Democrats fled to Illinois where the state's Governor JB Pritzker said he was "going to do everything we can to protect every single one of them" amid arrest threats from Abbott.

The Democrats said they planned to stay away from Texas for two weeks until the end of a special legislative session.

"We will do whatever it takes. What that looks like, we don't know," said Gene Wu, the Texas House Democratic Caucus leader.

The vote on Monday is mostly symbolic, according to the Texas Tribune, as the warrants only apply within state lines.

The move empowers the chamber's sergeant-at-arms and state troopers to arrest the absent lawmakers and deliver them to the state capitol building in Austin.

They would not face any civil or criminal charges as a result of the warrant, the newspaper reports.

Republican Governor Greg Abbott warned earlier that lawmakers who refuse to return to vote on the map could face second-degree felony charges.

"It would be bribery if any lawmaker took money to perform or to refuse to perform an act in the legislature," Abbott said on Fox News on Monday. "And the reports are these legislators have both sought money and offered money to skip the vote, to leave the legislature, to take a legislative act. That would be bribery."

After legislators voted to issue warrants against the Democrats, Abbott issued a statement ordering the Texas Department of Public Safety "to locate, arrest, and return to the House chamber any member who has abandoned their duty to Texans".

He added that his order will remain in effect "until all missing Democrat House members are accounted for and brought to the Texas Capitol".

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, had also threatened to have the Democratic leaders arrested.

Paxton, who is currently running for the US Senate, wrote on X that the state should "use every tool at our disposal to hunt down those who think they are above the law".

At the federal level in Washington, Texas Republicans currently hold 25 out of the state's 38 congressional seats.

They hope the new maps could increase that number to 30 - all in constituencies that President Donald Trump won last November by at least 10 points.

Trump's party currently has 219 of 435 seats in the US House of Representatives, while Democrats hold 212. The redistricting could help pad the slender Republican majority in the House, which is the lower chamber of Congress.

Both Republicans and Democrats have been accused of manipulating boundaries of an electoral constituency - commonly known as gerrymandering.

A few Democratic leaders in other states have suggested they may redraw their own legislative maps to counter the proposed losses of seats in Texas.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul said she was exploring a constitutional amendment to move up the timeline to redraw legislative lines in her state.

New York - along with California, Colorado and Washington - assigns redistricting to non-partisan, independent commissions, rather than the state legislatures.

States typically undergo redistricting every 10 years, when voting maps are redrawn to account for population changes.

The most recent US Census was in 2020. Redrawing district lines in the middle of a decade is unusual.