“We have woken the nation up,” said Demoncratic state Rep. Mihaela Plesa, who was among at least 54 Democrats who left the state to keep House Republicans from having the quorum needed to conduct business. “They realize that the power is in their hands. The power of the people is stronger than the people in power, and the nation is recognizing that.”
Just how effective Texas Democrats were in combating the GOP-driven redistricting plan is still unfolding. The Texas House on Wednesday approved the plan.
House Democrats leaving Texas for Illinois to stall the bill that would redraw congressional boundaries was national news, and it compelled Democrats in other states, most notably California, to devise their own redistricting plans to thwart President Donald Trump’s request to get more congressional seats from red states. Trump wants to increase the GOP’s chances to blunt any gains from Democrats in the midterm elections, which generally trend against the sitting president’s party and could threaten the GOP’s razor-thin margins in the House and Senate.
Though Trump could fail to insulate his majority, his efforts to do so could have significant impacts in places like Texas. Republicans are expected to push through their controversial redistricting plan within days, leaving Texas Democrats at risk of losing five congressional seats in the 2026 midterm elections.
Countering redistricting efforts in Texas won’t be easy for Democrats in other states. California’s crafting of legislative boundaries is handled by an independent commission, and changing the law to allow partisan gerrymandering must be approved by referendum. That’s always a tricky proposition with the state’s sometimes unpredictable electorate.
“I totally agree that they rallied national support and were able to direct some of the change that’s happening in other states, but the cost is high in Texas and underneath the pink dome,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston. “They haven’t slowed the process of producing the maps enough to make substantial changes, and it’s going to be hard for Democrats to have any kind of retraction in the rest of the special session, maybe forever.”
There are other factors, however, that went into the House Democrats’ decision to return to Austin.
Democratic strategist Matt Angle said the timing of their return was strategic. They knew a lengthy quorum break was unlikely, and would potentially get in the way of swift legal action, he said.
Democrats hope to get any maps approved by the Legislature struck down by courts before the 2026 election is set.
“The Democrats not only demonstrated passion and courage, they have also been smart and strategic at each stage of this fight,” Angle said. “They wisely returned in time to build the legal record against an overtly discriminatory map in time to get a ruling from the court blocking its use.”
Angle said some voting rights cases in Texas have taken too long to wind through the legal process. A trial for the lawsuit challenging the 2021 redistricting process began this spring, long after the 2021 legislative boundaries were put in place.
“Republicans have gotten away with adopting horrible racial gerrymanders and having them used in election after election before a court ruled on the legality,” Angle said. “Democrats are now acting to try and prevent a repeat of the Republicans’ discriminate and delay tactic.”
Democrative state Rep. Ramon Romero said much of the fight is moving to a federal courtroom.
“I did not stay longer because I believe that there is going to be a day in court,” Romero said. “We know that these are racist maps. We know that they dilute minority populations. They take away that voice that we deserve. So therefore I am back so that they can try to prove why these maps aren’t racist.”
Republicans say Democrats are falling back on talking points, not results. And they are ridiculing Democrats for staying away from Austin for two weeks — which they say is hardly a courageous stand.
“It’s as audacious a lie as saying Custer won the battle at Little Big Horn,” said Dave Carney, who is Gov. Greg Abbott’s chief political consultant. “They lost. It’s all hollow performance theater. They have no willingness to back up their talk. If this is really about democracy, it should have been worth more than a two-week fight. Either they were lying about what’s at stake, or they were unwilling to put it all on the line. Why are they back?”
House Democrats say Republicans are on a power grab that’s diverting the attention of the Legislature away from important issues, including the response to the Independence Day floods in the Hill Country.
Republicans pushed redrawing congressional boundaries before working on flood response legislation, Democrats point out.
“The path forward is to put the people of Texas first and put Donald Trump’s political power grabs to the wayside,” Plesa said. “We are here to make sure that the students of Texas have what they need, whether that’s doing away with the STAAR test, whether we’re working on property taxes, whether we’re talking about flood relief.”
State Rep. Matt Shaheen, R-Prosper, said the Legislature will handle all of its business, including redistricting. He said the quorum break was an epic failure.
“Those maps are going to pass and now ... the voters are going to be reminded of how they abandoned their constituents, betrayed the state of Texas, when Texas most needed them,” Shaheen said. “And when they run for reelection, their Republican opponents are going to remind voters of that.”
Democratic state Rep. Gene Wu, and chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, disagreed, saying Democrats achieved their goals.
“The quorum break was beyond our wildest dreams,” Wu said. “Would you be talking about redistricting, about gerrymandering, about racial discrimination, about trying to cheat the public if we did not do this?”
Origins of the Fight
Changing the state’s congressional boundaries wasn’t an issue until Trump signaled he wanted Texas and other states to pursue mid-decade redistricting.
Abbott added redistricting to a special session agenda after the Department of Justice sent a letter to him and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton stating that four districts, including Fort Worth Democrat Marc Veasey’s, violate the law because they were drawn with illegal nonwhite coalitions.
Republicans, including Paxton, have said publicly and in court documents that the districts did not violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Abbott has denied that his reason for making redistricting a priority was to please Trump, telling CNN he became interested in changing congressional boundaries after a federal court ruled last year that “coalition districts” were illegal.
“This is something that I’ve been interested in for a long time,” Abbott said. “We wanted to remove those coalition districts and draw them in ways that, in fact, turned out to provide more seats for Hispanics.”
Democrats have scoffed at Abbott’s remarks.
“As I’ve said before, Abbott is Donald Trump’s private dancer,” said Texas Democratic Party Chairman Kendall Scudder.
Though there was disagreement within the caucus on how long to maintain the quorum break, publicly the Democrats spoke in one voice.
A goal before returning to Austin included convincing California and other states to counter Trump and create a national conversation on redistricting, Democrats said.
“We were prepared to be out for weeks, if not months, to do this, but we never expected the American public to come in with such amazing support and for other states to step up so quickly,” Wu said. “I would challenge you to find somebody who doesn’t know what redistricting is today.”
“Our efforts led to California launching its own redistricting response to cancel out the Trump/Abbott Texas map,” said Democratic state Rep. Chris Turner. “A small group of us first discussed this with Governor Gavin Newsom in Sacramento less than four weeks ago — and I thank Governor Newsom for his decisive counter-offensive.”
Turner pointed out that the GOP governor of New Hampshire has rejected mid-decade redistricting for that state. “These are clear wins with nationwide implications,” Turner said. “Now, our attention must return to the racially discriminatory map Texas Republicans are hell-bent on passing. Voting rights experts have been clear that the sooner this illegal map is out of the Legislature and challenged in federal court, the better the odds of derailing it in time for 2026. We return to Austin determined to continue this fight on the House floor, in court and in next year’s elections.”
Do Voters Care?
While the messaging from Democrats about redistricting rallied the party faithful, it could be a dud of an issue in next year’s midterm elections. Few voters, analysts say, care about redistricting. And Democrats are trying to rebound from the 2024 elections, when Trump and Republicans benefited by campaigning on economic and kitchen table issues, as well as border security.
“Procedural matters don’t move voters. They care about their pocketbooks,” Rottinghaus said. “The ethos was that after the 2024 elections they were going to really make sure they were going to focus on what voters cared about. But here they are, fighting about something that only the most partisan voters care about, and only a fringe kind of politically connected people are really paying attention to.”
Scudder, the Democratic Party leader, said Democrats would not lose focus on what was important to Texas voters.
“The No. 1 thing we are focused on in terms of issues is how do we make life better for people who work for a living? How do we make your life more affordable? How do we make your schools better? How do we make sure you go see a doctor whenever you’re sick?” Scudder said.
Texas Republican Party Chairman Abraham George said the scuffle over redistricting united the Texas GOP. If that issue helps anyone, it’s Republicans, George said.
“They gave us a lot of tools,” George said. “We’re not only going to pass the maps, we also get to have this talking point for the next election cycle. We’re going to tell voters, ‘Look at what they did. They need to be replaced.’”
Democrats hope the quorum break is popular with voters. Often, big news events create new stars.
“Did any heroes for Texas Democrats emerge because of this?” Rottinghaus asked. “We saw national heroes emerge. Newsom and Pritzker are seen as national figures now, but most Texas Democrats were kind of pawns in this bigger game, and that’s the issue I think you have to confront.”
One familiar name could have gotten a boost.
A new poll by Texas Southern University shows Beto O’Rourke leading Colin Allred in a potential primary race for the U.S. Senate by 20 percentage points.
O’Rourke was ubiquitous at rallies supporting the quorum-breaking Democrats and contributed $1 million to their cause through his group, Powered by People. Paxton is suing Powered by People and he threatened to jail O’Rourke over assisting House Democrats.
After the quorum break, House Democrats and their supporters rallied around Democratic state Rep. Nicole Collier, who was confined to House chambers and slept at her desk Tuesday night after refusing to have a state law enforcement officer shadow her if she left Capitol grounds. Her sit-in caught the attention of Democrats across the country and she received a telephone call of support from former Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I’m so grateful for their support,” Collier said. “There has been a crowd out here all demanding my release, and they’re doing what they can to show their resistance.”
Quorum breaks are often remembered by the political class, but quickly fade from the headlines.
Democrats hope this one has a bigger splash, though other fights with Trump could be on the horizon.
“The Democrats got what they wanted, a platform to take on Trump and a strong talking point,” Rottinghaus said. “It might not be the last, and it may not be enough. That is to say there are so many more policy issues that will come up between now and then, and there’ll be so many more ways that the Trump administration may do battle with Democrats. This could be just one bump in that process.”
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