Texas House Democrats fled the state to block a GOP-favored congressional map. Here’s what Bexar County’s Democratic House members are saying.
SAN ANTONIO — Texas Democratic lawmakers fled the state Sunday in a bid to block passage of a new congressional map designed to give the GOP five additional seats in the U.S. House next year, raising the stakes in what’s poised to be a national fight over redistricting ahead of next year’s midterm election.
The maneuver, undertaken by most of the Texas House’s 62 Democrats, deprives the Republican-controlled chamber of a quorum — the number of lawmakers needed to function under House rules — ahead of a scheduled Monday vote on the draft map.
The 150-member House can only conduct business if at least 100 members are present, meaning the absence of 51 or more Democrats can bring the Legislature’s ongoing special session to a halt.
In a statement, Rep. Gene Wu, chair of the House Democratic Caucus accused Gov. Greg Abbott of “using an intentionally racist map to steal the voices of millions of Black and Latino Texans, all to execute a corrupt political deal.”
“The tool they’re using is a racist gerrymandered map. A map that seeks to use racial lines to divide hardworking communities who have spent decades building up their power and strengthening their voices. Governor Abbott is doing this in submission to Donald Trump,” he said at a press conference Sunday night when the delegation landed in Chicago.
There are just over two weeks left of the Texas Legislature’s special session, during which Abbott has also asked lawmakers to take up measures responding to the deadly July 4 Hill Country floods, stiffer regulations for consumable hemp, and contentious GOP priorities such as cracking down on abortion pills and the bathrooms transgender people can use. The prospects for those items, along with the new redistricting maps, were immediately thrown in doubt by the Democrats’ departure.
‘We need everybody on deck,’ Democrats say
State Rep. Josey Garcia, who represents San Antonio’s far west side, said this is a Texas issue that is “soon to be an American issue.”
Garcia, the first woman and active-duty veteran to serve in the Texas House, joined more than 50 of her Democratic colleagues on Sunday as they departed from Texas.
Garcia shared a video statement asking Texans to join lawmakers in their fight against what she called an attempt to erase seats that represent Black and Latino communities.
“Texans spoke up unanimously, from Republicans and Democrats, to conservative Christians or Muslims,” Garcia said. “They all spoke up in unity and asked for us to stop this power grab of a gerrymandering act to express five more Republican seats for Donald Trump.”
In her statement, Garcia said this issue doesn’t end with Texas.
“What’s happening here in Texas is going to spread across the nation. We’ve already seen it occur in North Carolina, and Texas Democrats won’t stand for it,” she said.
State Rep. Ray Lopez who serves House District 125, encompassing most of San Antonio’s west and northwest sides, said in a statement on Sunday that breaking the quorum is about protecting democracy across the country.
“We’re being strong-armed by the governor and the president into a mid-decade redistricting scheme designed to lock in political power by silencing millions of voters,” said Lopez. “It’s a blatant abuse of process especially when this Governor refused to call special sessions after tragedies like Uvalde, Hurricane Harvey or the deadly power grid failure during Winter Storm Uri.”
Trey Martinez Fischer, who represents House District 116 in San Antonio, appeared in Illinois on Sunday night to talk about what he says is at stake.
“This quorum break is not about the Democratic Party. It’s about the democratic process,” he said. “Republicans are stealing our democracy right before our very eyes. We have a message for Donald Trump: Not on our watch.”
Republicans plan response to Democrats’ exit
Democrats have excoriated the mid-decade redistricting plan — which was demanded by President Donald Trump ahead of a potentially difficult midterm election for Republicans — as a political power grab that would unconstitutionally suppress the votes of people of color.
But locked out of power in the Legislature, Democrats have few tools at their disposal to fight the effort, even as they promised to delay the map’s adoption and to use that extra time to educate Texans on what they framed as an attack on democracy.
RELATED: Can lawmakers legally flee the state? Here’s what we know about Texas law on quorum-breaking
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wrote on social media Sunday that Democrats “who try and run away like cowards should be found, arrested, and brought back to the Capitol immediately.”
Other Republicans called for House Speaker Dustin Burrows to take aggressive action against members who are not present when the chamber gavels in Monday at 3 p.m.
The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.