House Democratic Caucus chair Rep. Gene Wu said Democrats are prepared to return to Texas and ‘take this fight to the courts.’
By Karen Brooks Harper and Aarón Torr
Paul Beaty / AP
AUSTIN — Texas House Democrats signaled Thursday they will likely return to the state for a second special session on redistricting and “take this fight to the courts” after the Legislature adjourns the current session on Friday as planned.
The move comes as California starts its own efforts to redraw congressional districts to send more Democrats to Washington and offset the effort in Texas — driven by President Donald Trump — to cement a Republican majority in Congress during next year’s midterms.
“Texas House Democrats broke quorum and successfully mobilized the nation against Trump’s assault on minority voting rights,” said Texas House Democratic Caucus chair Rep. Gene Wu of Houston. “Now, as Democrats across the nation join our fight to cause these maps to fail their political purpose, we’re prepared to bring this battle back to Texas under the right conditions and to take this fight to the courts.”
His comments appear to reference previous redistricting battles in which new maps were immediately stalled by lawsuits, with significant portions of them occasionally found to be unconstitutional.
Aside from California’s redistricting effort, House Democrats said in Thursday’s letter they will return if House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, adjourns sine die, ending the first legislative session. Burrows indicated Tuesday he would adjourn the House on Friday if a quorum isn’t reached.
Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesman for Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement that the Democrats “fundamentally” misunderstand Texans.
“Texans don’t attach ‘demands’ to doing their jobs or run from a fight; they roll up their sleeves and get to work,” Mahaleris said. “If the Democrats were serious about delivering results for the Texans they abandoned, they would return to Austin immediately.”
Spokespeople for Burrows did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the demands Thursday afternoon.
Rep. Jeff Leach, an Allen Republican who supports the redistricting effort, said Thursday he welcomed similar efforts in any state and would ask for even more out of this next session.
“Every state can and should consider Congressional redistricting to more accurately reflect the electorate,” Leach posted on X. “In addition to Congressional Redistricting, Texas House & Senate Redistricting should be added to the call of the Second Special Session.”
More than 50 Democrats left the state on Aug. 4 in a quorum-breaking move to stop congressional redistricting by stalling official business in the House. The proposed map, which has overwhelming support among the Republican state lawmakers in both the House and Senate, seeks to shift five Texas seats in Congress to Republican from Democrat.
The Democrats who left Texas have since been the target of fines, attempts to remove them from office, arrest warrants, lawsuits and threats from Austin to Washington to involve the Federal Bureau of Investigation to force them back home.
Abbott said this week that the current special session — which can last until next Tuesday — would end early if Democrats weren’t back by Friday and that he would immediately call lawmakers into “special session after special session” until the new map landed on his desk.
While the House gaveled in and out of floor sessions lasting less than 10 minutes, the Senate stacked up legislation on issues ranging from flood relief funds and disaster response equipment to criminalizing the abortion pill and doing away with mandatory STAAR testing at public schools.
The July 4 floods in the Texas Hill Country killed at least 137 people. The damage was most severe in Kerr County, where 27 children and counselors were killed at Camp Mystic.
None of the legislation could go anywhere until the Democrats return — a point the absent members tried to use in their favor as they vowed to stay out of state until redistricting was placed behind flood relief and other priorities.
Karen Brooks Harper is a Mizzou alumna who has covered Texas politics in and out of Austin for nearly 30 years. She’s also covered the cartel wars along the TX-MX border, Congress in Mexico City, 3 presidential races, and 6 hurricanes. Raised on blues in the MS Delta, she lives in ATX with her son, her boxing gloves, and her guitar. In that order.
By Aarón Torres
Aarón is an Austin native who previously covered local government for The Kansas City Star and high school sports for the Knoxville News Sentinel. He is a University of Texas graduate, and Spanish is his first language.
This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.
