Everything about Democrats fleeing Texas over redistricting is a mistake | Opinion
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Texas Democrats fled to delay redistricting but lost political leverage at home.
- The quorum break means they’ll bear the blame for a lack of flood response legislation.
- Voters view redistricting as partisan routine, not a trigger for civic mobilization.
Texas Democrats are in a no-win situation. That doesn’t mean, however, that they have to lose quite so badly.
With almost no legislative leverage to stop Republicans from drawing new congressional maps, Democratic state House members fled Sunday to Chicago and other blue havens. They will at best delay the inevitable.
Republicans, nudged by President Donald Trump, are determined to redraw the very congressional districts they created four years ago. They enjoy a 25-13 edge in the state’s U.S. House delegation. But the GOP hold on the House overall is thinner than a celebrity on Ozempic, and Trump does not want to see his final two years in office thwarted (and investigated) by a Democratic majority. So, he demands creative cartography to forge five more districts likely to elect Republicans.
Texas Republicans are happy to help, even if it means using outdated population data, wiping out Black and Hispanic lawmakers and, worst of all, doing it in the middle of the decade, absent a court order. It opens the door to what one Trump confidant reportedly told The New York Times has arrived: “maximum-warfare” politics, with ever-changing maps as a chief weapon.
It’s so egregious, Democrats say, they had to leave the state to prevent a House quorum and thus a vote Monday on the new maps. Here’s the problem: It’s super-important to them as politicians, to their amped-up base voters and donors, and to the national party. And just about no one else cares.
Schlepping to Chicago, Boston and Albany, New York, will probably grind the gears in Austin enough to force a second special session, assuming the lawmakers can afford to stay there.
It will cost them, though. Democrats have lost the moral high ground when it comes to the other important business of the state. Texas must respond to the failures of the Hill Country floods, but the quorum break prevents that, too. Had they stayed, they could have railed against Republicans prioritizing the congressional power play before passing a single bill to help flood victims or prevent future tragedies. Now, they bear the blame.
Texas Democrats choose to fight gerrymandering from ... Illinois?
Then, there are the terrible optics. Going to Chicago means standing in one of the few places that can compete with California as a demonstration of failed progressivism. Crime and disastrous schools, paired with Illinois’ high taxes and legendary corruption, have seen the state’s population stagnate. Chicago itself is smaller than it has been in the last 100 years.
Texas Democrats are fleeing to a place productive Americans are scrambling to escape. Bold strategy, Cotton.
But at least they’re going to a state where the process of drawing congressional districts is pristine and motivated only by good governance and community interests, right?
Oops. Turns out the ruling party in Illinois, like so many other states over so many decades, does gerrymandering, too! Kamala Harris won nearly 55% of the state’s presidential vote last year. Thanks to a convoluted map, Democrats hold 14 of the state’s 17 House seats; that’s 82%.
No one outside of their own blinkered cheering section is buying Texas Democrats’ rhetoric about saving the nation. It’s about saving Democratic seats.
“Our democracy is being stolen right in front of our faces,” San Antonio Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer said upon landing in Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s welcoming arms. If that’s right, Martinez Fischer is in the capital of political crime.
Voters inherently understand that this is part of politics, even if it’s ugly. They aren’t surprised or revolted. A few people care a lot, and most others not at all.
Most voters do not follow the mechanics of politics. Many couldn’t name their representative, let alone offer conjecture about how fairly their district is drawn. And absolutely no one will vote for or against someone, or change their mind about whether to cast a ballot, based on redistricting.
Redistricting is about power and politics — most voters don’t care
Americans, in their inherent wisdom, assume that some things in politics are about raw power and that politicians will try to channel such processes in their favor. Everyone does it, and it would be weird if they didn’t. Unless you treat politics as a spectator sport or religion — which far, far too many partisan warriors do — you base your vote on things like peace and prosperity.
But skipping out on work? Breaking the rules to get your way? That’s beyond the pale for many. Again, not enough to vote based on it, but definitely enough to roll their eyes and tune out the overwrought messages about the end of democracy.
In Texas, anyone old enough to remember landlines and VCRs has seen Democrats do this three times in less than a quarter-century. At this point, it’s not just ineffective — it’s trite.
Republicans could still blow this, of course. State troopers have been authorized to search for missing House members if they remain in Texas and to bring them back to the capital. Gov. Greg Abbott says the state may seek to declare Democrats’ seats vacant and hold new elections. That’s banana-republic stuff.
Consider, though, that Martinez Fischer followed his hand-wringing about democracy with the real point: “If it takes Texas Democrats to walk out and wake up the nation, that’s what we’re going to do. Democrats need to start acting like Democrats and fight back.”
In other words, in a “maximum warfare” political world, true believers on both sides demand that their soldiers fight, fight, fight. That’s why Democrats are in Chicago.
The rest of us are thinking about back-to-school, the weather and how many days until the NFL season kicks off.
Ryan Rusak is opinion editor for McClatchy’s Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Editor’s note: Updated Tuesday morning to reflect warrants issued for missing House members.
This story was originally published August 4, 2025 at 2:10 PM with the headline "Everything about Democrats fleeing Texas over redistricting is a mistake | Opinion."
