Texas Dems’ Bold Move

Call me a biased Texan, but I just have to kick off this week’s newsletter with the GOP gerrymandering power-grab in my home state, Texas Dems’ bold response, and what all this means for the authoritarian moment we’re muddling through together. Let’s get to it.

You launch a power-grab when you fear your voters. Last month, Trump signed into law the most regressive and least popular bill in modern American history which, among other things, cut emergency response services nationwide. That same day, a massive flood hit central Texas, and both the local warning system and the state/federal response were so horrifically inadequate that more than 130 Texans — including 37 children — died.

(Before you click that link, a warning: I don’t often shed tears writing these newsletter intros, but I had to pause to collect myself after reading the obituaries of far too many 8- and 9-year-olds from that camp).

Republicans braced for backlash. If you’re the GOP, one reasonable response to voter anger at your right-wing agenda and incompetent governance would be moderation and contrition. An alternative response is to cynically rig the rules ahead of the next election to prevent too many losses. Trump and the Texas Republicans did not choose moderation or contrition.

Instead, Trump told the Texas GOP to take an already-gerrymandered state and gerrymander it more. Texas Republicans heard the order loud and clear, and now they’re expediting a norm-busting mid-decade redistricting scheme that all but guarantees Republicans five more House seats next November. In a state that Trump won with 56% of the vote, Republicans under this map would safely control 80% of the state’s congressional seats.

Right-wing Republicans have run the Texas state legislature for a quarter century. So, in a moment like this, Texas Dems could throw up their hands and plead, “Well, what the hell do you expect us to do?” But instead, they’re fighting back. They’re responding to historic anti-democratic norm-breaking with historic opposition.

Their specific maneuver sounds boring, but it’s badass. It’s called breaking quorum. It works like this: If more than ⅓ of Texas legislators refuse to show up for votes, they freeze all legislative activity.

In all of Texas’ history, legislators have deployed this strategy only four times. This weekend, more than 50 Texas Dems deployed it again. They left the state, and many joined Governor Pritzker in Chicago. No quorum means no new map as long as they hold out.

We don’t know how this will play out. The last two times Dems deployed this tactic, it went on for more than a month before the coalition fractured, a few Dems returned, and the Republicans moved forward with their plans. If these Texas Dems are going to be more successful, they’ll have to hold out longer, stick together, and rally both state and national public opinion to their side.

It’s time to fight back. The fight for justice and democracy against an authoritarian force often starts this way. The options are few. The odds are long. It looks dicey. In moments like this, you need leaders with intense strategic clarity. You need someone like a Texas State Representative James Talarico to say: “We are not fighting for the Democratic Party. We are fighting for the democratic process, and the stakes could not be higher. We have to take a stand.”

When Talarico says “It’s time to fight back,” he’s not just describing the strategic logic of his own actions. He’s calling out those on the sidelines to join this righteous fight.

And now some elected Dems are cheering on the Texas Dem legislators and proposing blue state Dems use their power to pass their own new maps. Fight fire with fire! This is what “courage is contagious” looks like in real life.

I’m with Talarico, the Lone Star Indivisible Team, the local Indivisible groups, and the rest of the fight-back faction of the Party. I think the only real path forward is the courageous path. And I think we need more leaders who understand what this moment demands of us.

If you’re there with me, I hope you get into the fight with this week’s action items.

In solidarity,
Ezra Levin
Co-Executive Director, Indivisible