On Monday, Texas Democrats returned to Austin to participate in the Trump-ordered special legislative session that will redraw the state’s congressional map in an effort to hand Republicans five more House seats. There’s no fig leaf here, no pretense of any interest in democratic principles, just a naked power play. As President Trump put it, “I got the highest vote in the history of Texas, as you probably know, and we are entitled to five more seats.”
In other words, Republicans are trying to do to the House of Representatives what they’ve already done to the Supreme Court: bend the rules, stack the deck, and ensure themselves a permanent majority. And they are succeeding. The new congressional map has already passed the Texas House.
That’s why the Democratic reaction to this is so inexplicable.
Texas Democrats had found a way to exert actual hard power in a very red state by denying Republicans a quorum — Texas law requires two-thirds of the legislators be present in the chamber to conduct business. When Gov. Greg Abbott called a special legislative session to push through a redistricting plan that would give Trump the five extra seats to which he says he is “entitled,” Democrats left the state and blocked the special session from conducting any business at all.
This infuriated Republicans. Abbott promised to keep holding special sessions until Democrats came back, threatened to charge them with felonies, and ordered that they be arrested and physically delivered to the chamber, despite the fact that refusing to attend a legislative session is not a crime. Sen. John Cornyn even asked the FBI to help track Democrats down and return them to Texas.
All of this was unnecessary. After holding out for just two weeks, Texas Democrats voluntarily returned to help Republicans subvert democracy while patting themselves on the back for their bravery.
“Texas House Democrats broke quorum and successfully mobilized the nation against Trump’s assault on minority voting rights,” proclaimed Texas House Democrat Gene Wu. “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.”
I can’t believe how utterly unsuited Democrats are to the present moment. In the Texas redistricting fight, they had found a way to exercise real power. And now they are throwing that leverage away and letting Trump’s naked power grab go forward.
Why? Because winning would be hard. As Texas House Democrat Vince Perez explained, “In order for us to block this, we would probably have to quorum break through Thanksgiving. That’s a difficult thing to achieve.”
But there is more at risk here than Perez’s holiday plans. The single best way to give American democracy a fighting chance is to remove any temptation for an electoral coup in the next presidential election by ensuring that Democrats control the House on Jan. 6, 2029. If you aren’t willing to spend a few months in Illinois to achieve that, you’re in the wrong job.
We need to be cold-blooded and clear-eyed about what is at stake. For the next three-and-half years, our sole purpose is to preserve enough of American democracy that it can eventually be restored without violence. If we fail, the American political system will tear itself apart.
Think I’m exaggerating? It’s already begun.
Coercion and threats of violence are now an accepted political tactic — in America. When Democrats returned to the Texas legislature, they were forcibly detained in the chamber, and not allowed to return home unless they voluntarily placed themselves under the physical custody of the Texas Department of Public Safety. One legislator who refused to sign the paperwork was not allowed to leave the chamber overnight and was threatened with a felony for speaking to the Democratic National Committee on the phone.
There is a time for gesture politics and singing folk songs. This is not it. This is a time for results. Norms are great things when everyone follows them but only a fool plays by unwritten rules when no one else does. Democrats must accept that fighting for American democracy isn’t going to be easy and it isn’t going to be cheap. It will take them outside of their comfort zones. It may cost some people their careers and even their liberty. In generations past, that would have been thought a small price to pay. What will future generations say of us?
Chris Truax is an appellate attorney who served as Southern California chair for John McCain’s primary campaign in 2008.
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