After weeks of ducking arrest warrants, hiding out in Illinois and Washington, D.C., and denying Republicans the quorum needed to vote, Texas House Democrats are preparing to return to Austin. Their reappearance will hand the GOP exactly what it’s been waiting for: the green light to ram through a new congressional map in time for the upcoming midterms.
The proposed map, which sailed through the Texas Senate earlier this month, has been at the center of a bitter partisan fight. Democrats claim it was drawn to dilute the voting power of certain demographic groups. Republicans counter that it’s a lawful redrawing based on the latest census and that Democrats are ignoring the fact that blue states like Illinois and New York have done the same — just in their own favor.
Governor Greg Abbott, who vowed to call special sessions until the bill passed, now looks poised to get his wish. House Speaker Dustin Burrows has said the chamber is ready to move the moment a quorum is reached.
For weeks, the House floor has looked like a ghost town. On Tuesday, only 95 members were present — short of the 100 needed to conduct business. In the meantime, the standoff made national headlines, with Democrats courting media attention and Republicans issuing civil arrest warrants for absent lawmakers. Reports even surfaced of the FBI assisting state and local authorities in tracking them down.
Now, the once-defiant Democrats are signaling a return. Their stated priority upon getting back? Hill Country flooding relief. But even they admit that their walkout ended the first special session, which was part of their goal. Whether it accomplished anything else is debatable.
The political theater has played out against a backdrop of broader national fights over gerrymandering. In Illinois and New York, Democratic governors JB Pritzker and Kathy Hochul have faced their own scrutiny for pushing aggressively partisan maps. Republicans have seized on that double standard, accusing Texas Democrats of hypocrisy.
With the Texas Senate already giving the map a thumbs-up, the House vote is essentially a formality once members are back. The GOP holds the numbers to pass it without a hitch, and Abbott is expected to sign it immediately.
When that happens, the new congressional boundaries will be locked in ahead of the next election cycle, ending one of the most dramatic legislative standoffs in recent Texas history.
What began as a high-profile act of political defiance now appears set to end in the same building where it started — with Republicans getting exactly what they wanted.
