Democrats’ shotgun approach to opposing redistricting could paint them in a corner

AUSTIN, Texas – Fifteen Democratic House members traveled to Illinois and California Friday morning to spread word of Texas’ redistricting effort, while Democratic state senators in Austin mulled the idea of subpoenaing a Department of Justice attorney who wrote the letter prompting the effort.

Democrats in the House held an unofficial redistricting committee meeting Thursday night after Republicans voted to cut testimony short. One Democratic candidate for Congress landed in jail after he allegedly disrupted a Thursday redistricting hearing at the Capitol.

And the nuclear option of breaking quorum – a tactic used in 2003 to halt a mid-decade redistricting effort temporarily – continues to loom quietly in the background.

Through the first week of a special session of the Texas Legislature, Democrats have taken a scattershot approach to opposing a midstream change in congressional district boundaries that was requested by President Donald Trump. Trump is calling for state lawmakers to flip as many as five Democratic House seats to Republican control ahead of the 2026 midterm, which is expected to favor Democrats. Flipping those seats would help Trump hang on to a slim majority in Congress and continue implementing his agenda.

“This is very much extraordinary,” House Democratic Caucus leader Rep. Gene Wu said when reached Friday in Illinois. “We’re saying that extraordinary times require an extraordinary message. We should be doing everything we can to prepare and to defend against it.”

While the tactics are disparate, central to Democrats’ messaging is the governor’s decision to include redistricting on a special session call where relief for the Hill Country floods is the top priority. They have accused Abbott of playing politics with flood victims’ relief, something they say he could give to those affected by the July 4 floods without legislative action.

To some Democrats, Abbott confirmed their suspicions that Republicans would rush a vote on redistricting before taking up any flood-related legislation when the governor told the right-leaning publication The Texan he does not believe Democrats will break quorum because of the flood-related legislation he has requested.

“I’ll be honest with you, I really don’t think they’re going to do that,” Abbott said. “Because they know how important it is to their constituents, in every district across the state, to make sure that they are going to be here and address the needs of Texans with regard to these very devastating floods.

“And so I don’t think they’re gonna leave on redistricting.”

Abbott’s office did not return messages seeking comment.

It’s a political rock and a hard place for the minority party that could become stuck between approving a new congressional map that almost certainly will diminish their clout among the Texas congressional delegation and halting efforts at the Capitol to provide relief for flood victims.

“It’s a challenge to know how to navigate both trying to win Texas and win the national narrative,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston. “I think that’s what is indicative of their less-clear approach.”

“The stakes are too high for them to give up on the national level implications of redistricting in exchange for flood control in central Texas,” Rottinhaus added. “I think they’re willing to make that political trade.”

Lawmakers at the Capitol have heard uniform opposition to the redistricting in back-to-back public hearings in the House and Senate on Thursday and Friday. Those hearings will continue over the weekend and into early next week, including a hearing on Monday at the University of Texas at Arlington.

The hearings featured legal scholars who have poked holes in the Department of Justice letter Abbott cited in his special session proclamation. People have given testimony from a crowded hearing room in Austin, and virtually from their cars, airports and even a 16-year-old’s birthday lunch, in one case.

During Thursday’s House committee hearing, a Democratic candidate for Texas Congressional District 18, the Houston-area district that has remained vacant since the death of U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner, was arrested after he refused to stop speaking and began yelling at members.

Isaiah Martin was forced from the chamber and then taken into custody after he left the Capitol. Travis County Jail records showed Martin in custody Friday afternoon after the Texas Department of Public Safety accused him of three misdemeanors.

Republicans have done little to defend Abbott’s redistricting call. Several have contradicted the July 7 Justice Department letter, which states that four Democratic districts in Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth constitute an illegal racial gerrymander. The attorney general’s office argued against the letter in filings in federal court in a pending lawsuit related to the last time the Legislature took up redistricting in 2021.

On Friday, the chairman of the Senate’s redistricting committee, Sen. Phil King, R-Granbury, said the redistricting process was being undertaken solely because Abbott placed it on the agenda.

At the hearing, Houston Democratic Sen. Borris Miles called for the committee to issue a subpoena to Justice Department lawyer Harmeet K. Dhillon, who wrote the July 7 letter that Abbott cited in placing redistricting on the special session. Democratic lawmakers had asked King to invite Dhillon to testify, but King said he was reluctant to do so because of her possible involvement in the 2021 redistricting lawsuit.

Miles held off on his request for a subpoena after King said he would invite Dhillon to testify after speaking with an attorney.

Dhillon’s letter stated that four congressional districts – three in Houston and one in Dallas-Fort Worth – were illegal “coalition districts” made up of a majority nonwhite population. Coalition districts combine multiple nonwhite groups to form a majority.

Dhillon’s inclusion of the 29th Congressional District was erroneous. The east Houston district is 74.5% Hispanic, a legislative analysis of the district states.

University of Michigan election law professor Ellen Katz testified that calling those districts unconstitutional was “flatly wrong.”

“The claims are not even close,” Katz said. “It’s not like we can have a debate about this. They are not unconstitutional.”

The Justice Department refused to comment on the legal issues raised over Dhillon’s letter and whether she would testify at the Capitol.