When the Texas Legislature convenes in Austin on Friday morning, Rep. Jon Rosenthal (D-Houston) won’t be there.
At least 50 House Democrats, including Houston Reps. Rosenthal, Gene Wu, Ann Johnson, and Jolanda Jones fled the state on August 3 to signal their opposition to President Donald Trump’s mid-decade redistricting proposal, an effort to pick up five Republican U.S. Congressional seats and strengthen the narrow GOP majority ahead of 2026 primaries.
Gov. Greg Abbott has repeatedly demanded that the House Democrats return to Austin, promising that if they don’t show up at 10 a.m. Friday, a second special session will be called immediately and the Legislature will continue convening until the priorities on his 18-item agenda are addressed.
Speaking to the Houston Press on Wednesday from Chicago, Rosenthal said the subject of when the Dems will return to Texas “has been a topic of conversation among us but the decision has not been made.”
“It’s kind of up to the governor,” Rosenthal said. “Our position this entire time is that, if he actually wants to do flood relief and revise or actually kill the STAAR test — I’m an anti-STAAR crusader — I’m up for it.”
“Disaster relief, he could do on his own,” he added. “He literally could have done it on July 5. He has a huge budget and total discretion under his emergency powers. It’s super disappointing that he’s holding that hostage. If we could trust him to do that and do it first, we would already be back.”
In the absence of the Democratic reps, committees have held hearings and lawmakers filed bills, even passing the newly-drawn redistricting map in the Senate this week, but no legislation can become law until a quorum of at least 100 representatives and 21 senators — two-thirds of each elected body — is present to vote.
Rosenthal, a fourth-term representative and vice chair of the Select Committee on Redistricting, said redistricting was the only bill on the House calendar when he and other Democrats left town.
“The call on the House, the arrest warrants for us, say ‘subject to the passage of HB 4.’ Clearly, this first session at least, they haven’t cared about anything more than redistricting and trying to rig this next election for party bosses in Washington.”
Quorum breaks, in the past, have not been successful for those who initiate them. In 2021, Rosenthal joined Democrats who fled to block restrictive voting measures. Lawmakers ultimately returned from Washington, D.C., during a second special session and restored quorum so the legislation could pass.
“Quorum breaks aren’t a recipe to change the legislative trajectory or even the outcome,” University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus said in a recent interview with the Press. “It’s an opportunity for Democrats to spread their message and highlight the issue for audiences that might be politically relevant. The national implications of these stories are why Democrats have been able to generate a lot of publicity from this break as opposed to other breaks.”
It’s unlikely that the Republicans will be willing to negotiate when the Dems return, as quorum breaks have a tendency to increase hurt feelings, Rottinghaus added.
“Once the Democrats decided to break quorum, it was an effective political break, making every other kind of negotiation legislatively more challenging,” he said.
Rosenthal said he left Texas because he didn’t want to vote on what he believes are gerrymandered maps and he wanted to start a conversation with lawmakers in other states.
“Redistricting in Texas in the midterm just for the purpose of rigging an election will affect the entire country,” he said. “California seems ready to draw up its maps and their governor is boldly proclaiming that if it goes down in Texas, they will respond in kind. The last thing anybody in this country needs is a redistricting national nuclear war. I wish cooler heads would prevail, but if that’s the fight we’re in, it needs to be a national debate.”
State representatives earn $600 per month and they’re forfeiting those checks and racking up $500-per-day fines. They may ultimately be risking their elected seats, as Republicans have threatened to have their positions vacated and called for Department of Public Safety troopers to arrest those who are refusing to show up.
As the House convened Tuesday morning, Speaker Dustin Burrows again pointed out that a quorum was not present and referenced the inability to pass bills that would help disaster response and recovery efforts in the Hill Country, where at least 137 people died during the July 4 floods.
“What this means first [is that] we cannot take up the critical flood response legislation scheduled for our floor today, bills that would deliver and help families and communities who have lost their homes, their businesses, their livelihoods, and, in some cases, their loved ones,” Burrows said. “The Department of Public Safety is keeping track of every taxpayer dollar that has been spent in their effort to compel our colleagues’ attendance.”
“As of today, the amount is well over six figures in just overtime,” he added. “Those absent members will be responsible for paying all of this back. If the devastation in our Hill Country communities, the Texas Constitution, and their mounting debt aren’t enough to bring them back today, they should be yet again reminded this is not going away. The pressure on them will only grow.”
The Democrats have also created a standoff in a Republican-majority Legislature and GOP leaders aren’t inclined to do them any favors.
“With the Texas House and Senate today announcing they are prepared to sine die on Friday, I will call the Texas Legislature back immediately for Special Session No. 2,” Abbott said in a statement Tuesday. “The Special Session No. 2 agenda will have the exact same agenda, with the potential to add more items critical to Texans.”
“There will be no reprieve for the derelict Democrats who fled the state and abandoned their duty to the people who elected them,” he added. “I will continue to call special session after special session until we get this Texas first agenda passed.”
Rosenthal said the hostility between the two political parties isn’t a reason to buckle.
“Democrats signed up for this,” he said. “The threats, coercion, and intimidation tactics clearly have not worked. Texans don’t take kindly to threats. I think it shows the courage of these House members that we all band together and that even in the face of every threat they can come up with, we are still standing strong.”
“The best of all possibilities is that everybody backs down,” he added. “Let’s just have this next election and save the redistricting for after the Census, when it’s supposed to be done.”
Earlier this week, the Texas Senate approved the proposed redistricting map aimed at securing more Republican seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Nine Senate Democrats walked out in protest of the map; two stayed and voted against it.
Following the walkout, the Texas Senate Democratic Caucus issued a statement that the Legislature’s top priority must be flood relief and disaster preparedness.
“Governor Abbott has the power to move relief funds to survivors immediately using the same emergency budget authority he’s used many times — for his border wall, school safety and even to restore the legislature’s own funding,” the statement reads. “But now, he’s tying the passage of urgently needed relief to an unconstitutional redistricting plan.”
“This mid-decade redistricting isn’t about fair representation — it’s about politicians picking their voters instead of voters choosing their leaders. And it doesn’t stop here. If they can gerrymander now, they can and will do it before every election.”
“That’s why we walked out — because this session should only be about flood relief, and we refuse to engage in a corrupt process. Texans deserve leaders who put people over politics. We deserve a government that, at the very least, delivers in times of crisis.”
