Texas Democrats made good on a threat they’d been mulling since redistricting showed up on Gov. Greg Abbott’s special session agenda last month: Lawmakers fled the state Sunday to avoid voting on a proposed map that they say is an illegal and discriminatory power grab for GOP congressional seats.
Watching closely, and, in some cases, participating in the fight over district boundary lines, are many of the almost two dozen candidates seeking to fill a vacant U.S. Congressional seat with a primary set in November.
House Republicans proposed a map July 30 that aims to pick up five Republican Congressional seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The map was approved 12-6 along party lines at the committee level on Saturday.
Redistricting committee chair Rep. Cody Vasut, R-Angleton, said over the weekend that a floor vote in the Republican-majority House of Representatives was imminent. By Sunday afternoon, House Democrats were posting selfies in Chicago airports, signaling their intent to halt the special session.
“We’re not walking out on our responsibilities; we’re walking out on a rigged system that refuses to listen to the people we represent,” said House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu in a statement. “As of today, this corrupt special session is over.”
The 150-member House of Representatives can only do business if at least 100 members show up, meaning the absence of 51 or more Democrats can halt the special session. The Texas Tribune reported Sunday that “most of the Texas House’s 62 Democrats” fled.
The Democrats can run out the clock on the 30-day special session that started July 21 but Abbott can call them back as many times as he wants. They face arrest and fines of $500 per day for absconding from the state but have been raising money in anticipation of a quorum break.
“Democrats in the Texas House who try to run away like cowards should be found, arrested, and brought back to the Capitol immediately,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wrote on social media Sunday afternoon. “We should use every tool at our disposal to hunt down those who think they are above the law.”
Abbott sent a letter to each of the representatives who fled, threatening to remove the absconding members if they don’t show up by the time the Legislature convenes at 3 p.m. Monday, August 4.
They may also have committed felonies if they solicited funds “to assist in the violation of legislative duties or for purposes of skipping a vote may have violated bribery laws,” Abbott said in his letter.
“Real Texans do not run from a fight. But that’s exactly what most of the Texas House Democrats just did,” Abbott said. “Rather than doing their job and voting on urgent legislation affecting the lives of all Texans, they have fled Texas to deprive the House of the quorum necessary to meet and conduct business.”
Among those who joined the quorum break was Democrat Rep. Jolanda Jones, a candidate in the race for U.S. Congressional District 18.
“I broke quorum to stop the Republicans from shoving Jim Crow down our throats,” Jones said in a press release. “This map was designed with surgical precision to deny Black and Brown voters the right to elect the representative of their choice. I refuse to legitimize the injustice.”
Although District 18 was flagged in a U.S. Department of Justice letter to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, suggesting its boundaries were drawn with racial bias in 2021, the map proposed by Republicans doesn’t aim to flip CD 18; rather it proposes to pack more Democratic voters into the solidly blue seat. The Congressional District 18 seat has been held by a Democrat since 1973.
The proposed map wipes out Congressional District 9, currently held by Rep. Al Green. The congressman has acknowledged that many of his constituents could shift to the 18th district and he could run in the November primary.
Twenty-three candidates have filed to seek the office vacated by former U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner, who died in March. Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee leads in fundraising, trailed by former Houston City Council Member Amanda Edwards, former Miss Houston Zoe Cadore, former District 18 staffer Isaiah Martin, and Jones.
A special election to fill the District 18 seat is set for November 4.
A poll conducted by the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs showed that 2,300 registered Harris County voters don’t have a clear favorite in the District 18 race. Edwards and Menefee each have 19 percent support, with Jones and Republican businesswoman Carmen Maria Montiel trailing at 14 percent.
“With such a tight split among the top candidates, the race may come down to which candidate is best able to turn out her or his supporters,” said Renée Cross, senior executive director of the Hobby School and one of the principal investigators on the report.
Because the top three Democratic candidates — Edwards, Menefee, and Jones — had strong favorability ratings but a large number of voters who said they don’t know enough to have an opinion on the top candidates, there’s an opportunity for the race to shift, researchers said.
Martin scored a few fans and a few dollars last month when he was removed from a redistricting hearing in Austin and arrested after refusing to leave the open mic when his time expired. Days after Martin spent the night in Travis County Jail and misdemeanor charges were dropped, the candidate reported that he’d raised $300,000 in July. The recent haul is not reflected in the fundraising totals reported by the Federal Election Commission.
The Hobby School poll was conducted between July 9 and July 18, prior to the start of Governor Abbott’s special session, which includes redistricting and 17 other items.
Edwards spoke with the Houston Press on July 30, the day the proposed redistricting map was released. She said at the time it was still unclear how it would affect Congressional District 18.
“The process has lacked transparency from the very beginning,” she said. “Many people suspect and believe these are not going to be the maps where they end up landing. I’m certainly going to continue to be active about leaving districts alone. I don’t trust this process in any way.”
Edwards and several other candidates testified in public hearings about their opposition to redistricting in concept; there was only one hearing held after the map was released and subsequently voted on. The unnecessary mid-decade redistricting is offensive, reckless, and wrong, Edwards said.
More than 800,000 people live in the 18th Congressional District and are used to having strong advocacy from leaders like Barbara Jordan, Mickey Leland, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Sylvester Turner, District 18 candidates have pointed out. By the time the special election is held and an inevitable runoff follows, CD 18 residents will have been without representation for more than a year.
“All of these folks have fought for people and for justice,” Edwards said of the previous representatives. “You go from having this strong legacy of service to then turning around, and when you do the math, by the time this special election is up and we’ve had the runoff, you’re talking about 18 months with no voting representation.”
The lack of representation in District 18 is something Menefee spoke about when testifying at a redistricting hearing in Houston last month. He later said the proposed map dilutes the voting power of Black and Latino communities by packing them into fewer districts and stripping away opportunities to elect leaders who understand their lives and their struggles.
“The congressional maps released by the Texas House today are an insult to communities across our state and to the very idea of fair representation,” Menefee said in a press release July 30. “Let’s be clear: these maps are a continuation of a long pattern of undermining Black and Brown communities and using backhanded tricks to dismiss our voices. The Legislature’s attempt to fracture communities and dilute our power is part of a broader pattern of Republicans going after our right to vote.”
While one public hearing was added August 1 in Austin after the proposed map dropped, many have suggested it was just a formality. The committee voted to approve it the following day, despite overwhelming opposition.
Many have pointed out that Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act would not have passed the U.S. Congress if there had been a Democrat in District 18 to vote against it. Abbott held off on calling the special election when he could have done it immediately after Turner’s death, citing past problems with Harris County elections.
Cadore spoke at the redistricting public hearing in Houston, telling lawmakers that the initiative was a clear case of illegal racial gerrymandering.
“Make no mistake, the people of Houston see this redistricting scheme for what it is: a
desperate, partisan attempt to hold onto power,” she said. “This is a textbook case of racial packing, deliberately consolidating Black voters into fewer districts to weaken their political influence across the region. I love the slogan, Don’t Mess With Texas. I wish more of you all here would tell President Trump to stop messing with Texas.”
Martin said in an August 1 press release that his campaign is “about taking our community back from Donald Trump and his Republican sock puppets who are trying to silence our voices and steal our power.”
“While Republicans are busy rigging maps and pushing hate, we’re organizing, mobilizing, and winning,” Martin said. “This campaign is about the people and the people are speaking loud and clear.”
Rep. Jones has also been outspoken about the redistricting process since the session began last month. In addition to being a candidate for CD 18, she’s also on the governor’s select redistricting committee.
“Texas Republicans just unleashed a racial and political bloodbath,” Jones wrote on social media last week. “Their mid-decade congressional map dismantles fair representation and pits Democratic leaders of color against each other — by design.”
According to the UH poll on District 18 candidates, both Edwards and Menefee have net-favorability ratings of 30 percent, meaning the number of voters who view them favorably is 30 percent higher than the number who view them unfavorably. Jones has a net-favorability rating of 11 percent, and Martin’s rating was 4 percent.
The survey only asked about one Republican candidate, Montiel, and one independent candidate, George Foreman IV.
As the District 18 race heats up, so does the Democratic opposition to redistricting.
Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas, filed Senate Joint Resolution 1 on July 22, a constitutional amendment that would prohibit mid-decade redistricting. Every member of the Senate Democratic Caucus signed on as a joint author but the bill doesn’t appear to have much support for discussion at the committee level.
“Were it already law, it would have saved everyone from this embarrassment,” said Johnson, who is running for Texas attorney general. “What we’re facing is a Republican capitulation to President Trump’s illegitimate demand to shield himself and his obedient Congressional delegation from the electoral consequences of their unpopular actions: explosion of the federal debt and reckless destruction of vital government functions and services. This is highly undemocratic.”
Regardless of what the map looks like, if and when it makes its way to the governor’s desk for a signature, it will be challenged legally. Courts have found that at least one of Texas’ maps violated the Voting Rights Act every decade since the VRA went into effect in 1965. The map approved in 2021 is currently being challenged in federal court in El Paso.
