AUSTIN — Tarrant County Democrats joined their Texas House colleagues in bolting across state lines on Sunday to carry out their threat of extreme action against Gov. Greg Abbott’s Trump-backed congressional redistricting plan.
Most of the 62 Texas House members boarded flights for Chicago, New York and Boston throughout the day to deny Republicans the quorum needed to take up the fast-tracked legislation that would create five more congressional districts favoring the GOP.
“Right now, I’m on a plane to Illinois,” Fort Worth Rep. Nicole Collier texted the Fort Worth Report mid-afternoon. “Republicans may have ignored the people during the field hearings, but I bet they can hear us loud and clear now. #wheelsup #txlege.”
Key Texas GOP leaders criticized the lawmakers’ move, many insisting they should be arrested and brought back to the Capitol immediately.
“Instead of showing up to do the job they were elected to do, they’re conspiring to deny quorum, walking out of the Texas House to obstruct the legislative process and chase headlines,” GOP state chairman Abraham George said in an email to supporters.
State lawmakers must approve U.S. congressional boundaries, which are typically redrawn every 10 years after the census to account for population changes.
The mid-cycle effort came after President Donald Trump said Texas will play an important role in securing a Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives through redistricting. District 33, which includes parts of Tarrant County and is currently represented by U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, would be cut out of Tarrant County under the proposed map.
Hundreds attended public hearings on redistricting held across the state, including at the University of Texas at Arlington. All but one person spoke against the effort at the UTA hearing on July 28.
Days later, House Bill 4 passed out of the Republican-led Texas House redistricting committee after a 30-minute hearing on Saturday. It was set for a vote in the full 150-member Texas House on Monday.
Democrats announced on Sunday that they were implementing what one member described as a “nuclear option” to prevent the 100-member quorum needed to conduct business in the House.
The walkout comes as lawmakers tackle a special session with 18 agenda items that included redistricting, flood relief for Kerr County and other top Republican priorities.
Tarrant-area Democrats said they didn’t take breaking quorum lightly but did so to protect voters.
“Today, I joined my Democratic colleagues to take an extraordinary legislative action,” said Rep. Chris Turner, D-Grand Prairie, who participated in a previous walkout over redistricting in 2021. “We left the state of Texas and are breaking quorum — denying Republicans the ability to pass the outrageous and discriminatory Congressional map demanded by Donald Trump.”
Rep. Ramon Romero Jr., D-Fort Worth, chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, said he, too, was representing his constituents.
“We know that this map is an all-out assault on the value of our vote,” he asserted. “It’s atrocious what these maps will do to Latino and Black communities around the state. It must be stopped.”
Tarrant County’s fourth Democratic Texas House member, Rep. Salman Bhojani, D-Euless, could not be reached for comment.
Dave Montgomery is an Austin-based freelance reporter for the Fort Worth Report.
The Fort Worth Report’s Texas legislative coverage is supported by Kelly Hart.
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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