Transcription
In a huge and frankly necessary development, over 50 Texas Democrats have officially left the state on route to Chicago to deny quorum, meaning there will not be enough legislators in session, that 2/3 threshold, to pass the Texas gerrymander that Republicans are advancing right now.
Those Texas Democrats are being fined $500 per legislator per day, but clearly that's a price that they're willing to pay if it means they can deprive Republicans of the ability to outright rig the state's maps in deference to Donald Trump's demands. Here's James Tarico explaining the news.
>> This is State Representative James Torico from Texas. If you're seeing this video, my Democratic colleagues and I have just left our beloved state to break quorum and stop Trump's redistricting power grab. Trump told our Republican colleagues to redraw the political maps here in Texas in the middle of the decade to get him five more seats and protect his majority in Congress. They're turning our districts into crazy shapes to guarantee the outcome they want in the 2026 elections. If this power grab succeeds, they will hang on to power without any accountability from the voters. But Texas Democrats are fighting back. We're leaving the state, breaking quorum, and preventing Republicans from silencing our voices and rigging the next election. We are not fighting for the Democratic party. We are fighting for the Democratic process, and the stakes could not be higher. We have to take a stand.
And I should note that I'll be interviewing James Telerico tonight. So, if you'd like to see that interview and support my work more broadly, please subscribe to this channel.
The reality is that Republicans have fully given up on democracy. They don't want to live in a constitutional republic. They want a dictatorship. They want full control. If they can't get it via the voters, they're going to redraw the maps to give themselves a permanent majority regardless of what the voters want. A midcycle redistricting where they steal five seats is the nuclear option and they are using it. We need to fight back like we are in a war because we are. This quorum break is the only correct move here.
And let's be perfectly clear, the Democrats didn't start this. The Republicans have been gerrymandering themselves into majorities in states across the country for years. Wisconsin, Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Utah, Florida, Louisiana. And meanwhile, what did the Democrats do? Created independent redistricting commissions in our biggest Democratic strongholds like New York and California. The time for unilateral disarmament is over. The time for allowing Republicans to run roughshot over this country is over.
We need every single Democratic governor to look right now, today, into what they can do to maximize control. The Democrats again did not start this, but we should 100% be willing to finish it. In California, we need a 52 to nothing gerrymander. In Illinois, we need to redraw the lines so that there's zero Republican representation. In Maryland, that 71 map needs to be an 8 nothing map. New York has to figure out what it can do to get their maps redrawn as fast as possible. We cannot sit idly by while the Republicans lead us full tilt into authoritarianism and do nothing. Is this a race to the bottom? Absolutely. But we didn't start it. And the last thing on earth that we should do is allow them to end this Democratic experiment because we're going to roll over. In fact, not only should we mount a strong defense, we need to go on offense. If Republicans want five seats, we need to take 30.
As Mark Elias explained here, >> look, Republicans don't care about democracy. You know, Republicans support Donald Trump because they're authoritarian and they will abuse every norm. They will violate every tradition. They will seek to weaponize every law, every practice, everything that they can in order to gain power for the sake of having power. And they are not going to be deterred from doing that if they, you know, turn a grotesque map into an obscene map in Texas. And our response is, "Okay, well, we found, you know, four or five seats of our own." They they will take that as a win, right? Because they've done what they want and then, as you say, they will move on to Missouri, they'll move on to Florida, they'll move on to Ohio, uh they will move on to Utah, uh they will move on to, you know, wherever will be their next place. And they will not be deterred. What we need to do is we need to recognize that if we want to stop the slide of democracy, we as Democrats, we as people in the pro-democracy movement need to tell them that if they take five seats, we're going to put 30 seats on the table, right? because they need to understand that there will not just be parody if things go against them, but actually if they guess wrong and and this this winds up escalating, they could wind up on the severe losing side. So when people say to me, you know, don't bring a a knife to a gunfight, I don't even want to bring a gun to a gunfight, you know, I want to bring something more than a gun to the gunfight, right? I want to bring missiles to the gunfight. I want to bring hand grenades to the gunfight because I want the other side to understand that not only are we going to fight as hard as them, but we are going to fight smarter than them.
>> That's how we need to fight. We need to show them that touching the stove means you get burned. In fact, I spoke with the governors of California, Illinois, New York, and Maryland and push them all to take on this fight. Here's what that looked like. we can in essence likely neuter uh the total number of districts that Trump is looking to get with Abbott and rigging th those maps here in the state of California. Hope other governors consider doing similar things. You got to fight fire with fire. This is an existential moment. We have agency. We can act superior. We can act holier than thou and watch the last half century wiped out in real time. I think we need to be held to a higher level of accountability and meet this moment and and lean in on this and get tough.
>> From your vantage, in terms of what you're able to do in Illinois, are you willing to fight fire with fire here and and respond uh in a commensurate way if indeed we see Greg Abbott uh engage in a partisan jerrymander in Texas?
>> Well, I appreciate the question. I I'll begin my answer by saying I've been on team fight since I first got elected in 2018. Uh I really believe, you know, we have to make choices uh right now about whether you're going to be on team fight or team cave. And the Republicans are using every frankly everything whether it's cheating, breaking the law, uh you know, trying to do things that I think are non-traditional. Uh and we Democrats can't live by the old rules. We've got to live by the rules, but we've also got to react and fight. And so when I think about what they're trying to do in Texas, and by the way, they're also trying to do it next door to me here in uh in Missouri, next Illinois, uh and other places, I think, you know, that historically that's, you know, midstream redistricting was not something that that we Democrats would do.
>> But if they force us, we've got to put everything on the table. We've got to make decisions that maybe we wouldn't have made before. And so that's why I'm on the team here. Uh I think that governors across the country that have the ability, maybe it's the ones that where we've got trifectas, uh we've got to do everything we can to stand up to what Donald Trump and and Greg Abbott are trying to do. I just I I I'm not going to countenance anymore the idea that we're going to sit around and watch them do it and complain from the sidelines. Yeah. When we have the ability to stop them. And so, uh, I mean, you know, we're kind of in the world of hypotheticals, but the reality is that the special legislative session was already called in Texas. They are meeting right now in Texas. There's no indication, at least as of right now, that they're stepping back. And so if Greg Abbott continues on exactly the path that we're in right now, um would it be fair to say to the extent that you can say definitively that you would be willing to fight fire with fire and and look toward uh uh calling uh I I I don't know what the process would be in Illinois, but calling a legislative session to do exactly what they're doing in Texas and what Gavin Newsome has said that he'd be willing to do in California.
>> Yeah, like I said, everything's on the table. It's why I've spoken up about it. That's why I met with the Texas legislators. You know, they walked in the door and I know that they were here in Chicago to convince me. But before they opened their mouths, I said, "You had me at hello.
>> I will use every power I have to push back against this blatant abuse of power. It has gone on too far." As you said, you know, we have a strong advocacy group of good government people in our state. They want independent redistricting. They want all this. It is, you know, it's an ideal world. But when we have our combatants uh the other for the other side, you know, cheating, rigging the system, like we can't sit on the sidelines. So I'm saying I will do what I can. U partially looking at our constitution because unlike other states constitution, let me just say this. I think California does not have the same constraints that I have with my constitution. Mine says I cannot do anything for 10 years. Now, knowing that, guess what I'm planning to do? Push the legislature to change our Constitution. It takes two cycles of Congress. We'd have to pass in 2026, again in 2027, go on the ballot in the fall of 2027. But the earliest we could see a change would be for 2028. But I'll tell you why that's better than the status quo. Otherwise, we can't do anything until 2032. So, I'll take four years ahead of the time. Um, I wish I could do more for 2026, but our hands are tied with how we have to use the process to amend the Constitution, but I'm sick and tired of this. I mean, they abuse us. We sit on the sidelines as a as a party, and I'm all about fighting back and fighting back hard and making them negret that they even tried to do this.
>> We are done with this mentality of being a place and a state or a party of no and slow. That we need to be a party of yes and no. Yeah,
>> that that that you have to understand what is happening to our people right now. That there are over a quarter of a million people who are about to have their healthcare cut because of the speed that this administration is moving at. That we are about to have about a quart about, you know, over $250 million in Maryland alone that's about to be cut from our rural hospitals because of the speed that the Trump administration is moving at. My point is this is that we do not have time to have multi-year analysis. We do not have time to have multi-year studies. We do not have time for this right now. We've got to start thinking about this and being a party of not know and slow but yes and now. And especially when you're looking at the speed that this Trump administration is trying to dismantle a a democratic system that's taking place within our states about think about what does the representation of the House represent us and the Senate actually look like and so so again I just think people should you know examine the speed in how we are thinking about this in the state of Maryland.
>> And I will continue to push governors to be as aggressive here as possible. In so far as I have any influence at all, this will be my principal focus. And luckily, it looks like the broader party is fully on board. Here's Hakee Jeff speaking on behalf of the House Democrats today. We have to make clear to the people of Texas what's taking place because it's unacceptable, unconscionable, and unamerican. And as elected officials, we have that responsibility. That's not something we can just brush aside. There 50 states in America. I'm here in Texas for a reason. because these legislators are standing up. These members of Congress are standing up and communicating to the people of Texas what's occurring
>> right now in the middle of the summer at a special session. And we will make clear that we're going to do everything possible to support the Texas legislators as they consider the best ways to push back. It's an all hands on deck moment and all options should be on the table to protect the people of Texas. But Texas Democrats are going to be the ones to decide that. We will fight them politically. We will fight them governmentally. We will fight them in court. We will fight them in terms of winning the hearts and minds of the people of Texas and beyond. The Texas Democrats are going to show up and stand up and speak up for what's right for the people of Texas. And they're showing courage and conviction and character in doing that. And we'll see what happens over the next few days, over the next few weeks. But the one thing I know is clear that Texas Democrats are fighting for the people. We need to be a united front and we need buyin from every governor in every blue state, every legislature, every congressional delegation, every senator and every voter. To be perfectly frank, I am tired of the long-standing impotence of the Democratic party. And I know that you are too. Now is the time to either fight back or make way for someone else who will. And I mean that. Too much is on the line here to allow these MAGA Republicans to continue to strip this country for parts. Donald Trump may be infatuated with dictatorships across the world, but over my dead body will he turn the United States of America into one, too.
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