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The Blast - July 21, 2025 [1]
['The Texas Tribune']
Date: 2025-07
There is a LOT on this special session’s call, but today it was all about redistricting. Let’s get into it.
DEMOCRATS TALK STRATEGY
Democrats have come to Austin this special session with a “multistep plan” to address Republicans’ redistricting push. But when it comes to a quorum break, Democrats will play it by ear.
In 2021 and 2003, the quorum break was Democrats’ defining play. As it stands, Democrats don’t want to exercise the nuclear option without a clear vision why.
Austin’s very own Democratic U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, chair of the U.S. House Progressive Caucus, outlined Democrats’ “multistep plan” during a Texas House Democratic Caucus press conference today in Austin. That plan includes engaging other Democratic states, potentially to hold a counter redistricting, and recruiting candidates to run against Trump-supporting Republicans.
“We will need to buy time, and that means keeping everything on the table, doing whatever it takes, having on the table filibusters, dragging out hearings, quorum breaks — the kinds of tactics that will make sure that we have the time to highlight these issues in front of everyday Americans,” Casar said.
Democrats in the Legislature are getting national pressure to break quorum, but the House rules now have strict monetary penalties for breaking quorum. Moreover, Democrats on the ground know that the 2021 and 2003 breaks didn’t change the outcome.
“Everyone tells us to break quorum, but to what end?” one Democratic Capitol veteran told The Blast. “No one can answer that right now because there is not an answer.”
Democrats’ reason could still come into focus at a later date. At the THDC press conference, Texas House Democratic Leader Gene Wu addressed speculation about a quorum break with his first breath when he said being in Austin was “the right thing to do and the right strategic move to make” to hold Republicans accountable.
“Democrats are going to consistently look at the environment and see what is the smartest decision to make, and we will come to a consensus on what that decision is,” Wu said when pressed for more details. “It will be when we decide it is.”
For now, Democrats will drive home their argument that this special session is Gov. Greg Abbott’s attempt to leverage this month’s floods for political gains. Forty-eight of the House’s 62 Democrats this afternoon sent a letter to Speaker Dustin Burrows demanding that flood relief come first during this special session.
Casar went a bit broader, framing it as an attempt to kill the Voting Rights Act nationally at a time when Trump hopes to keep the House in a potential blowback year.
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