The Texas Legislature is in a special legislative session that could have technically lasted another week as House Democrats remain out of state to block a controversial redistricting bill that would add more Republicans from Texas to Congress.
But on Tuesday, top state Republicans said they would draw the special session to an early conclusion this Friday, only to gavel back in for another session the same day. Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement that if House Democrats don’t return — and they aren’t expected to anytime soon — he plans to “call the Texas Legislature back immediately for Special Session #2.”
Round two, according to Abbott, will have the exact same agenda as the first special session, including redistricting the state’s congressional maps, passing legislation related to the July 4 Central Texas floods, and regulating THC.
But will House Democrats return to Texas for the second special session — and what difference does it make whether it’s Texas’ second or fifteenth round of legislative overtime?
Rep. Mihaela Plesa, a Dallas Democrat, said the answer to the “will Dems come back?” question depends on Abbott’s priorities for the second special session.
“We hope that the Governor will start putting flood victims before political power grabs if he does call another special,” Plesa said Monday at a press conference in Chicago.
At the same event, House Democratic Caucus chair Rep. Gene Wu of Houston added that “if Gov. Abbott says we will take care of the people of the state of Texas first, if he makes that commitment today, we’ll be back.”
A waiting game at the Texas Capitol
So why call another special session? At this point, both parties are trying to wait each other out, said Sean Theriault, a government professor at UT Austin. Democrats are hoping Republicans will take the mid-decade redistricting, which President Donald Trump said was needed to maintain the party’s majority in Congress, off the table. Republicans are betting Democrats will return to the Capitol before too long.
“It’s a little bit like a game of chicken. Like, who’s going to blink first, who’s going to cave first,” Theriault said.
Sherri Greenberg, a professor at UT Austin who served in the Texas House from 1991 to 2001, said House Democrats “can’t keep this up forever.” As the long-time minority party in Texas, Democrats have for years used quorum breaking, or leaving the state so that there aren't enough lawmakers in the Capitol to vote on something, as a political maneuver.
“There are family issues, there are funding issues,” Greenberg said, referring to the daily fines levied against lawmakers who fled. “There are lots of issues that each member deals with when they leave town for extended periods.”
Wu acknowledged this during a Wednesday press conference in Chicago.
“When we first started this journey, we talked about the fact that eventually they still might pass these maps. But we’re going to do everything we can to, one, wake up America,” Wu said.
Greenberg said the quorum break has helped Democrats draw attention to the issue of mid-decade redistricting, an uncommon practice some members of Congress want to ban. But this year, several states — led by both Democrats and Republicans — are considering it. In California, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom says he wants to ask voters to approve new maps in November that would benefit Democrats in response to redistricting in Texas.
Meanwhile, Greenberg said, Abbott “wants to keep the pressure on.” He and other Republican leaders have been trying to kick the Democratic lawmakers who left out of office, even threatening them with arrests.
Greenberg says the one advantage for Democrats is that the mid-term elections are only a little over a year away.
“They're hoping, the Democrats, that they can prolong this and string it along long enough to where it’s not feasible to have new districts for the election cycle,” Greenberg said.
Theriault acknowledged that holding out that long is unlikely.
“This is the one arrow that Democrats have in their quiver,” Theriault said. “But it’s August, it's a long time before the rubber hits the road on this issue.”
He believes some sort of deal will eventually be brokered between both parties.
“Maybe the Democrats end up saying, ‘Alright, we’ll come back to the state as long as redistricting is the second, or the third, or the fourth issue that we address. But let’s first deal with the things that Texans really care about,’” Theriault said. “And that’s a pretty easy concession for Republicans to make.”
Theriault said it’s unlikely that Democrats will ultimately block the new maps from passing.
“At the end of the day, this is the disadvantage of being a minority: you don’t have the votes.”
