Tag: Dustin Burrows

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the House Republicans are hoping to make up for lost time in a second special session that began Friday and includes all 18 items on the previous agenda, including redistricting, plus a new proposal for legislation to improve youth camp safety.

Abbott’s first special session adjourned last week without signing any new bills into law, due to the absence of a quorum prompted by House Democrats who left the state to avoid voting on new U.S. Congressional boundary lines. The rare mid-decade redistricting initiative was ordered by President Donald Trump to pick up five Republican seats in U.S. Congress ahead of the 2026 primaries.

The Democrats announced that they would return to Texas if the Legislature adjourned and if California introduced a redistricting plan that “would neutralize the Trump-Abbott voter suppression effort.” Both of those demands were met, and a quorum of lawmakers was expected to be in Austin by Monday, August 18.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said his state will call a special election to seek voter approval for a new congressional map that would pick up more blue seats, countering the effort in Texas.

The Democrats still think the proposed Texas redistricting maps are racist and illegal. Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, refiled House Bill 4 on Friday. Democrats say they’re preparing for a legal battle in court.

“Under the advice of legal counsel, Democrats must return to Texas to build a strong public legislative record for the upcoming legal battle against a map that violates both the current Voting Rights Act and the Constitution,” officials with the Texas House Democratic Caucus said in a press release on August 14.

Speaker of the House Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, announced the adjournment of the first special session on Friday morning and told lawmakers not to stray far from the Capitol, as he expected the governor would call a second special session “very, very soon.” A second special session began two hours later, and a quorum was still not present.

“I want to point out that today’s outcome may be a win for Texans and for the rest of the governor’s call,” Burrows said. “If our absent colleagues had shown up this morning, they could have used a few remaining days to stall, or possibly even block, the passage of critical legislation: property tax relief, protections for the unborn, safeguarding women’s private spaces, and reining in runaway local taxes.”

“By following Governor Newsom’s lead, instead of the will of Texans, they have allowed us to reset the clock,” he said, adding that he hopes to accomplish every item on the agenda and adjourn the second special session before Labor Day weekend.

A quorum of at least 100 state representatives and 21 senators — two-thirds of each elected body — is needed not just to pass redistricting legislation but to vote on disaster response, elimination of the STAAR test, THC reform and numerous other measures on Abbott’s special session call.

Scott Braddock, editor of the nonpartisan Texas political newsletter Quorum Report, said on social media last week that the Democrats are “about to come home to lose here while rallying their party to maybe win nationally.”

The Republican-majority Legislature has accused the Democrats of being cowardly and ducking their duties at the expense of important disaster response bills that would help families in the Texas Hill Country who are still recovering from deadly July 4 floods.

If you don’t show up to do your job, you lose your job.

Same thing should happen for the derelict Democrats. pic.twitter.com/BfmJu3aYzn

— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) August 14, 2025

The Democrats have said they wanted to consider flood legislation but Abbott pulled a fast one and instead made redistricting the top priority.

“We do not believe stealing five seats to attempt to determine the outcome of the next election is the right thing to bring us back for,” said Rep. Ann Johnson, D-Houston, in a Zoom livestream from Chicago last week. “Yes, we are in the position of breaking quorum, which is an extraordinary and exceptional act but it is the only tool that we have in our toolbox, as the minority, to try and defeat [redistricting].”

The Dems would ultimately like Abbott to set aside redistricting, which technically doesn’t have to be taken up until the 2030 Census. Several have pushed for an independent redistricting commission to redraw the lines.

“I’ll offer it again and if Governor Abbott wants to accept that bill and put it up for a hearing, we can find out if both sides are really willing to do this,” Johnson said. “I would love it if the solution to all of this is that the people rise up and say, ‘Hey, politicians, stop drawing your lines. We’re going to draw them for you.’ To me, that’s the ultimate win.”

Rep. Jon Rosenthal, D-Houston, is also on board with an independent redistricting commission.

“From my perspective, we should be doing what the people want us to do,” Rosenthal said, noting that about 99 percent of those who spoke at public hearings before the quorum break were against mid-decade redistricting. “I would love to see federal law enact a nonpartisan redistricting commission process.”

The redistricting conversation isn’t just about Texas, the lawmakers said.

“One of our big pushes, one of our big priorities, is for this to become a national conversation,” Rosenthal said. “Redistricting in Texas in the midterm just for the purpose of rigging an election will affect the entire country.”

Representatives from both parties have indicated they’re not backing down.

“Trump thought he could easily get his way in Texas with compliant Republicans, but Democrats fought back ferociously and took the fight to Trump across America,” Texas Dems said in a statement. “We will return to the House floor and to the courthouse with a clear message: the fight to protect voting rights has only just begun.”