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By Stephen Rohde | George Washington’s family seal bore the motto Exilus acta probat, borrowed from Ovid, which translates as, “The outcome is the test of the act.” Some see Machiavelli’s advice in The Prince as a later variation: “In the actions of all men, especially of princes, where there is no court to appeal to, one looks to the end,” for “the means will always be judged honorable, and will be praised by everyone.”
Adages like these come to mind as more than 50 brave Texas Democrats have invoked the quorum break, fleeing to Democratic strongholds around the country to block a cynical move by Republican state legislators to obediently carry out President Trump’s plan to rig the 2026 and 2028 elections by radically gerrymandering Texas’ congressional map. One Texas Democrat, Rep. Ann Johnson, defended the exodus by explaining plainly that the “quorum break is a tool that the founding fathers of Texas put in place for when a minority party knows that the majority party has gone off the rails and is doing something against the interests and will of the voters.”
Texas Republicans currently hold 25 out of 38 congressional seats. By transforming a special legislative session, originally called to provide disaster relief, into a rare mid-decade redistricting opportunity, they hope the new map will increase their total to 30—all in constituencies that Trump won last November by at least 10 points. The new map would, among other things, redistrict the Rio Grande Valley and combine two districts in the state capital of Austin currently held by Democrats. In northern Texas, it would expand a district currently held by U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson (D-Texas) to include rural Republican strongholds. It would also redraw four Houston-area seats, including one held by outspoken Democrat: Rep. Al Green.
Republicans currently occupy 219 out of 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives—a razor thin margin of only one vote. If Texas succeeds in doing Trump’s bidding, other Republican-controlled states will likely fall into line, frustrating the Democrats’ strategy of taking back Congress in the 2026 midterms and winning the White House in 2028. (Click here to read more) |
