With Texas Republicans using every lever of power in their attempt to give themselves five new House seats, state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer told Salon that it’s time for national Democratic leaders to either “do something — or get out of the way.”
Earlier this week, Democrats in the Texas state legislature left their homes behind in order to deny Republicans the quorum needed to force through new House maps, maps which would deliver Republicans five new, safe Republican seats in the 2026 midterms.
To prevent Republicans from pushing through the new maps, state Democrats have fled the state, breaking quorum, and preventing the Texas House from taking up business while they are gone. Many of the state representatives have gone to states like New York and Illinois, where local leaders have promised to help them as much as they can.
In response, Gov. Greg Abbot threatened to bring bribery charges against Democrats who left the state and ordered their arrest. The Republicans in the Texas House have proceeded to issue civil arrest warrants for the Democrats who left the state.
Sen. John Cornyn, who is facing a primary challenge from the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, called on FBI Director Kash Patel to mobilize the FBI to take “any appropriate steps” to arrest Democrats so that Republicans can push through their gerrymander.
Paxton has since announced that he will pursue a court ruling to declare the seats of Texas Democrats vacant, which would solidify Republicans’ total power in the state legislature pending special elections.
“We need to rise up. And that’s exactly what we did, and we are leading by example. And so, you know, my message to national Democrats is do something or get out of the way,” Martinez Fischer told Salon. “Thankfully, I do believe national leaders are rising to this challenge.”
Martinez Fischer cited New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and California Gov. Gavin Newsom as exemplars. Both have proposed answering Texas’ attempted gerrymandering with redistricing efforts of their own.
“More than anything, Democrats are looking themselves in the mirror, and they’re recognizing that when Republicans get power, they use it right,” Martinez Fischer said. “I think Democrats should follow suit. We need to use the power that we have, because you don’t take you don’t take a butter knife to a gunfight, and that’s what we do lots of times.”
As for Abbot’s threats to arrest him and other Texas Democrats for bribery? Martinez Fischer said he’s not too concerned.
“I think the governor writes a good press release, but you can’t prosecute a case in court with a press release. I mean, he has zero evidence for that,” Martinez Fischer said. “But what I would say is the governor is probably familiar with bribes, given the millions of dollars he received from Jeff Yass to pass private school voucher scams.”
Martinez Fischer was referencing Pennsylvania billionaire Jeff Yass’s $6 million campaign contribution to Abbot in December 2023, which stands as the largest campaign contribution in Texas history. Yass is a prominent proponent of school vouchers. Under Texas’ school voucher system, taxpayers foot the bill for up to $10,000 of the cost of private schools. In other states with voucher systems, the vast majority of voucher applicants were already in private schools and had never attended public schools.
In response to a request for comment, Abbott’s office referenced a number of press releases from earlier this week, including a statement where the governor cited an opinion from Paxton, a Trump loyalist. In that opinion, Paxton said that a district court can decide whether an elected official has “forfeited his or her office due to abandonment.”
State Rep. James Talarico, another Democratic member of the Texas House of Representatives, told Salon that Abbot, Texas Republicans took “a page right out of Donald Trump’s authoritarian playbook.”
“Greg Abbott and Texas Republicans are trying to rob the people of Texas of their ability to elect a candidate of their choice with these rigged maps, and now he’s literally trying to remove the people’s elected representatives from office,” Talarico said. “Greg Abbott does it with less charm and humor and charisma than Trump, but it is still just as dangerous, and it’s something that we should all reject, regardless of our political party.”
Talarico emphasized that Democrats in the state recognize that Republicans in the state won majorities in the last elections and with that the right to govern, but said that he and his colleagues draw the line when it comes to voting rights.
“We didn’t break quorum when they passed a private school voucher bill that will defund our public schools. We didn’t break quorum when they passed the most extreme abortion ban in the country, endangering the lives of women and girls all over our state. We didn’t even break quorum when they gerrymandered these maps the last time at the beginning of the decade; we’re breaking quorum because this power grab is so egregious,” Talarico said. “They have a right to govern. We have a right as the minority to frustrate their efforts. But when they try to rig the game so that we can’t have a chance to win in the next election, we have to take extreme steps to stop it.”
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Talarico said that national Democrats should take the redistricting effort in Texas as a wake-up call, adding, “When national Democrats are in the minority, they use that as an excuse for inaction, and I think it’s because they think they have a chance to be in the majority next time.”
Both Talarico and Martinez Fischer highlighted how Abbot and the Republicans have claimed that the special session is focused on providing aid to the victims of last month’s catastrophic flooding in Texas, even as they have put any vote related to aid on the agenda only after their redistricting effort. Other Democrats have noted that Abbott does not even need to call a special session and could distribute aid unilaterally.
State Rep. Ann Johnson described the various threats made by Republicans as “scare tactics,” arguing that Republicans are worried about losing their majority — a majority she noted was built on similar redistricting efforts in states like North Carolina.
“All of this bluster and threatening and harassing is simply a scare tactic to try to get us to show up and sit down,” the Texas Democrat said. “All of them are making it real clear: They are doing everything they can to try to intimidate and harass us. And what’s the result? They are threatening me personally, and there’s an easy way for me to avoid their threat. All I have to do is show up at Austin, sit in my chair and shut up so they can pass Trump’s steal of five seats.”
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