'Pack a toothbrush. Pack hair spray.' How the Texas Democrats are living on the run

USA Today

2 days ago

Texas Democrats packed their bags and made arrangements to be out of the state for weeks. Some are missing big events, like their kid's first day of school.
A child starting kindergarten is a milestone most American families wouldn't dare miss, but it's one John Bucy will be absent from this month when one of his daughters takes a first step in her education.
The 41-year-old Texas state legislator, whose district includes parts of northern Austin, is among the more than 50 Democratic lawmakers who've fled the Lone Star State to thwart President Donald Trump's effort to protect his razor-thin Republican majority in Congress. He packed his suitcase to be gone for 30 days – maybe longer.
"It makes me scared. It makes me sad," Bucy said in an interview about his self-imposed exodus from his family. "I want to be a part of their lives every chance that I can. But what scares me more is if I'm not here, if they grow up and things are worse off in this country because we didn't stop this gerrymandering."
More: Why Trump's political war in Texas is much bigger than the Lone Star State
Bucy is staying at an undisclosed hotel in Illinois while he and his fellow Democrats continue to block their Republican colleagues from conducting official business back in Austin, such as the rare mid-decade redrawing of their state's maps that define congressional district boundaries. He said he's still in touch with his legislative staff, who are keeping up with constituents and connecting them to state agencies.
Texas is a part-time legislature with a $7,200 annual salary, so like many members, Bucy also has a regular job running a statewide organization that provides athletic, academic and arts competitions for charter school students.
Other Texas colleagues who aren't able to work remotely say they are juggling their personal lives, too, amid a partisan firestorm that is spilling over into other Republican and Democratic-controlled states ahead of the November 2026 midterm election campaign.
Texas state Rep. Donna Howard said she had to take her grandson along when she left town. Baker, 4, has one parent in recovery and another who isn't in the picture. He's since become a "mascot" for the Democratic legislators at the hotel who have volunteered to help watch him when she speaks with constituents, conducts media interviews or when she needs time alone.
"It is a village and my village is stepping up to support me with my grandchild," said Howard, 73, whose district includes parts of southern Austin. "I can't tell you how many people I don't even normally work with on things who have come up and said, 'Can I take him for a little bit and go throw the ball?' So he's kind of like 'King of the Hill' in a lot of ways."
Texas Dems resist 'headache factor' but for how long?
More: Trump says FBI 'may have to' force Democratic lawmakers back to Texas
USA TODAY spoke with more than a dozen Texas Democrats at the center of the national tug-of-war who are facing $500-per-day fines, plus sharp rebukes from Trump and his allies.
They have made arrangements to secure extended childcare. They have requested longer-than-expected work absences and found new locations for aging loved ones who require 24-hour caretakers. But they also said living in close quarters has an upside: their relationships and team-building have improved with activities such as daily exercise groups.
"Pack a toothbrush. Pack hair spray, because hey, this could go on for a while and you got to be ready for it," said Democratic state Rep. Ann Johnson, an attorney who represents parts of Houston.
Johnson, 50, participated in the last Texas quorum break orchestrated by Democrats in 2021, when they fled to Washington, D.C., to resist the GOP tightening the state's election rules. She said she was more prepared this time, but added that this fight is a more stressful and significant situation given the Trump administration's pressure campaign.
More: Texas Democrats flee state amid heated redistricting battle. Has this happened before?
"They'll continue to try to break us, but I actually feel, unlike 2021, there's a really strong coalition here," Johnson said. "There's a drastic difference... now the threats are so much harsher, they're so much more significant, and the risk of what we lose if we are not successful is really large."
Republicans are also doing their part to stymie the Democrats' political efforts, not to mention making their personal lives uncomfortable.
Three-term Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott has threatened to arrest and expel the missing Democrats from the legislature. The state's Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton, filied an Aug. 8 lawsuit seeking to get 13 of them removed from office. The FBI is also helping with the search for the lawmakers, according to U.S. Sen. Jon Cornyn, a Texas Republican facing his own 2026 primary challenge from Paxton and who made the request for help.
"A lot of people are demanding they come back," Trump told reporters on Aug. 5. "You can't just sit it out. You have to go back."
In suburban Chicago, an Aug. 6 bomb threat at the hotel where some of the Texas Democratic legislators have been staying woke them from sleep with a blaring siren echoing through the halls every 30 seconds. It forced an evacuation of the building and took about two hours before guests were allowed back inside, several lawmakers told USA TODAY.
Many of the Democrats said the bomb threat marks a turning point, and made them think of officials being targeted in other states, such as in Minnesota, where an alleged gunman shot two state lawmakers and their spouses at their homes in June, killing one of the couples.
"We have people who are threatening our lives, threatening our families' lives by exposing us," said state Rep. Christian Manuel, 38, whose district covers an eastern portion of the state that includes Beaumont, Texas.
Manuel, who is Black, helps take care of his 95-year-old grandmother and remains in constant contact with family members. Living an hour outside of Jasper, Texas, where a Black man named James Byrd was dragged to death by confirmed white supremacists in 1998, he said the bomb threat at the Illinois hotel reminded him of the potential danger.
"My family is aware," Manuel said. "We are all on alert."
For many of the absconding Democrats, these incidents have hardened their resolve to resist what progressive critics say are Trump and Abbott's attempts to change the math in their favor for the upcoming 2026 midterm elections.
Texas state Rep. Jolanda Jones, who represents parts of Houston, went viral this week after she slammed Abbott's attempt to have the legislators return. She was also embroiled in controversy for comparing the redistricting plan to the Holocaust in an Aug. 5 interview on "The Don Lemon Show," for which she later apologized.
Jones said she serves as her mother's primary caregiver and that other relatives and neighbors back home have stepped up to help, but that she remains worried about her mother's well-being, given Jones' high visibility.
"My mother can't live by herself – that's the bottom line. So me deciding to quorum break was a big deal," Jones, 59, who is running for a Houston-based seat in Congress, told USA TODAY. "I don't know what would happen to my mom if she opened the door and, would they barge in, what would they do? I'm absolutely concerned."
Dems hope to frame Texas battle as flood victims v. Trump's whims
Experts warn the endgame of the quorum break looks bleak for Democrats even as the national party and liberal activists say they believe the fight could be an inflection point against the Trump administration.
"They walked out to stop Republicans from hijacking our democracy," said Christina Harvey, executive director of Stand Up America, a left-leaning voting rights group that has been running ads on social media and TV to mobilize its members against the redistricting efforts.
The current Texas special session is scheduled to end Aug. 19, and Democratic legislators say they're committed to staying away from Austin for the long haul. But Abbott can also keep convening legislators, over and over, legal and political experts say, while applying legal and law enforcement pressure until the Republican-controlled legislature gets what it wants.
The governor is adding a "headache factor" for lawmakers, Mark Jones, a professor of political science at Rice University, told USA TODAY. Even if none of Abbott's efforts bear fruit, they could lead to the need for the runaway legislators to at least respond to a lawsuit and incur costs, lost time and extra effort, he said.
Quorum breaks have been a tool used by the minority party in Texas since 1870. Often, the move is more of a messaging effort with little success in blocking the specific proposal, experts point out. Texas rules say the House must have two-thirds of its members, or 100 people, present to move forward. Of the 62 House Democrats, a few have remained behind in Austin, meaning only a handful need to be arm-twisted into returning to the state for a quorum to be restored and votes to proceed.
Jones, the Rice University professor, said the roughly 50 legislators would have to stay out of the state through the end-of-year holidays and into the spring of 2026 for their long-term strategy to prevail.
Asked how long they can stay out of Texas, many of the Democratic legislators pivot in their responses to hammer the argument that Abbott is putting the two-term Republican president's desires over a needed aid package for the destructive and deadly flooding that submerged central parts of the state in July.
For now, it's unclear how the public is coming down on the Democrats' framing of the fight.
A poll conducted by Texas-based Z to A Research, a Democratic-aligned firm, found that 63% of likely voters – including 41% of Republican voters – believe it's unnecessary to be redrawing the congressional district lines several years before it typically happens. An overwhelming majority of 94% said they support funding flood warning systems and relief efforts, according to a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee memo.
Wherever the Texas battle lands, the Democratic legislators who have fled to Illinois – a few others have been part of press conferences and public events in California, New York, Massachusetts – said they have become a stronger caucus as a result. They described bonding in ways they couldn't during regular sessions, and they believe that sense of unity will spread to Democrats in other states as the Trump administration looks to expand its redistricting strategy.