Texas Democrats look bad in redistricting fight. Republicans look even worse.
I guess it's too much to ask for my home state of Texas to make national news for something that's cool or influential.
It's not often that I side with neither Republicans nor Democrats in Texas. But the redistricting debacle making national news is one of those times.
I don't know what's worse:
That Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to remove House Democrats from office if they didn't return to the Capitol on Aug. 4.
That the Texas House on Aug. 4 passed a motion allowing Speaker Dustin Burrows to issue arrest warrants for Democrats who skipped the legislative session.
That Democrats in the state House fled Texas for Illinois and New York to prevent the legislature from voting on new congressional district maps.
Or that House Republicans, in a bizarre power grab, are trying to redraw congressional maps to ensure that the GOP has an even stronger hold on the state and a better chance of retaining the U.S. House in the 2026 midterm elections.
Is this the wild West?
The chaos in Texas now threatens to spread to other states. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said they will consider redrawing maps to heavily favor the political party in power in their state.
Where will the madness end?
Democrats fleeing Texas is not a good look
It's a challenge to be a Democratic politician in Texas. They are vastly outnumbered, and those who do hold office have little power.
I understand why Democrats are angry. Texas was historically a Democratic stronghold. But Republicans have held the governor's office for the past 30 years and controlled the state legislature for more than two decades. Not a single Democrat serves in statewide office now.
Every few years, progressives and the news media champion a Democratic savior who is supposed to be the one to finally turn Texas blue. But candidates like Beto O'Rourke fail repeatedly.
Now, along come Texas Republicans trying to gerrymander themselves to even more power.
Still, the Democratic leaders fleeing Texas for Illinois and New York are hurting their party's image in our state.
Opinion: Democrats have devolved into a clown show. No wonder polls show voters prefer GOP.
In a post on X, Rep. Ann Johnson, a Democrat from Houston, tried to make her fellow lawmakers' cowardly retreat noble.
"They're willing to break the law to cling to power," Johnson wrote. "We're willing to break quorum to protect it. We don't stand by. We stand up."
"We stand up" by fleeing the state is not the winning message that she thinks it is.
Texas House Republicans are engaged in a power grab
As bad as House Democrats look, however, I have a bigger complaint about Republican legislators. GOP lawmakers have admitted that they are redrawing congressional districts to help Republicans gain even more power.
'Different from everyone else, I'm telling you, I'm not beating around the bush,' Corpus Christi Republican Rep. Todd Hunter, who authored the redistricting bill, said in a hearing. 'We have five new districts, and these five new districts are based on political performance.'
I appreciate Hunter's honesty. It's obvious that Republicans' bid to redraw the congressional districts, which were approved in 2021, is a raw power grab. It's unethical and unnecessary.
Republicans have reshaped politics and policy in the state over the past 30 years. Voters have given them that power because they have grown the economy and protected our freedoms.
Opinion: GDP soars and Trump's economy roars. Liberals still won't give him credit.
I love living in Texas because the state's culture matches my conservative values. It's full of history, beauty and gun-carrying, freedom-loving, patriotic men and women.
And that's exactly how we convert all those expats from California to become conservatives ‒ through our values, policies and way of life. Not through stupid redistricting efforts that create a national spectacle.
I hope the next time Texas makes national news it's because the Dallas Cowboys are ready to win the Super Bowl.
Nicole Russell is a columnist at USA TODAY and a mother of four who lives in Texas. Contact her at nrussell@gannett.com and follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @russell_nm. Sign up for her weekly newsletter, The Right Track, here.
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