How Will Democrats Approach The Special Session?

When Gov. Greg Abbott announced the Texas legislature would convene for a special session on July 21, the thinking was the agenda would focus on regulating hemp products and maybe tweaking other bills he vetoed.

But a subsequent 18-item agenda released earlier this month includes so much more: further restricting abortion, banning transgender people from using bathrooms according to their identity, empowering the attorney general to pursue election fraud, banning taxpayer funded lobbying, eliminating the STAAR test, cutting property taxes and bolstering flood relief. And then the biggest surprise agenda item was mid-decade redistricting as requested by President Donald Trump. 

Concerned his party would lose their already slim majority in Congress, redrawing already fraught lines in Texas for Republicans would allow the party to pick up five more seats and offset gains elsewhere. A bold, and outrageous strategy.

Almost immediately Democrats seized on this ploy as a rallying cry. But is there a plan? We got a sense of Democrats’ strategy on Thursday, and it’s a lot of messaging and virtue signaling.

"I am ready, willing, and able to get into good trouble by breaking quorum when justice is on the line," State Rep. Ron Reynolds of Houston, vice chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said in a statement. Then on Friday, the Texas House Democratic Campaign Committee officially launched StopTheTexasSteal.com, linking the deadly Central Texas flooding to the redistricting scheme.

“Governor Abbott is using the pain and suffering of flood victims as political cover to steal elections for himself and Donald Trump,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu said in a statement. “This isn’t just about lines on a map—it’s about lives on the line. Instead of focusing on rebuilding communities and preventing the next tragedy, he is prioritizing a cynical power grab that will silence the voices of millions of Texans. StopTheTexasSteal.com is the start of our fight back. We are going to fight to get Texas communities what they need — not to help politicians protect their own power or carve up districts for their own gain.”

But messaging isn’t enough to sink Republican leadership’s ambitions. Democrats, as I’ve argued need to be bolder.

The House needs 100 of the 150 members to show up for a quorum. Republicans have an 88-62 advantage in the House, meaning only 12 Democrats need to show up to matter. So, preventing a quorum, like they did in 2021 over election laws, is a possibility. 

But after the 2021 quorum break, Republicans changed the rules in 2023. Members who are “absent without leave for the purpose of impeding the action of the House” can face fines of up to $500 per day, which they have to pay out of their pocket. But the question for Democrats is if walking out is the same as not even showing up on Monday or for the remaining 30 days?

So what if instead of just not showing up, they actually do something with that free time? (And I don’t mean go to Washington, D.C. to talk to democracy.)

They could volunteer for disaster relief efforts in Central Texas. They could go to the “Alligator Alcatraz” compound in Florida and decry the inhumane treatment of immigrants. They could travel with religious leaders across the state highlighting the cost of cutting funding to public media in rural areas, pending cuts to food stamps, Medicaid, rural hospitals, and lifesaving research cut by the Trump administration. 

They need to turn the Republican agenda against the Republicans while looking like good people too. Texas Republicans aren’t aligned on everything either and that should give Democrats an opening to exploit those divides, however menial. 

What they can exploit is where Republicans are divided, including the very disagreements between Burrows and Patrick on hemp product regulations. Patrick wanted an all out ban on them, while Burrows preferred regulations. The House approved the Senate bill, which Abbott vetoed. That gives some room for a fight.   

“Gov. Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Speaker Burrows look like they’re on the same page, and on most issues on the call they are. But disagreements about specifics on tax cuts, THC reform, and where to draw lines to protect Republican incumbents is very likely to ignite a public battle, despite Trump‘s laying of hands on Republican office holders,” said University of Houston professor Brandon Rottinghaus, who specializes in Texas politics. 

Democrats have few options and are weaker at the knees than ever before. Monday will give a glimpse if they have a plan to fight not just with websites and rhetoric but action too.