You’ve almost certainly heard about (at the very least, from the column that appeared in this space last week on the subject) the mushrooming imbroglio emanating from Texas, in which a special session was called to redraw the state’s congressional map.

Since last week’s column, the stakes have been raised and the fun has commenced. Namely, the Texas Legislature’s Democrat minority has — predictably — fled to the bluest locales they could find for the specific purpose of denying a quorum at the Capitol in Austin, trash-talking all along the way.

My Democratic colleagues and I just left the state of Texas to break quorum and stop Trump’s redistricting power grab.

Trump is trying to rig the midterm elections right before our eyes. But first he’ll have to come through us.

It’s time to fight back. pic.twitter.com/xOshwmy2eA

— James Talarico (@jamestalarico) August 3, 2025

This is at least the third time Texas Democrats — who are commonly referred to as “fleebaggers” — have run away from a legislative session when it’s clear they were going to lose on a matter of substance.

Every time it happens, there is an orgiastic outpouring of support from the national Democrats, and this time is no different. Here is House Minority Leader Hakeem “Temu Obama” Jeffries commending the Texas Democrat legislators for… “showing up”:

Texas Democrats are standing up for the people. pic.twitter.com/VO7EA1bh9b

— Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) August 3, 2025

“Showing up?” They’re specifically NOT showing up. That’s the point. They’re choosing to not show up, which according to Temu Obama means showing up.

And one wonders why the Democrats in Congress have a 72 percent disapproval rating.

Where the Texas Democrats did show up was in Illinois and New York.

To protest what they’re calling an unconscionable gerrymander of a congressional map.

The comedic value of those choices can’t go unremarked upon. Even CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski, a doctrinaire, partisan leftist if ever one existed, confessed to a certain sting in his nostrils over Democrats from Texas decamping for Illinois to protest a gerrymander…

Was there nobody on the PR side who was like maybe we shouldn’t go to one of the most corrupt gerrymandered states in the country? https://t.co/ahNLnUJGT0

— Andrew Kaczynski (@KFILE) August 4, 2025

He’s noting the ugly irony, because Illinois is a state that is blue but not impossibly so and yet wrangled its 17 congressional districts so that only three of them are Republican.

Though part of that predatory redistricting did draw Adam Kinzinger out of a seat, so perhaps it wasn’t so bad after all.

Hilariously enough, the new Texas map likely draws Jasmine Crockett out of her seat.

Then there were the fleebaggers making their way to New York, which launched that state’s governor into a spasm of self-defeating idiocy for the ages:

Appearing alongside five Texas House Democrats in Albany, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she and Democratic state legislators there are exploring ways to quickly pursue mid-decade redistricting.

Hochul slammed the Texas redistricting effort as a racist attempt to disenfranchise voters of color and hold onto congressional power. Calling out Abbott and Republican President Donald Trump, who pushed for the mid-decade redistricting, she said redrawing districts now is “legal insurrection” — meaning Republicans are using the legal process — meant to “drag us towards authoritarianism.”

New York has an independent redistricting commission which would be legislatively complicated to undo. But Hochul said the Texas threat is dangerous enough to warrant abandoning the principle of independent map-drawing. New York, she said, should not have to abide by rules that Republican states do not have.

“I cannot ignore that the playing field has changed overnight,” she said. “Shame on us if we ignore that fact and cling tight to the vestiges of the past. That era is over. Donald Trump eliminated that forever.”

To do so, New York Democrats are exploring a constitutional amendment allowing the Legislature to redraw congressional maps if another state pursues it first. It would need to pass through the Legislature twice and then be approved by voters in a ballot referendum, meaning new maps could not be used until the 2028 election cycle — a full cycle later than Texas, if the Texas Legislature is able to pass its redistricting bill. That would coincide with the next presidential election.

I confess that I’m not sure this is how to win the argument. Let’s remember that New York Democrats gerrymandered the living hell out of their congressional map after the 2020 census, and then had the state Supreme Court — not a conservative body by any means — throw it out. That led to a bipartisan commission redrawing the map again, and the state legislature then throwing out THAT map to eliminate three GOP-held seats. So saying that you’re going to whip that dying horse some more because of what Texas is doing? Maybe not so persuasive.

But this is even less persuasive:

At the press conference, Texas Democrats panned the notion that Abbott or any other Texas Republican could compel them to return or arrest them for leaving.

State Rep. Jolanda Jones, D-Houston, said denying a quorum is not a felony.

“Respectfully, he’s making up some shit,” Jones said. “ He’s trying to get soundbites, and he has no legal mechanism. And if he did, subpoenas from Texas don’t work in New York.”

And the legislative leaders and Gov. Greg Abbott are beyond irritated. Abbott ordered the fleebaggers back to Texas for the start of the special session Monday afternoon, declaring that their seats would be deemed abandoned and vacant if they didn’t show. There isn’t a ton of legal justification for such a position, which is not to say there isn’t any.

????BREAKING NEWS from TX Governor Greg Abbott:

“This truancy ends now. The derelict Democrat House members must return to Texas and be in attendance when the House reconvenes at 3:00 PM on Monday, August 4, 2025. For any member who fails to do so, I will invoke Texas Attorney… pic.twitter.com/lCg1LXSyum

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) August 4, 2025

The Texas House addressed the matter in their own way Monday:

“To those who are absent, return now,” he said. After the chamber voted, it quickly adjourned until Tuesday.

As of this writing, neither arrests nor declarations of abandonment have been made. Nor have the fleebaggers returned to the Texas Capitol.

And frankly, Abbott should not only declare those seats abandoned and appoint replacements from his donor list in the respective districts, but he ought to expand the call in that special session not just to redistrict the congressional map but the state legislative map as well in order to butcher the districts of the fleebaggers and maximize Texas’ GOP legislative majority.

What’s the argument against that? Especially now that the fleebaggers have called attention to how blue states do it by highlighting the enlightened practices of Illinois and New York.

It’s go-for-broke time. This column has been arguing for years now that the era of political consensus that began in 1932 is over, and when red states try to do political business the way blue states do, we’re getting a crystal clear picture of what the loss of consensus looks like.

There is no reasoning with Temu Obama Jeffries who thinks that “showing up” means leaving the state rather than doing one’s job as a legislator. Jeffries isn’t making good-faith arguments, if he’s making arguments at all. They’re more like word salads around the power politics his party is attempting to play, with a dependence on legacy corporate media to run air cover.

And that consists, essentially, of the propaganda press howling about Republicans doing precisely what Democrats do at every opportunity.

Which makes this a circus, not a fight over principle. There are lots of wild beasts and bearded ladies on offer, after all, though not so many muscle-men.

And if you don’t like the circus, then it’s advisable to knock out the big pole in the center and impound all the animals. Which Abbott says he’s going to do. Here’s to hoping he makes good on that promise and gives no mercy to the fleebaggers.

READ MORE:

Five Quick Things: The Long Overdue Russiagate Reckoning

Good for Texas!

The Full Measure of Obamunism Is on Display in Chicago