At least 50 Texas Democratic state legislators fled the state on Sunday, hoping to stymie a proposed congressional redistricting they say is racially discriminatory by preventing the legislature from reaching the quorum needed to take a vote.
As explained previously in Teen Vogue, redistricting entails redrawing the borders of Congressional districts based on population shifts as tracked in the Census every ten years. But right now in Texas, Republicans are attempting to force a vote on newly proposed Congressional district lines mid-decade. The reason for the attempted break in tradition: The redrawn districts would lean significantly more red than they do presently, giving them an edge in the 2026 midterms, where they expect to do worse than in 2024.
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Trump is keeping a close watch on the situation. On Thursday, he announced (via Truth Social) he wanted to change the methodology for the Census completely by not including undocumented Americans in the population, which would vastly shift how districts are drawn.
The move has launched a flurry of headlines and developments. Democratic electeds outside of Texas, including New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, have struck out with brash words in defense of the Texas Democrats, promising to help shelter them. Others, like California Gov. Gavin Newsom, are looking into ways to retaliate by redistricting in favor of Democrats in their own states.
Meanwhile, Texas Republicans have responded with vitriol. On Monday, the day after they fled, Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the arrest of the Democrats who left and asked the Texas Supreme Court to expel House Democratic Caucus chair Gene Wu. The fleeing Democrats face ballooning statehouse fines for each official (though it’s unclear how that could be enforced).
The conflict appears to be ever-escalating — seemingly even faster than previous years when legislators did essentially the same thing. On Wednesday, the Illinois hotel where dozens of the representatives are hiding out was evacuated because of a bomb threat that turned out to be false. And on Thursday, Texas Senator John Cornyn (R) claimed on social media that the FBI agreed to track down the Texas Democrats who’d left the state. That night, Abbott told NBC News that he intended to call “special session after special session after special session with the same agenda items on there” until Democrats returned for the vote — claiming it could go on for years.
Lauren Ashley Simmons is one of those Democrats. The 36-year-old labor organizer ran in her Houston district as a progressive challenger to a Democrat incumbent who supported anti-LGBTQ bills.
“I beat an incumbent that nobody thought I stood a chance against because she decided to speak out against trans kids and really neglect our community,” Simmons tells Teen Vogue, calling herself “scrappy” to help explain her lack of fear around the situation, despite intensifying retaliation from Republicans. “My constituents have me here for a reason, and if they want to throw down, I'm gonna throw down with them.”
Simmons speaks with Teen Vogue about the decision by Texas Democrats to leave the state in protest, the need for Democrats to boldly differentiate themselves from Republicans, and more.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Lauren Ashley Simmons: On Sunday, the majority of our caucus left the state of Texas. Many of us are in Illinois at the moment to deny a quorum for Monday [August 4], when we were supposed to meet on the floor. This wasn't a decision that was made on a whim, nor was it a decision that was made lightly. The moment is very dire right now.
Breaking quorum is a parliamentary procedure. It's mentioned in the Texas Constitution, and is one of the only real tools that the minority party has in a situation to deny that business can be conducted as usual. What is happening with the redrawing of these maps is going to further weaken the voices and representation of Black and brown communities, at the request of the President to our governor. I want to be clear, this is mid-decade redistricting, so this was not something that is needed.
Texas is the canary in the coal mine. We are not just the first ones dealing with this [under the second Trump administration], but we are serving as a warning to the rest of the country about what can and will happen when presidential power goes unchecked... A sitting president, instead of doing what he can to convince his constituents that his policies are working, [basically] said, “You know what, we're not going to win in ‘26, I'm gonna just rig the game and I'm going to cheat.” And that comes, again, at the expense of communities that are already suffering.
In Houston, I represent within my house district, two Black congressional districts: 18 — that was a seat that was held by the late, great Barbara Jordan, that has been vacant since the death of Sylvester Turner, rest his soul — and the ninth congressional district. Based on these new maps, [they] no longer exist in this current form. So I live in congressional district 9; I have lost my congressional district. They drew our Congressman out of his own district, and basically lumped all the black folks that were in congressional district 9 into 18.
Honestly, I haven't really heard a good Republican defense of this yet. As quiet as it's kept, from their side, they don't really want this either, and they don't really know how to frame it. But it is not just a power grab; it's racist in nature.
LAS: I want to be very, very mindful about the way that I speak about this, because this isn't just about policies and whether or not we're voting on bills. We lost 130-plus Texans very recently in a flood. And while we don't have the ability to stop a natural act of God, when the response is not adequate and there are policy decisions that made it more difficult to rescue people or to receive adequate warnings and enough time, there's some conversations to be had about those policy [decisions].
Our governor did not want to address those matters in that way… I want us to be very clear that us leaving is not the reason that good legislation is not being pushed. It's not being pushed because it's not a priority of Donald Trump or Greg Abbott.
LAS: I'm a community organizer. I work for an organization that supports Black migrants. I come into this work very differently [than most electeds], which I think gives me a fresher perspective.
One of the things I often say amongst my colleagues, even just when we're doing our normal day to day Democratic establishment stuff — I'm just like, “Hey, y'all, when’s the last time you ran this by a regular group of people?” Not a consultant, not the people who are in these echo chambers all day.
I think people agree with us, that's the thing. Our policies, if enacted, work, and we have evidence of that. We have evidence that when people are surveyed, when they're talked to and it's broken down for them in a digestible way, they get it. So I'm always going to be one of those people that says we can't win races trying to be Republican lite.
Now, Democrats are not a monolith. States are very different, down to the precinct, so you have to run in a way where voters can perceive you and understand you care about their concerns as it pertains to their community. But at the same time, we can't be so willing to go so much into the center, where people can't distinguish us from the other side, because they'll just go with the other side.
Across the past couple of years — especially as younger people get more politically involved, or they face issues that they can tie back to the failure of politics — [we] see an awakening where people are saying, okay, you know what, I get it now.
Texas is very different from New York... But I think our messaging was very clear: We can talk about social issues, we can make sure that we're not getting pulled into the culture wars, where Republicans are going after the LGBT community, trying to silence the voices of Black and brown people. But also have those conversations, those kitchen table issues that matter to people. People want to be able to afford a home. They want to be able to send their kids to well funded schools, and you can do both of those at the same time.
LAS: It's really important for people to realize Texas ain't Vegas. What happens in Texas doesn't stay in Texas. What's happening with our congressional districts has national implications.
The reason that Donald Trump decided Texas was gonna be his go-to was because he figured, look, it's a big Republican state. I can get this done in the cover of night, real easy peasy, and the Democrats can't put up much of a fight. What you're seeing is [us] taking the nuclear option, the more drastic choice to say, this is not just so important to Texas, but this has the power to shape and shift our country for years to come. We're already watching our people suffer. Once that “big, bad bill” or whatever you want to call it is implemented, and people start seeing the cuts to their health care access — how things are not any more affordable, and costs are not going down — they're not going to be apt to put some of those same Republican representatives in office.
This is Donald Trump just trying to game the system. He doesn't want to have to win his constituents over with good policy. He just wants to be able to enforce his will. It's the moment that we're in now. But also people got to realize, democracy, those guard rails, are not self-enforcing, and Donald Trump is testing the fence. He's poking to see just how far he can go and how much he can get away with. And when we don't push back in a real way, it just makes it that much easier.
We, in a lot of ways, in my opinion, are slip-sliding right into fascism. We're so tired, we're so overworked, we're so busy with our day to day lives, it's hard to keep up with the minutia of your city council, your school board, your state legislature, your federal government. It's incumbent upon people like me, people who do this for a living, people who are endowed in our communities, to wake our people up and say, “Listen, you ain't got to know all the ins and outs, but this is what matters right now. This is what's important, and this is what you're about to lose because of what's happening.” So I hope that, if nothing else, we can convey that message adequately.
A few of us from our delegation even traveled to other states to have meetings with Democratic governors to say, look, we're not going to tell you that you need to redistrict your state, but what we are going to tell you is that your your big blue wall will not insulate you from the harms that are to come if Donald Trump can enact his will over the people of Texas.
LAS: I mean, I'm a union organizer in Texas, so somebody's always making a threat. I don't want to take this lightly, but I think our resolve is hardened, because we know that if this wasn't important, they wouldn't be reacting the way they're doing. Our governor is literally crashing out on social media... One of our US Senators reached out to Kash Patel. They're going crazy, because what we're doing is blocking their agenda. For however long we hold out, we hold that power.
My full home address was doxxed on Twitter yesterday. Some random guy I've never met put my whole address for the world to see, and basically encouraged people to come pay me a visit.
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As much as we don't want to go into a politically violent place, we want to be able to have this discussion and this debate as civilly as possible, we can't pretend like these are normal times under normal circumstances. Something I always tell people is, look, the slave didn’t get free asking nicely for permission. It's one thing to fight against my community and try to silence us. It's a whole ‘nother thing if we just lay down and take it.
LAS: I just want people to pay attention to this moment, understand what's happening in our country. This is not normal, and we are absolutely within our right and should be willing to push back and fight back and stand up.
