The Texas Tribune

08/12/2025

This time, the stakes are different: Trump’s agenda hinges on retaining the GOP’s razor-thin hold on the U.S. House, and he has said he feels “entitled” to five additional Republican seats from Texas to maintain that lead.

State leaders are feverishly trying to outdo each other in the quest to deliver. Abbott and Paxton, both members of the executive branch, are feuding over who can ask the judiciary to remove a sitting member of the Legislature. Sen. John Cornyn, not typically a flamethrower, is taunting Paxton, his primary challenger, for not doing more to drag the Democrats back.

“Republicans are kicking into a bigger net than they were in 2003. They’ve got control of every level of government and are unimpeded by any electoral constraint,” Rottinghaus said. “Those things can give Republicans a lot of hubris.”

The all-Republican Supreme Court is expected to rule in the coming weeks on whether Abbott, or Paxton, can remove Democrats from office. Hardline conservative activist Michael Quinn Sullivan posted on social media that the high court has “2.3 million Republican primary voters eyeing their actions closely this week” and suggested that the justices “should ask the former members of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals about how the GOP base responds to unpopular rulings…”

If the court does eventually agree that breaking quorum is equivalent to abandoning one’s office, it will permanently eliminate one of the few remaining tools Texas Democrats’ have to block legislation.

However things shake out, Democrats’ latest decampment — and the GOP’s no-holds-barred response — promises to change Texas politics. Republicans are expected to revoke any remaining shreds of power Democrats still hold, having suggested removing them as committee vice-chairs and subcommittee chairs. Some are threatening new legislative maps to draw Democrats out of their jobs at the state Capitol. Those who remain will likely find a less-than-hospitable environment for their priorities.

Texas has been on a long, slowly accelerating descent into polarization since 2003, Rottinghaus said. Twenty-two years later, this episode has brought the state to the cliff face, and flung it right off.

“The bad blood from this will stain the institution forever,” he said.