Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: El Paso State Rep. Claudia Ordaz, theorized to be on her way back to the Capitol, says she is in full support of the quorum break as she undergoes medical treatment: https://www.ktsm.com/local/texas-dps-shows-up-for-el-paso-lawmaker-rep-ordaz/ ...Texas Republicans are pulling out all the stops against the quorum breakers - with the Trump agenda at stake, their zeal for retribution is in overdrive: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/08/12/tex...
Aug 12, 2025•9 min
All of the Texas House Democrats out of the state to stop the Trump power grab are making personal sacrifices - including State Rep. Ron Reynolds, who is missing his twins' first day of high school on Tuesday. Those kids, through the rest of their lives, will have a great story to tell about why Dad was away - he's doing all he can to preserve American democracy. No big deal! Learn more about State Rep. Ron Reynolds at https://ronreynoldstexas.com/ . Progress Texas' financial reserves have dropp...
Aug 11, 2025•18 min
Unlike many of the House Democrats away on this quorum break, Houston's Rep. Lauren Ashley Simmons is doing this for the first time, so her perspective on the measure and her sense of purpose might be a bit different from some of the other elected Dems we've interviewed from afar - and we find that she's as determined and as inspiring as ever. Learn more about Rep. Lauren Ashley Simmons at https://www.laurenashleysimmons.com/ . Progress Texas' financial reserves have dropped to about 3 months wo...
Aug 11, 2025•17 min
Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: After Friday's Texas House quorum scare - in which one more Democrat, Rep. Mary Gonzales, showed up - the House will try again this afternoon at 1: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/texas-legislature-swing-redistricting-vote-democrats-extend-walkout-124533839 ...Texas Monthly comes up with a solid nickname for the Dems who have lined up for the Republicans, in the "housebodies": https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/the-texas-d...
Aug 11, 2025•9 min
We're joined for our weekly complaining session this week by Lana Hansen, Executive Director of Texas Blue Action, just as word comes down from Nancy Thompson of Mothers Against Greg Abbott that she believes enough Democrats will return from the quorum break today to allow Texas House Republicans to establish quorum and hold a vote - which will pass in such a case - on new congressional maps that will likely deliver five additional U.S. House seats to the Republicans and Donald Trump. Learn more...
Aug 08, 2025•15 min
Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Republicans in the Texas House plan to convene today at 1pm to try to advance Trump's congressional map - unless there are at least six quorum breakers planning to show up, they will not be able to establish quorum: https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/08/politics/texas-redistricting-friday-updates Governor Abbott is promising years of special sessions to wait out the quorum breakers - who really just have to hold out long enough to stop the new map...
Aug 08, 2025•12 min
We've been fans of Rep. Ann Johnson of Houston for a long time, and while we wish our first visit with her were not under such stressful circumstances, we're glad to have her take this morning. The Texas Democratic quorum break to stop Greg Abbott and the Republican Party of Texas from granting Donald Trump's wish to screw the voters of our state out of five more congressional seats enters its fourth day today. Learn more about Rep. Ann Johnson at https://annjohnson.com/ . Progress Texas' financ...
Aug 07, 2025•10 min
Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Yesterday's bomb threat against the hotel where Texas Democratic quorum breakers were staying - some with children, and surrounded by innocent bystanders - has thus far not been condemned by any Republican in elected office: https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/bomb-threat-at-illinois-hotel-where-dozens-of-texas-democrats-are-staying-244482629733 Targeted in particular for removal from office by Governor Abbott, House Minority Leader ...
Aug 07, 2025•8 min
This next update from afar is the first to come to Progress Texas after the news of a bomb threat that required the evacuation of an Illinois hotel where several of the quorum breaking Texas House Democrats - and in some cases, their families and kids - are sheltering as they put the brakes on Governor Abbott's carving up of Texas' congressional maps on the orders of Donald Trump. As Austin State Rep. John Bucy reminds us, this frightening moment is the direct result of inflammatory and highly i...
Aug 06, 2025•13 min
Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: In developments leading into the third day of the Texas House quorum break, Senator John Cornyn has requested that the FBI intervene, capture and transport the Democratic lawmakers avoiding the special session back to the Capitol: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cornyn-fbi-arrest-texas-democrats_n_68925f14e4b0d3424bc402f3 ...Next, Attorney General Ken Paxton declared he'll ask that the seats of any Democrats still absent on Friday be declare...
Aug 06, 2025•12 min
Our series of updates from Texas House Democrats who have left the state to halt the Republican redistricting effort continues, and just as we were linking up with Rep. Ana-Maria Rodriguez Ramos, we learned that U.S. Senator John Cornyn has begun cajoling Kash Patel and the FBI to intervene in the Texas House quorum break - a serious, though expected, escalation: https://www.axios.com/2025/08/05/john-cornyn-fbi-arrest-democrats-texas Learn more about Rep. Ana-Maria Rodriguez-Ramos at https://www...
Aug 05, 2025•15 min
As the special session has been halted by a Democratic quorum break, we continue our series of updates from the elected officials involved, now shifting to those who have uprooted their personal lives to leave the state in order to stop the Trump-commanded and Abbott-facilitated congressional power grab in Texas - first from the road is Austin State Rep. Vikki Goodwin, who recently joined Progress Texas to announce her run for Lieutenant Governor in 2026. Learn more about Rep. Vikki Goodwin and ...
Aug 05, 2025•12 min
Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: The national fight over partisan redistricting is settling into a direct battle between Texas and California: https://apnews.com/article/redistricting-texas-california-house-map-trump-0f5f79185bbeeba8c2ff9999f48e5867 ...Governor Abbott shows no sign of backing down, saying that the State House Democrats who have left the state to break quorum are "freaking out": https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/5436035-texas-governor-greg-abbott-dem...
Aug 05, 2025•9 min
Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: After weeks of warnings, most of the Democratic delegation to the Texas House of Representatives has left the state to break quorum ahead of a vote on a Trump-ordered redistricting map: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/08/03/texas-democrats-quorum-break-redistricting-map/ ...Many of them are in Chicago, where they were met at the airport last night by Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzger: https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/08/03/texas-house-de...
Aug 04, 2025•9 min
Our weekly gathering happens while the final hearing on the Donald Trump-ordered redistricting of Texas for the sole purpose of protecting him from losing the GOP majority in the U.S. House next year - widely expected to happen without this kind of drastic measure - is even now ongoing at the Capitol. We sent Digital Associate Haley Smith into the fray to see what's what - she reports live from the scene, complete with interviews including Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder, whose hat ...
Aug 01, 2025•35 min
Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: The last hearing by the State Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting on the Donald Trump-ordered redistricting of Texas' congressional district is expected to draw a massive crowd in opposition today: https://www.khou.com/article/news/politics/register-texas-redistricting-hearing-districts-austin/285-3b6de0f7-f03e-4ffb-9317-3c52432afe37 ...National Democrats are pledging to back their Texas counterparts, including a visit this week...
Aug 01, 2025•10 min
For this next special session update, we welcome for the first time State Rep. Josey Garcia, who represents San Antonio's 124th House District and is the first active duty woman veteran to serve in the Texas House! Now that the GOP maps have been released, we see the shameful extent of their racist power grab - and Rep. Garcia has a thing or two to say about it. We've been looking forward to this talk! Learn more about State Rep. Josey Garcia at https://www.joseygarcia.com/ . Progress Texas' fin...
Jul 31, 2025•25 min
The revealing of new congressional maps ordered by Donald Trump show the extend of the damage they threaten against representative democracy - especially in Texas' biggest cities: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2025/07/30/congressional-plan-would-flip-five-seats-from-democrats-to-republicans/ ...The blue dots on the Texas political map, centered on our major metropolitan areas, get a lot smaller and fainter in this new map: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/07/30/texas-redistricting-co...
Jul 31, 2025•11 min
Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Punchbowl News publishes details on a new congressional district map that Texas Republicans lawmakers may release as soon as today, featuring five new GOP-leaning districts in Austin, D/FW, Houston and the Rio Grande Valley: https://punchbowl.news/article/campaigns/texas-sized-gamble/ ...It bets heavily on Hispanic voters in Texas, in an election not featuring Donald Trump, to resist buyers remorse and remain loyal to Republican candidates ...
Jul 30, 2025•9 min
Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: UT Arlington saw yet another huge public turnout in opposition to the Trump-ordered Texas redistricting scheme yesterday, the crowd exceeding the accommodation limits of the event: https://www.keranews.org/government/2025-07-28/texas-redistricting-ut-arlington-hearing ...Democrats have begun making financial preparations for the potential daily per-member fines of $500 that may be a factor in a quorum break: https://www.texastribune.org/202...
Jul 29, 2025•9 min
For this next update from the special legislative session, we go to one of our favorite go-to voices and fighters in the upper chamber - State Senator Roland Gutierrez of San Antonio, who has just announced a re-election bid for the seat he's held since he displaced Republican Senator Pete Flores in 2020. Senator Gutierrez has been vocal in his opposition to the Trump-demanded carving up of Texas in a desperate bid to keep the U.S. House under GOP control, and his condemnation of cruel and un-Am...
Jul 28, 2025•19 min
Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: College Democrats across the state are calling for a quorum break to stop the GOP redistricting scheme: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AGqBhU9AT/ ...Texas House Dems staged a "quorum break jump scare" on Friday, heading out for a short visit to California to discuss reciprocal redistricting with Governor Gavin Newsom: https://www.chron.com/politics/article/newsom-california-texas-trump-redistricting-20788484.php ...Another delegation hea...
Jul 28, 2025•10 min
As, promised, here's our full capture of Friday night's rally at the Delco Center in northeast Austin, hosted by Powered By People, and featuring in order: 01:06 - Travis County Democratic Party Chair Doug Greco 04:39 - Austin State Representative Gina Hinojosa 16:06 - Round Rock State Representative James Talarico 29:39 - Austin Congressman Greg Casar 37:10 - Dallas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett 47:30 - San Antonio Congressman Joaquin Castro 1:02:06 - Former Congressman Beto O'Rourke Thanks fo...
Jul 26, 2025•1 hr 15 min
This week's kvetch is a rare LIVE kvetch, as the team warmed up to capture Powered By People's rally on Friday night at Austin ISD's Delco Center. As we awaited a who's who of Texas progressive politics: Beto O'Rourke, Joaquin Castro, Jasmine Crockett, James Talarico, Greg Casar, Gina Hinojosa and new Travis County Democratic Party Chair Doug Greco, we covered the events of a week that were pretty insane, but that term has become very much relative these days in Texas. Our full capture of the ev...
Jul 26, 2025•22 min
Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: At the conclusion of last night's contentious hearing on Texas Republicans' push to redraw our congressional maps - at the behest of Donald Trump and with no actual maps to show - Isaiah Martin, one of the Democratic candidates for Houston's District 18, was taken to the floor twice by Capitol security and arrested by DPS on multiple misdemeanor charges: https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/tempers-flare-at-texas-redistricting-hearing-as-critic...
Jul 25, 2025•9 min
There's probably no elected Democrat in all of Texas who has been a more frequent target of right wing smear attacks than José Garza, currently in his second term as Travis Country District Attorney. He's also a great example of how, when one becomes such a lightning rod for MAGA, one is probably doing excellent work - Travis County and Austin are the safest they've been in years, and it's largely due to Garza's work - and the voters of the Austin area are largely very happy customers. Learn mor...
Jul 24, 2025•30 min
Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: When they return from summer recess on August 18, lawmakers in California will immediately faced with tough decisions on how to respond to Texas redistricting: https://www.kcra.com/article/texas-redistricting-hearings-newsom-decides-california/65493018 After getting first to Trump's priorities, Texas Republicans finally got around to lesser concerns for them - Texas flood relief - but started with a four-hour "attaboy" session that drew the...
Jul 24, 2025•13 min
State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer of San Antonio was one of the primary captains of the 2021 Texas Democratic quorum break, staged in resistance against Republican attacks on voting access. Now, as the Texas Legislature considers mid-decade redistricting, he may soon be experiencing deja vu. We talk with Rep. Martinez Fischer about the Trump-directed assault on decades of civil rights advances, what the Dems can do about it, and what the stakes really are. Our friend Pooja Sethi provides informat...
Jul 23, 2025•19 min
Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: As the Trump-ordered redistricting push continues with the special session, Democrats are weighing options - the primary of which is to break quorum: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas-take/article/texas-democrats-ready-anything-block-redistricting-20779102.php ...What's the Bible say about undermining democracy via redistricting and gerrymandering? https://drawthelinespa.org/citizen-stories/why-i-see-gerrymandering-as-a-sin-th...
Jul 23, 2025•13 min
State Senator Molly Cook returned to work as an emergency nurse in her hometown of Houston at the conclusion of her freshman session a few weeks ago - only to be dragged back to the Capitol for a special session that, turns out, is a lot more about Governor Abbott doing the bidding of Donald Trump than helping Hill Country flood victims, or even addressing Dan Patrick's stupid THC ban. Senator Cook joined us for the first of a series of updates from Democratic lawmakers as the special session co...
Jul 22, 2025•11 min
