Hello, and welcome to the Texas Tribune trip cast for Tuesday, August twelfth. I am Matthew Watkins, editor in chief of the Tribune, and I am joined by, as usual, our law and politics reporter Eleanor Clebanoff. Hello, Eleanor, Hello Matthew.
How are you.
I'm doing well. We were just talking about how you've been doing the yeomen's work of googling synonyms for unprecedented Yes.
Very March twenty twenty vibes, but more on the Texas legal politics side.
I feel like this is just I feel like the common debate among reporters right now is like, what's another word for flea? Flee the state. I feel like people are really you know, going DeCamp, you know, absconde, Yeah, really stretching the limits of our our language here to find.
We've gotten some negative feedback on flea people who are sort of supportive of the Democrats and feel like flea implies, you know, uh, doing so without perhaps without cause or without you know, sort of more of a cowardly move, which I think we've certainly heard Republicans sort of framing it that way. I kind of think flee is, you know, you can flee in defense of democracy.
Right, you can flee, you know, a nuclear bomb.
Exactly, say that people who flee nuclear bombs are towers.
I don't think there's a value judgment here.
That's what we say.
Yeah, so yeah, we uh abscond on the lamb.
That one feels more criminal. Yeah yeah, yeah.
So we're struggling eleanor dot clipping off at texts Tribune dot org. If anyone has any language recommendations for us.
My email has been you don't need me.
I apologize.
I will say one thing, and I will I want to publicly may a cool book for this. I made a an error in a story today and people emailed me so aggressively. But to be fair, it was warranted. I engaged in bill clements erasure. I misstated what year Texas elected its first Republican governor. People emailed me, so I rate on behalf of bill clements, and that's fair.
I did get it.
I was an air I introduced an error in there, and uh, it's amazing how intense people were about that.
They always say, you know, you don't mess with the bill clements hive. That's exactly. Yeah, the rule number one of Texas journalism. Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly right. All right, Well, this week, if you haven't picked up up and picked up on it already, we are going to continue talking about the quorum break and we're going to take a little visit to law school, which I think is probably exciting to you. Yeah, you know, catching people up. I'm
sure most people listening to the show already know. But Texas Democrats in the Texas House remain outside of the state they're fleeing. Has continued, if you will, but the fight has shifted maybe a little bit more to the courtroom. State leaders since we last spoke, including Greg Abbott and
Ken Paxson. We'll get into that in a little bit, have filed lawsuits seeking to remove thirteen Democrats in the Texas House, including House Democratic Leader Jean wu from office, basically claiming that they have abandoned their duties as elected officials. It is an unprecedented step in which the Texas Supreme Court will likely ultimately decide the fate of those lawmakers
in the coming days or maybe weeks. Joining us to help us understand this is David Frumkin, a law professor at the University of Houston who studies, administrative law, election law, and democratic and constitutional theory, which sounds like a pretty good CV for the conversation. We're about to have the guy we needed exactly. So David, thank you for joining us.
Great to be with you.
All Right, So I'm going to start with you, Eleanor, and I'm going to ask you to explain what these legal filings are before we go to David, to help us understand whether there's anything to these legal filings. So just sum up with for us as quickly as you can what legal actions Abbot and Paxton have taken against these Democrats.
Yeah, and I will say this is like one of the best parts definitively of being a journalist is that, like you can wake up on a Monday a week ago and have never heard the phrase quote warrntoe in your life, and by the end of the week, I'm sitting here being like everybody knows, like to file an information on a quote warrant to proceeding, you got to follow these different steps thanks to legal experts like Professor Frumpkin who educate us all on the fly.
But that's basically what this is.
They have asked first Abbot, first Governor abbot On has asked the Texasupreme Court to remove House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu through this quot warrn toe preceding Attorney General packs and followed up with his own suit on seeking to remove thirteen members through the same mechanism, one Wu and twelve others.
And uh, yeah, that's it's.
An unprecedented filing to be used for a quorum break. It is basically if a public official. It can also be using corporate settings, but putting that aside for a second, if a public official has vacated their office or abandoned their office, it is how you get them.
Formally removed from office.
There are there's like rare precedent and how this has been used in you know these sort of in general, like how do you get somebody out of office?
It has never been used, you know, quorm break setting.
Okay, So David, I want to ask you first with a very simple question. I mean, is there anything laid out in the Constitution or elsewhere that sets sort of defined what kind of abandoning office? Abandoning your office means? Is that like what do we have to go with to evaluate whether these Democrats have actually abandoned their office.
The Constitution says that when a vacancy occurs in a legislative position, then it is the job of the governor to call a special election to fill that vacancy. It doesn't provide an exhaustive list of the conditions under which a vacancy would occur, and the legal theory underlying these actions is that a court is entitled to identify a vacancy under this kind of circumstance.
This circumstance being essentially leaving the state in an effort to make it impossible for the Texas House to do its job to function. Essentially, I mean this is a.
Thing, though.
I mean Texas lawmakers have been breaking quorum as we call it since like the eighteen seventies. Our founding fathers for reasons that we don't know, but our founding fathers set our quorum very high. They gave us a two thirds quorum. We're one of only four states that has a two thirds quorum.
It is notable.
Those are the only states that really have ever had quorum breaks. Most states fifty percent, fine, whatever, here two thirds. The legal experts or the historians I've talked to you feel like this reflects early Texas's wanting to make government difficult, small and difficult to enact.
We don't know that for sure, though.
Okay, okay, so I mean, David, help us analyze these legal arguments that have What do you think about the case that Abbott and Paxton are making about you know that what they have done actually constitutes, you know, abandonment of office.
I think the case offered by both the governor and the Attorney General is very weak. They really haven't pointed to any precedent that supports their position. In fact, the precedents they cite tend to support or the alternative view that these legislators have not abandoned their positions because they intend to hold and exercise their positions. They're doing what
they're doing in order to advance their legislative goals. The precedents that both the governor and the Attorney General cited suggests that a court could identify an instance of abandonment when a legislative office holder is no longer trying to exercise their office. Say they've gone off on a cruise for a year and they're not even engaged in legislative business. That's a far cry from the kind of situation we're looking at here.
So I mean, basically, what you're saying, what I think the Democrats are maybe arguing in as well, is that leaving the state to break quorum is not an abandonment office. It's actually using it's a constitutionally created function tool lever that they have to execute kind of their political or legislative goals.
That's certainly what the Democrats are saying.
I mean, they're saying, like, the constituents we represent in our blue districts do not want these new maps. We have no way to in like sort of represent them and block these maps by staying here. So to best represent them, we must leave the state and stop the maps from being passed.
You know.
And we might get into this, but the Texas Supreme Court ruled in twenty twenty one that the Texas Constitution enables quorum breaking, that was their term. It also though, enables quorum forcing, which is like and they say that is something the chambers can do. They can set finds, they can set censure, they can even vote to expel
a member over breaking quorum. You would need quorum and a two thirds vote to expel a member, So you know, that's a tricky thing for them to sort of get around now that this basically essentially more or less the same Supreme Court said the constitution enables quorum breaking.
Okay, so you what you are citing here is a an opinion by Justice Jimmy Blacklock, who now Chief Justice, who is now Chief Justice. Exactly. This is dating back to twenty twenty one, right when lawmakers fled the state to stop a voting a bill that would impose new voting restrictions. The House issued warrants to bring them back to the capitol, which is, you know, as you mentioned, allowed in the constitution, and Blacklock wrote, I'm going to
just read the quote here. While it it being the Constitution, I believe does enable quorum breaking by a minority faction. It also enables the remaining members to compel the attendance of absent members. The two thirds quorum rule protects against legislative action by a smaller fraction of the body. And so.
There we go.
It's done. Right. They're going to reject this is that the well Governor.
Abbott has argued in his filing, And David, I'm curious your thoughts on this argument, because I found it sort of a compelling framing to say, well, the highway enables you to drive one hundred and twenty miles per hour. If you keep doing that, eventually we're going to take away your license.
I mean, what do you sort.
Of make of that argument that enabled is not doing that much as much work as people think it is in that ruling.
I think the important thing to understand here is that there would be a very fundamental separation of powers problem with a judicial officer coming in and trying to impose rules on the House. The Constitution assigns to the House the power to make its own rules of procedure. That implies that there are pretty strong limits on the ability of either the executive or the judiciary to come in
and try to supersede those choices by the House. In fact, the Texas Constitution has a stronger separation of powers than the Federal Constitution has a separation of powers clause that makes explicit that where the Texas Constitution assigns to one branch of government of power, it prohibits the other branches from intruding on the exercise that power. And that's exactly what the governor and the Attorney General in my view are asking a court to do here.
Well, that's interesting because we've seen this come up recently in other cases. Right, the Ken Paxton remains very upset with some members of the Court of Criminal Appeals, right because they banned they prevented him from prosecuting voter fraud cases. If I'm not mistaken, claiming that same separation of powers. Essentially, you know, the AG's office is part of the executive brand.
They can't I mean, well, and in that case they have to be invited in by the district attorney. That's like not a power given to them exactly, right, which we should say in that case. You know, Attorney General Ken Paxton was very upset with that ruling. He worked
to unseat three incumbents on that court. Two more have said that they are not going to run for reelection, and there's already been some rhetoric around, you know, I mean from one person particular, Michael Quinn Sullivan has said, like the eyes of Texas Republican primary voters are on the Texasupreme Court with this case. Now, like all they have to do is look at what happened with the
Court of Criminal Appeals. Like there is a lot of pressure on the Supreme Court right now, I would say, like frankly, like, I think Governor Abbott and Attorney General Paksna put them in a bit of a buying tier.
Right, right, Because the other difference between you know, the federal Constitution, the federal courts, and the state courts is that the state courts are elected, right, And so you know, in this state we have nine Republican members who face, you know, the most important election that they will be involved when will be in primaries including if I'm not mistaken, eleanor three next year. Right. I think there are a lot of people watching this. You know, Jimmy Blacklock again
you mentioned the Chief Justice, he wrote that opinion. He was also appointed by Governor Abbot, as were many other members of the Supreme Court. I think there is a question of, you know, is there going to be intense pressure electoral or otherwise? Two go along with what Abbot and Paston are going for. David, I wonder what you think about that fear by many conservatives. I mean, do you think that's a reasonable concern that some Democrats have?
Well, I guess I can't really answer that question as a legal expert. I mean, I will say that, I think there are some strong arguments for having a popularly accountable judiciary. It's a good thing that ultimately public officials are accountable to the people. And at the end of the day, the question is going to be what will the people put up with in their public officials?
I mean, and where we stand now, the Texas Supreme Court has issued this extended deadline. So Governor Abbott asked so, and just for context here right, Governor Abbott a former member of the Texas Supreme Court, a former attorney general. He has appointed six of these nine justices, many of whom have gone, all of whom now have gone, you know, many of whom have gone on to win reelection on their own. Two of them are his former general counsels,
including Chief Justice Blacklock. He, some legal experts said, somewhat presumptively, asked the Supreme Court to rule on this what he called a constitutional crisis case in forty eight hours. They did not take him up on that, and just last night they issued this briefing schedule that will put us basically past Labor Day before we get a decision on this, which buying themselves some time.
It seems like, yeah, what do you make of that, David, I mean, I think what that does is it it brings us to a situation where we're probably going to go past the special session period before we get a ruling on this. I mean, obviously Abbott can and will call another special session if this one ends, and in fact, I think Dan Patrick came out today and said that he might, and the session arose.
Yeah, they said that they would adjourn Friday if they don't have quorum and immediately call immediately start the thirty.
Day clock over exactly. But is there anything to read into this kind of rejection of Abbott's request to rule very quickly on this and hear briefings and you know, kind of let this play out.
I don't think it was at all surprising, particularly in a situation where the Attorney General was suggesting that there was a standing problem with the governor's filing. So there are a lot of procedural issues, complicated procedural issues that the Court will want to look into before it rules on this question. The standing issue is not the only one.
There's actually a very fundamental jurisdictional issue here. The jurisdictional provision that both the governor and the Attorney General have suggested as the basis for the Supreme Court's ability to rule on this question arguably does not extend to making
a determination about a legislative vacancy. In the language of that jurisdictional statute says that they can rule on this kind of of action with respect to an officer of state government, But the Supreme Court has previously interpreted that language to refer to a narrower class of officials that doesn't include legislators.
And David, is what you're talking about here, this idea that it seems as though the rules for how you go about getting this removal is you go to a district court first, presumably one that is within the jurisdiction. I also believe it doesn't allow for it doesn't explicitly allow for the governor to make this filing. Is that sort of what you're talking about here.
So there are two separate issues there, one about the standing of the governor specifically. But you're absolutely right, and I think the proper jurisdictional course would have been to go to a district court first rather than trying to have an expedite at proceeding before the Supreme Court.
I mean this has been messy, right, I mean you sort of mentioned this right with Attorney General Paxton has raised standing issues about Governor Abbe being able to bring this. I think there's been sort of a degree of in fighting in the courts that creates a lot of this uncertainty and sort of crass. I think an opening for the courts to say, like we need a minute.
Yeah, let's let's actually step back and just walk through that process. Because I think it's, like you said, it's MESSI it's also kind of fascinating and interesting. There's a lot of dynamics here. So on August third, Democrats leave the state. Greg Abbott, I think that same day essentially threatens to remove them, saying that you know, we will take action to this. I think you know, I will
speak for myself here. When I read that, I read that as not necessarily meaning that he would file it, but that you know, someone in Texas would file it. But regardless that that's what happens. A day later, the House issues arrest warrants for the members, you know, just quickly right standard fair. It means you can arrest them
and essentially bring them back to the House. It doesn't mean you're like state line going to charge them, yeah and yeah, and you can only arrest people within state lines. And then Paxton on August fifth, announces that he'll seek orders to remove Democrats from their seats if they don't
return by that Friday. Hours later, Governor Abbott files to specifically remove Gene Wu, the House Democratic Leader, which then leads maybe like an hour later for Paxton to write a letter to the Supreme Court essentially saying, you know, Governor Abbott means well, here, but you know, we all know he can't actually do this. Where it kind of looks like these two you know, high profile statewide elected officials are sort of fighting each other over who gets
the right to throw out these Democrats. Meanwhile, our you know, senior state Senator John Cornyan, who faces a primary challenge from Attorney General Kin Paxton, is essentially just lobbing grenades from Washington d C at Ken Paxton essentially saying, you know,
he's not doing enough. He's on a European vacation, like Greg Abbott is having to step in and do the work for the Attorney g General without him, And so it's this fascinating and maybe I will say hilarious, you know, kind of like fight within the political fight over who can do this and what kind of I guess political benefit they can get from being able to do it right.
And Paxton originally said, which I think legal experts sort of agree with. He said, like, we would have to file each of the He was like, this is going to be a challenge. We're gonna have to file in everyone's individual jurisdiction. You know, this would have to be you know, we're going to be in blue counties, DA, DA, DA. And now he came in, like you said, after these you know, bombs are being thrown at him and files in the Supreme Court and says like, oh no, no, no, no,
I can file in the Supreme Court directly. Actually, Governor Abbot, we should say, is arguing he can. The one part of state statute says a quote warrant o proceeding can only be brought by the county or district attorney or the Attorney General and district court. Governor Abbott says, I'm citing a different part of state statute. Now, you know, Atturne General Paxton is saying, I'm citing that part of statute. But I think we can go directly to the Texas
Supreme Court. So you can sort of understand the Texasupreme Court saying like we're gonna need a minute on all of this to your point, David, just like the standing and the jurisdictional issues and the even before we get to the unprecedented question of is this vacating an office, Like they've created a little bit of a and they have now consolidated those cases together and have basically said and this morning, Attorney or late last night, Attorney General
Ken Paxon said he looks forward to fighting alongside Governor Abbott on this.
So we're all friends again. Yeah.
So I guess, David, what can you tell us about like how what we should expect and how we should watch this in the coming days, weeks and months. I mean, how does this do we know? Is there enough President President to know how this plays out in the coming weeks.
Well, as I've said, I think there's absolutely no precedent supporting the position of the plaintiffs here. I think it would be really shocking if the Supreme Court were to find any merit in these claims that in my view seemed to be completely without merit, even after you address the procedural problems. As you said a few minutes ago, the Supreme Court said just four years ago that legislators
are entitled to engage in quorum breaking. It would be pretty shocking for them to execute a complete about face just four years later and to say, not only is that something they're not permitted to do, it is something that means they have forfeited their offices. I mean, that seems so radical and surprising in view of the precedents and the very clear separation of powers issues here.
Let me just play like a little bit of like try to take the other side of this argument right now. I mean, you know, I think we should eventually at some point talk about kind of the democratic issues of
democracy in all of this. But it is not the most democratic thing for a small minority of you know, the clear minority of a of a legislative body to be able to halt, not to be able to halt the entire work and functioning of the legislature in order to stop you know, one particular bill that they don't like.
Right you know, theoretically, these lawmakers could just make the decision to never come back, and then we just don't have a legislature anymore, Like I mean, should should there not be some kind of mechanism within the law to allow, you know, a constitutionally created branch of government to function, you know, despite you know, and overcome a minority faction of that, you know, trying to prevent them from functioning period.
Right, I mean that's Governor Abbott's argument, And like, I mean, you can say some of this is sort of a little bit of sort of taking this to it's worst extreme. But he's saying, like we could bankrupt the state, Like they could just stay away, they could never pass a budget, they could never return they have to return to probably run for their seats again.
But like, yeah, you can do that over zoom.
These days, Like we could just shut down the Texas Texas forever.
Yeah.
I do think and frankly, I think a lot of this, and I've heard this from some Republican lawmakers is the fact that they also broke korum in twenty twenty one. There's this sense that this is now like a tool that's going to be used more frequently against anything they
don't like. Of course, Democrats would say, like this is such a you know, once in a lifetime thing I would say that, like the remedy for that, the typical remedy for that right is like you can't just go to the courts and say, like we think this is insane that you can do this is like change the law.
Right. The House has done some of that, They've created increased House rules, But how can you change the law. It's a constitutional amendment. You need a two thirds vote.
I mean, this is the like I just talked yesterday to represent Cody Vasuit, who's chairing the redistricting committee. He since twenty twenty one has filed several bills to reduce quorum to fifty percent, like almost every other state. The problem is it's a constitutional amendment. You need a two thirds majority to get that done.
So they are in a little bit of a bind here.
I will say that part of this is that if they do get those vacancies declared quorum reduces, I bet there just would go ahead and while while they've got this reduced quorum, pass a bill that says quorums fifty percent. So like there's a lot that could suddenly happen if they were to take that sort of extraordinary step.
David, what do you think about that? That question.
It's it's a really great question, and it really goes to the merits of the constitutional rule. As you observed earlier, it's usual rule by the standards of state constitutions, setting a two thirds quorum requirement for the House, and arguably not a great rule, although the history suggests that it did tend to promote more collegiality and cooperation in the
Texas legislature than in many state legislatures. But I do agree with the observation that majority rule is a very central principle of democracy, and we should ask questions about rules that empower a minority to obstruct majority rule. But there's a process for reforming those institutions. And in a society with the rule of law, you need to follow the rules to change the rules. When you don't do that, you are really not complying with the rule of law, and that's really disturbing.
Okay, own our game out for me. What happens if these thirteen members are tossed from office?
What next?
Well, I get to use a pre rite that I that's currently burning a hole in my pocket. I mean, I think if those thirteen are removed, you know, it technically opens the door for any Democrat who does not return to be removed. It effectively ends quorum breaking as a strategy for a demo for any minority party in Texas. I mean, one question I do have that's like a legal question, is like if I mean, they're at ninety five to ninety seven, like they're pretty close to quorum.
If they make quorum, can the Texasupreme Courts throw this out as moot? Like can they we resolve this constitutional crisis that way?
I don't know. I mean, it seems like if there are it seems like the theory in this case is that legislators who are not showing up are in so doing producing a vacancy. And it doesn't seem like that goes away just because other legislators have shown up. I mean, it seems pretty clear to me that not show up for the purpose of denying the House of quorum does not constitute an abandonment of office. But I'm not sure that it would be mooted just because other legislators show.
Up, although you know, history suggests that once they have a quorum, the other members show up too, right, and that right that it would be harder to make the case that they've abandoned their office, if they have shown back up to the legislature to do the work.
Right, like I think probably, if they make quorum, the people who are facing expulsion from office might make haste in return. Yeah. Also, though they might want a ruling on this, they might want to force the courts to So I think there's so much unresolved that you know, we're not going to get an answer for several weeks. We're not going to get maps for several weeks, it seems,
unless by some miracle they make quorum on Friday. So you know, yeah, this is going to be much more extended than we thought.
I think, okay, but I want to I want to lay out you know, there's there's the legal precedent in what happens on there, but there's also just the like practicality of getting this these new maps passed. Right, So if correct me if I'm wrong here, But if the lawmakers are thrown out the quorum, the threshold to meet quorum is two thirds of the members of the body, not two thirds of the one hundred and fifty constitutionally
created House seats. So Democrats would I mean Republicans would be able to meet quorum with a smaller with a number of Democrats kicked out, which would mean they could come back together, pass out these.
Maps, and you know, maybe the agenda.
Maybe we go through this whole process again with the Senate. We would have to see, but essentially, yeah, past the rest of the agenda that they have through, then Abbott would be expected to call a special election. Those members who were kicked out could run again and essentially win
their seats back. So we're essentially like there is a world where we sort of returned to the status quo, except the bills that are up in the special session have passed during that brief period of time where we have fewer or maybe even no Democrats in the Texas House.
Right, we come back in twenty twenty seven with the same people people essentially.
Exactly, except they're all a little bit more mad at each other than they were before.
I think, arguably a lot more mad. I mean, I do think like.
This is like a real this whole episode, whatever happens, is such a blow to whatever shreds of bipartisanship were left.
Yeah. Yeah, well, and it's not just bipartisanship bipartisanship to it it seems like there are all these little things that are happening where the ability of the people of Texas to choose their elected representation are being limited. Right, So, I mean the maps themselves are an example of this. Right, they are taking this step, you know, outside the norm. It's happened one time before, but to essentially draw seats that will determine who will win the seats in advance.
You know, this, you know is nothing completely new, but it's a more extreme step. In order to do that, you have, you know, this idea of removing democratically elected democrats low capital D democratically elected capital D democrats from office for doing something that you know, I suspect that
the people that put them in office support. Right, Separate from that, completely unrelated to this whole fight, we have this parallel process that's going on right now in the Republican Party where essentially the State Republican Executive Committee, a small committee of you know, elected but you know, very activist wing people of the party are you know, pursuing
the power to censure members of their own party. In the In the Texas House, Republican members who did not align with some of the priorities of the party with the goal of banning them from being able to be on the primary ballot in twenty twenty six, you know, essentially then again, a small committee of people deciding to disqualify people who have been elected by the people in
their district to represent them. It just it just seems to me like there are a lot of aspects of democracy that are not looking real great right now.
Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of this is.
Like sort of walking us towards very very shaky ground. And like, you know, to have a governor who's a former Supreme Court justice, a former Attorney general by all of respects, like a very smart lawyer, you know, even just like tempt the court with this legal argument. It's it's a new I don't know, it's a new chapter
we're in. I mean, David, like when you look at this in terms of like the where we're gonna where like our democracy is going to be when this all resolves, Like, what's your diagnosis.
I would say, it's it's pretty bleak. I Mean, we've talked a lot about the violations of the state constitution that would be created if courts were to accept these theories that the governor and the Attorney General are advancing, But I think it's worth taking a step back and focusing on the objective that this is all directed to war. We're talking here about a very unusual mid decade redistricting that pretty clearly is only happening in order to gerrymander
the House map. Mid decade redistricting is historically really have not happened when the same party drew the initial map. That's what's really unusual here. And on top of that, they did so with a stated objective of reducing the representation of communities of color, likely making this redistricting plan illegal under federal law as a racial gerrymander. Before you
even get to the potential violations of the Voting Rights Act. Now, it has to be said that the US Supreme Court has contribut a lot to the perilous state that American democracy is in. I would really lay a lot of the blame at the feet of the US Supreme Court fundamentally for blessing partisan gerrymandering in twenty nineteen, saying that state legislatures are permitted to engage in any degree of partisan jerrymandering. That really is what opened the floodgates as
we're now seeing. On top of that, though, the Supreme Court indicated just last week that it is likely to further constrict the protections of the Voting Rights Act, which was the one real protection in federal law restraining partisan gerrymandering.
If the Supreme Court were to do what a lot of experts expect it will do in this Louisiana case that has just been scheduled for reargument in mid October, that would dismantle the one really substantial remaining check on the ability of in particular Southern legislatures to thoroughly gerrymander maps to deny uh, members of minority groups any political representation.
Yeah, I mean, and we also just started this scenario now where it really just feels like maximum political warfare, right, and and how do we get to a point where that's no longer the case?
You know?
Uh, before we right before we started recording this, Ken Paxton put out a press release where he's saying, he's, you know, asking a local district judge to jail back to O'Rourke for uh, for for what, defying a court order to stop fundraising for the Democrats as a part of this quorum break. He quoted a quote from O'Rourke at a Fort Worth rally on Saturday, where where O'Rourke said, you know, there are no refs in this game. Fuck the rules, right, and.
Well we're getting kicked off Apple podcast.
That's fine, people, people cut Joe Rogan is like the most popular. Yeah, But I mean, you know, one of the things you have heard from Democrats in response to this redistricting plan is like, it's time to stop playing nice. It's you know, it's time to We're gonna Rea. We're gonna do this what the Republicans are doing in Texas, we're gonna do in California, and we're gonna do in
New York. And it seems like each side keeps just wanting to kind of up the game out out of what they view as an existential danger created by the other side in a way that it just is very hard for me to figure out what the sort of release valve is for all this pressure.
And I think, I mean, we have a story today in which I accurately describe Bill Clements as the first Republican governor of Texas, in which we talk about like, how in you know, I think this is true? In I think blue states are, like you said, are pushing this like maximum politics idea.
Texas is as well.
And Texas just has so much Republican power, right, And every branch of government in Texas is so securely dominated by the furthest reaches of the party that it's like, you know, I think it's part of why it feels so extreme in one direction here.
And we hear this from Republicans a lot.
Well, you know, Illinois does it too, and New York does it too, and like, like you said, absolutely both sides have pushed each other to the edge, but we just have such complete dominance of one party here.
Yeah, But I mean it is worth thinking about how I think I made this point last week too, But it's worth making again that the legislative session started this year with a robust debate about shared governance and the power and allowing Democrats to be a part of the process, right. And you know, the person who won the House Speakers race was won that race with the support of Democrats.
And now here we are eight months later, and those same Democrats are being you know, the attempts are being made to forcefully remove them from office.
Rip those vice chairmanships that they fought so hard for. I mean, I mean, I just do think that like this when I say, like this is sort of the end of any bipartisanship, Like like you said, eight months ago, we were saying, you know, oh, you know, should they should Democrats be chairs of committees in the House or
just vice chairs of committees? And where are we gonna you know, And now it's like they're gonna be stripped of their almost certainly right, there's all of talk about they're gonna be stripe stripped of their vice chairmanships that era. I think we will look back quaintly on that as like you know, the time when Democrats held chairs in the Texas Legislature. I mean, I think the House is gonna look a lot more like the Senate in terms of just like mono party dominance. And you know a
lot of Republicans say, like that's overdue. We've been too too cautious.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I mean, David, do you let's let's talk about your democratic and constitutional theory part of your uh, your areas of research. Do you do you see do you agree with our assessment? Do you see any opportunity here to to cool the temperature? In any way.
Well, I think one of the tragedies here is that there is going to be a cycle of tit for tat where states with democratic legislatures are understandably going to feel that they have to respond. If you know your game theory, you know that you're just encouraging more bad behavior on the other side if you don't have a
proportional response. So I think, you know, whereas historically, blue states really had a lot more interest in creating independent redistricting commissions and developing other state law constraints on partisan jerrymandering. For example, California has an independent commission. New York has
state constitutional constraints on partisan jerrymandering. I think there's going to be a lot of pressure for backsliding in those blue states on these issues, which you know, might be necessary from a game theory perspective in the situation that we're in, but is a sad thing for our democracy in the aggregate when progress toward improving the districting process is going to be rolled back as a result of these gerrymanders that are taking place.
Yeah, nobody's coming out of this un scathes.
Yeah, exactly. Well, something tells me we'll be talking about this next week. Yeah too, but I think this is a good place to stop right now. Thank you David for joining us in providing your insight. Thank you Eleanor, and thank you to our producers Robin Chris. We will talk to y'all next week.