AUSTIN, TEXAS — Today, Texas Republicans passed a vindictive resolution to punish lawmakers who break quorum, confirming that House Democrats’ principled stand against Trump’s racist redistricting scheme achieved its objectives. HR 128 creates a series of harsh penalties for future quorum breaks, including triple-sized daily fines, cuts to office budgets, removal from committee leadership positions, and even stripping members of their legislative seniority.
“When politicians change the rules of the game, it's because they know they're losing,” said Texas House of Representatives Minority Leader Rep. Gene Wu. “By breaking quorum, we exposed the corrupt deal between Trump and Abbott to rig Texas’ congressional maps, and turned it into a national movement. We shined a light on their plan to silence millions of Black and Latino voters, revealing their scam for what it was. Now, with California making Texas’ gerrymander irrelevant, Texas Republicans — angry and on the defensive — are throwing a tantrum and rewriting the rules because our actions worked.”
Texas House Democrats have only broken quorum twice in recent history, both times to defend the constitutional rights of Texans from Republican power grabs. In 2021, Democrats left to prevent discriminatory voting restrictions, and in 2025, to stop a mid-decade redistricting scheme designed to disenfranchise minority voters. Each time, Republicans responded with punitive measures rather than addressing the underlying constitutional issues of their own policies.
"Texans should be alarmed by a party that changes the rules whenever they lose," Minority Leader Wu concluded. "Texas Republicans know these maps violate the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution, and that courts may well strike them down before the 2026 elections. Just this month, the conservative 5th Circuit Court ruled against similar discriminatory maps in Louisiana. This vindictive resolution can't change the fact that our fight for fair maps continues in the courts, where the law, not partisan power, will prevail."