The Blast - July 18, 2025

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The Blast | Texas Tribune
July 18, 2025

By Renzo Downey and The Texas Tribune Politics Team

3 days until the first special session

IN TODAY’S BLAST

  • The brewing war between trial lawyers and tort reformers

  • Why a quorum break could be expensive for Texas Dems

  • How ambitious will the GOP congressional map be?

THE BREWING WAR BETWEEN TRIAL LAWYERS AND TORT REFORMERS

Twenty years ago, Texas politics were transformed by a knock-down, drag-out fight between the Democrat-aligned trial lawyers and the Republican tort reformers.  

Now, the rise of the conservative trial lawyer is turning things on their head again. Republican lawmakers helped kill Texans for Lawsuit Reform’s three biggest priorities this session, and a new PAC, Texans for Truth and Liberty, is rewarding them with major donations. 

The new group received a $10 million start-up donation from Houston personal injury firm Arnold & Itkin and donated to TLR’s biggest enemies, including $200,000 to Rep. Marc LaHood, a San Antonio Republican and trial lawyer, and $100,000 to Rep. Mitch Little, a Lewisville Republican and business attorney best known for representing Attorney General Ken Paxton in his impeachment acquittal. Other donations went to Republicans and Democrats who opposed Senate Bill 30, TLR’s top priority, which failed to pass after the House and Senate couldn’t reconcile their versions. 

TLR remains Texas’ largest political donor, with $37.4 million on hand and $11 million in recent contributions, including $1 million from Elon Musk. The group, whose leaders have alluded to considering funding primary challengers for legislators who opposed their work this session, remains a dominant force in Texas politics — and an expensive enemy to make. 

— Eleanor Klibanoff

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WHY A QUORUM BREAK COULD BE EXPENSIVE FOR TEXAS DEMS

A quorum break is one of Democrats’ best — of decidedly few — options for stopping Republicans’ mid-decade redistricting effort. 

It’s an idea with precedent. Texas House Democrats famously (or infamously, depending on the perspective) fled to Oklahoma in 2003 to attempt to stop Republicans, in control of the Legislature for the first time in over a century, from redrawing congressional maps to benefit their party. Then-U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texan, eventually got the new maps he wanted, and the party netted four seats in the next midterm. But the episode drew enormous attention and significantly delayed the vote.

Over 20 years later, Republicans are again pursuing mid-decade redistricting. But a quorum break is far less financially feasible than it was in 2003 or in 2021, when Democrats went to Washington, D.C., to try and stop a voting bill. The Texas House changed its rules in 2023 to penalize absences.

Members absent without leave “for the purpose of impeding the action of the House” are now subject to daily $500 fines and responsible for the costs incurred to the sergeant-at-arms to find them.

The rules state that disruptive members are also subject to reprimand, censure or expulsion. And to make it extra burdensome, members cannot use campaign or state funds to pay the fines — they have to front the costs themselves.

If members do not pay in time, their operating account — which they use to pay for travel, staff and other costs associated with being a legislator — will be docked by 30 percent each month that the balance is unpaid.

The rules also specify that the Texas Department of Public Safety can be called upon to arrest legislators and compel them to return. Attorney General Ken Paxton has made his intent to assist in that effort clear.

— Gabby Birenbaum

HOW AMBITIOUS WILL THE GOP CONGRESSIONAL MAP BE?

Now that we know President Donald Trump is pushing for a five-seat gerrymander, Democrats and Republicans alike are nervously awaiting maps that will make clear whose seats are being targeted.

The goal for Republicans is to flip blue seats red without endangering their existing incumbents, all of whom won reelection by double-digit margins last year. David Wasserman, the senior editor and elections analyst at the Cook Political Report, set out to make a map that does exactly that and see just how many seats Republicans can squeeze out of the map.

South Texas — where Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo and Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen represent seats in districts won by Trump — is the most obvious place to target. The key will be to bring enough Republican voters in those districts to create insurmountable margins without endangering Rep. Monica De La Cruz, R-Edinburg, whose district is situated between the two.

Wasserman speculated that Republicans could flip Gonzalez’s district by extending it further north into Corpus Christi, in heavily GOP areas currently represented by Rep. Michael Cloud R-Victoria. For Cuellar, Republicans could shift his Democratic precincts near San Antonio into the heavily Democratic 20th and 35th districts.

In Dallas, Republicans could either target Rep. Julie Johnson, D-Farmer’s Branch, or Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth. Though Johnson represents the seat that former Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, flipped in 2018, Wasserman suggested that Veasey, whose district has less frequent voters, is the preferable target. 

Republicans could take the bluest precincts of Fort Worth and shift them into heavily Republican neighboring districts that can afford to take them, and then redraw Veasey’s district to be much more exurban.

The risk in this strategy, of course, is that Veasey’s district was created by court order in 2011 to comply with the Voting Rights Act, setting up potential legal battles.

Finally, Wasserman suggests the strength of Republicans’ plan may lie in how aggressive they want to be in Houston, which currently has four districts represented by Democrats. But not all are created equal — while Kamala Harris ran up the score in TX-09 and TX-18, her margins were smaller in TX-07 and TX-29. 

If Republicans would settle for one new seat in Houston, Wasserman wrote that it would be fairly easy to eliminate Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, D-Houston, in TX-07. Her most Democratic precincts could be moved to TX-09 or TX-18 — and TX-29 could pick up some of their central Houston territory to balance population. Then, the GOP could stretch Fletcher’s district to include any of the Republican exurbs without endangering their incumbents. 

The path to taking Rep. Sylvia Garcia’s TX-29 district too is boom-or-bust. Both Fletcher and Garcia’s districts could be redrawn to include Houston exurbs. But that would require some neighboring Republican districts to take in Democrats, which could leave them potentially vulnerable in a Democratic wave year. 

Garcia’s district, which is majority-Hispanic, would likely incite VRA lawsuits, too, if broken up.

— Gabby Birenbaum

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Next week:

  • The House Agriculture and Livestock Committee will meet at 1 p.m. or upon adjournment on Monday to hear invited testimony on the issue of the New World screwworm.

  • The House and Senate Select Committees on Disaster Preparedness and Response will meet jointly at 9 a.m. on Wednesday to hear invited testimony regarding:

    • the state’s response to the July 4 flash flooding in Central and West Texas

    • state disaster preparations and response capabilities, generally

    • state flood planning and flood infrastructure

    • river authority operations in Flash Flood Alley

    • first responder communications during disaster operations

View the full list of upcoming committee notices here and here.

The House and Senate will convene at noon on Monday for the start of the first special session of the 89th Legislature.

  • TXSEN: Texans for a Conservative Majority, a pro-John Cornyn PAC, is placing a $6,000 ad buy on cable in the Washington, D.C., market this weekend. Texas voters won’t see it, but the man whose endorsement could make or break the primary — and famously lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. — just might.

  • TX-15 and TX-26: As part of an endorsement spree on Truth Social early Friday evening, President Donald Trump threw his support behind GOP Reps. Monica De La Cruz of Edinburg and Brandon Gill of Flower Mound as they gear up for reelection.

  • TX-38: Marvalette Hunter, former chief of staff to the late Rep. Sylvester Turner, is launching a long-shot Democratic bid to unseat Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Houston, in the 38th Congressional District. Hunt triumphed over his last Democratic challenger by more than 25 points. If his district lines remain untouched after the redistricting push next week, Hunter’s candidacy will likely be unsuccessful.

  • HD-1: Chris Spencer, the former chair of the Sulphur River Basin Authority who unsuccessfully challenged state Rep. Gary VanDeaver in last year’s GOP primary, is running for House District 1 again in 2026. VanDeaver, a Republican from New Boston and staunch voucher critic, has not yet announced whether he will seek reelection.

  • The Department of Commerce’s Office of the Inspector General announced it would investigate staffing cuts, including in Texas, at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and National Weather Service in the wake of Texas floods. U.S. Reps. Greg Casar, D-Austin and Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, had used their perch on the House Oversight Committee to call for such an investigation. 

  • DNC Chair Ken Martin met with Democratic leadership in the Texas House, including state Rep. Gene Wu, the House Democratic Caucus chair, in Wu’s hometown of Houston on Friday. Martin was invited “to strategize with leaders on the ground” about redistricting, according to a source familiar with the plans, who added that the DNC “is committed to fighting alongside these leaders for fair representation and is ready to work with them to fight back against this Republican overreach.”

  • Three contenders who are each eyeing an entrance into the Democratic primary field for the U.S. Senate — former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, Rep. Joaquin Castro and state Rep. James Talarico — are hosting an Austin town hall today. The trio have been making joint public appearances across Texas over the last few weeks in what they are pitching as a way to listen to voter concerns. It can also be seen as a trial run for campaign rallies to come.

  • Former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke is hosting another event in Washington on July 22 about the special session push to redraw Texas’ congressional maps. Calling the plan a threat to democracy, O’Rourke will be joined by legal scholar and co-founder of the States United Democracy Center Norm Eisen.

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“With Paxton still leading GOP primary, Texas Senate shifts to likely Republican” by Jessica Taylor of The Cook Political Report

Do you or someone in your office have a birthday you’d like mentioned? Email us.

(July 18) State Rep. Suleman Lalani, D-Sugar Land

(July 18) Robert Moore, founder and CEO of El Paso Matters

(July 20) State Rep. Katrina Pierson, R-Rockwall

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Disclosure: Texans for Lawsuit Reform has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.