Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke stated Wednesday that he’s elevating funds for Democratic members of the state legislature who left Texas to stall a GOP redistricting push.
“We’ve got to have their backs,” O’Rourke stated in an interview on NCS’s “The Situation Room” on Wednesday, praising “tens of thousands” of donors for contributing towards “their food, their flights,” and “the defense that they’re going to need.”
O’Rourke is elevating the funds via his Texas political motion committee, Powered By People, which introduced in additional than $700,000 for state House Democrats throughout the same quorum break in 2021. Democratic US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, a key fundraiser for her occasion, can also be serving to with the trouble.
Texas Democrats left the state Sunday to disclaim the legislature a quorum, stopping Republicans from passing a brand new US House map that would assist the GOP flip as many as 5 seats subsequent yr.
“The election of 2026 is going to be decided in the summer of 2025,” O’Rourke stated.
Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday requested the Texas Supreme Court to disqualify state Rep. Gene Wu, the House Democratic chief, from workplace. Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton have threatened to hunt extra disqualifications if sufficient Democrats don’t return to the state by Friday, when Republicans are subsequent planning to attempt to transfer ahead with redistricting.
Paxton introduced Wednesday that his workplace had began an investigation into O’Rourke’s fundraising efforts.
In an announcement, he stated his workplace would demand “documents and communications from the group regarding potentially unlawful activity, including its involvement in the Democrats’ scheme to break quorum.”
“Any Democrat coward breaking the law by taking a Beto Bribe will be held accountable,” stated Paxton, who’s operating within the Republican main for US Senate.
Absent Democratic lawmakers are topic to fines of $500 a day. And Republican leaders have additionally requested the Texas Department of Public Safety to arrest the lawmakers for leaving the state and examine them for bribery in the event that they settle for exterior assist in paying the fines.
“They’ve got (Department of Public Safety) state troopers trying to hunt them down right now. They may face the long arm of federal law enforcement as well. I mean, they – they are doing this at extraordinary risk to themselves personally,” O’Rourke stated.
The former Democratic presidential candidate described the battle over the aggressive redistricting push by Texas Republicans in stark phrases.
“If we fail, the consolidation of authoritarian power in America will be nearly unstoppable,” O’Rourke warned.
“That means more masked plainclothes federal agents without badges or warrants sweeping our fellow Americans up off the streets. It means more retribution and persecution and even violence for Trump’s political opponents. And it also means that a Republican-majority Congress, with these five stolen seats, if we allow them to succeed, will roll out the royal red carpet for a Trump third term. So, this is literally for all the marbles,” he added.
He additionally voiced help for members of his occasion taking a look at pursuing redistricting in blue states in an try to neutralize the Texas GOP effort. Among those that are proposing changes are Govs. Gavin Newsom of California, JB Pritzker of Illinois and Kathy Hochul of New York.
“I think for far too long, my party has been more concerned with being right and coloring within the lines than they’ve cared about being in power.”
This story has been up to date with extra reporting.