Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Texas Tribune trip cast for
August fifth, twenty twenty five. I'm Matthew Watkins, editor in
chief of the Tribune, back from my sojourn on the
Gulf Coast. I am joined as usual by Lawn politics
reporter Eleanor Klebanoff. Hello, Eleanor, anything that I miss anything?
Speaker 2: I didn't miss any news. The thing has happened. We
had nothing to talk about this week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, we really really had to scramble to
come up at the topic. Yes, of course, since you
last heard Eleanor's voice, Texas Republicans released their proposed map
for redrawn congressional districts in the state, aiming to give
their party five new seats. The seats were scheduled for
a floor vote in the House on Monday, but before
that could happen, more than fifty Democrats fled the state,
denying the House the quorum necessary to pass the bill. This,
of course, has caused outrage from Republicans excitement among Democrats.
House Speaker Dustin Burroughs signed arrest warrants for the members.
Governor Greg Abbott has threatened to expel them from office
and ordered investigations as to whether they're committing a felony bribery.
But for now, at least, how the work of the
House has ground to a halt. With fourteen days left
in the special session, we are joined today by one
of those Democrats who left the state, state Representative Gina Hinehjosa,
a Democrat from Austin. Welcome, Representative. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So where are you right now? Tell us tell us
your location.
Speaker 3: I don't know if I can do that.
Speaker 4: I'm at this undisclosed location outside the starry I'm right,
I'm right outside of Chicago, in a suburb of Chicago.
Speaker 1: Okay, excellent. I just, you know, wanted to make sure
clear that you weren't in the newsroom with us. We
don't want any detests showing up at our doors. Very good,
but thank you for joining us. It has been a
very eventful few days week, or even more really in
Texas politics. I wanted to just start by sort of
asking you, just big picture, tell us why you made
the decision to leave the state.
Speaker 3: It was an obvious decision for me.
Speaker 4: I heard such concern, such alarm from constituents about these
Trump maps. I will say I had originally heard about
this plan on Sinnee Die.
Speaker 3: I had heard rumors of it.
Speaker 4: I didn't know about the five seats, and I didn't
know that they would try to attain the five Republican
seats by breaking up latinal district in black districts.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: But when I first heard the plan, I thought, well,
this is troubling and started to worry, start to talk
to people and trying. I tried to prepare people for
this potentially coming. But once we saw the maps and
saw what they did to Austin, what they did just
to Texans, it was clear to me and to enough
of us that the best plan of attack would be
to leave the state, to break korum and deny them
the numbers they need to.
Speaker 3: Pass the bill.
Speaker 1: Let's talk briefly about those maps, right, because last time
this podcast recorded, they had not been released. I understand,
tell us just from your perspective, representative, what was it
that what it was about that map that you know
a firm for y'all that yes, we need to leave
in order to stop this. This is you know, really
the nuclear option. Right. That's the biggest step y'all could
take to block legislation.
Speaker 4: Right, Breaking corn is an extraordinary Act that we use
just for the most egregious bills, and let me say
there are plenty of egregious bills in our eyes that
come through the Texas Legislature. We haven't done this since
twenty twenty one. When we did it in twenty one,
it was a big deal. It hadn't been done for
years before that. So this is not something that we
take lightly.
Speaker 1: It.
Speaker 4: First of all, is hard for individual members to leave
their lives, leave their families, leave their jobs to do this.
So the maps, though, let me give you an example
of Austin, where I represent. We have two congressional districts
in Austin, and the Trump maps eliminate the Latinal Opportunity
district in Austin that currently has a Latino representing that district,
and then takes a big chunk of downtown Austin, which
is in the Texas House district that I represent, and
connects it to a Republican East Texas district that goes
all the way to Polk County over two hundred miles away,
gutting really the political voice in Congress of downtown Austin
and really effectively gutting the voice of the Latino community
and their ability to select the representative of their choosing
in Congress. That's just Austin, right Houston. If you look
at Houston, that is where you have the largest number
of Latinos of any other place in Texas is in Houston.
They have eliminated the Latino opportunity seat there as well,
and so if these Trump maps pass, there will no
longer be a Latino seat in Houston, which is outrageous.
Speaker 3: So those are just two examples.
Speaker 4: I heard from Deuli Johnson last night about how her
congressional district is cut into seven districts.
Speaker 3: The list goes on and on. So once people saw what.
Speaker 4: We saw, the specific damage done to our constituents and
their political power, it was easy for me and for
the rest of us to choose this course of action.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think, like, you know, your Republican colleagues
would say, you know, we drew these maps in twenty
twenty one, you know, pretty cautiously to protect our incumbents.
We had this blowout election in twenty twenty four. For Republicans,
we're going to redraw these maps. It is purely partisan.
It's sort of the message that we're hearing, which of course,
you know, the courts have said, like, as long as
it's partisan, that's fine. What you know, we still have
the protections of the Voting Rights Act, you can't sort
of discriminate against voters of color. And you know, but certainly,
what we've been hearing from Republicans just particularly the last
couple of days is, you know, we have a right
to draw partisan maps if we want to. I'm seeing
a lot of people now are calling it the big
Beautiful Map. We're getting a lot of branding around this
as like this is just about Republican politics. How does that?
You know, do you think that that sort of rings
true to you, this idea that this is just politics,
it's not about disadvantaging black and brown voters.
Speaker 4: So I actually think this is kind of hilarious the
way Republicans are insisting, no, no, no, no, no, this
isn't about race.
Speaker 3: This is just a.
Speaker 4: Pure partisan power grab, right, And they are so insistent
that that is their motivation because they said the quiet
part out loud by issuing that Department Justice letter that
specifically said these majority minority districts should be targeted for
eliminated elimination because of race. Right, the Governor's proclamation then
cites as the sole reason for a mid decade redistricting
session that letter, and legislator saying, oh, no, did we.
Speaker 3: Say this was about race.
Speaker 4: No, Actually, this is a pure partisan power graph. So
they're trying to cover up their mistake. But it is
on the record. It could not be more clear that
this is about race. And let me say this though,
it is both things. Because the intended purpose is to
achieve five additional Republican members of Congress, their Department of
Justice letter the Governor's proclamation may clear. The way they
intend to do that is by eliminating majority minority districts.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I want to ask you about you mentioned
that y'all did this previously in twenty twenty one. There
have been some things that have changed the district the court. Well, well,
you did both, but you yes. I'm specifically talking about
the quorum break that at the time was to block
a bill imposing new voting restrictions in the state and
everything like that. Since then, things have changed around the
rules around quorum breaks the House. You know, past rules
that would include a five hundred dollars fine, there is
now the uh you know, as I mentioned in the introduction,
Governor Abbott, you know, talking about you know, possibly pursuing
criminal charges against members. We can get a little bit
more into that. How prepared are you and your colleagues
to with stan and that financial and legal pressure into
the long term. How long can you make this last
given that situation.
Speaker 4: So my primary concern is defending my constituents right. They
have a fundamental right to representation, to hold our politicians
accountable for the hurt and abuse that they are suffering.
And the list of that hurt and abuse goes on
and on. High prices at the grocery store because of
these pay to play tariffs, constituents are losing healthcare, our
neighborhood schools are losing money, are going without. That list
goes on and on. So that's my primary concern. Let
me start with that. I think those five hundred dollars
fines are unconstitutional under the Texas Constitution. Texas is one
of only four states that authorizes the breaking of core
That is a rule, that is i'm sorry, a procedure
under the rules that we can take to.
Speaker 3: Represent our constituents.
Speaker 4: It is the way that we protect their interests and
we should not be punished for using what is a
procedural tool in the toolbox. So I think it's unconstitutional,
but I'll say this. I'll say that again, the primary
importance here is protecting our constituents. I'm willing to do
whatever it takes to do that. If you think about
all the ways that Texans Americans have sacrificed for our freedoms,
this is, in comparison, not a lot. To ask elected
leaders whose job it is to represent and protect the
interests of our constituents.
Speaker 2: Do you anticipate legal action against trying against those fines
to sort of challenge that on constitutionality.
Speaker 4: Well, it's too early to say, right. They can't impose
those fins until there's a quorum and there's a vote
to do so, so it's a little premature to say,
but I do think it is legally questionable.
Speaker 1: So we are ninety six days from the November eighth
filing period. Hypothetically, if lawmakers were to stay for that
entire time, that would add up to a forty eight
thousand dollars fine, assuming that Abbott were to just continue
calling special sessions, which I think is probably a pretty
safe assumption. So we're talking about forty eight thousand dollars
worth of fines. It is no secret that state lawmakers
are not highly paid seventy two hundred dollars per year.
You know, of course you all have other jobs, but
presumably many of those jobs might be complicated how they
might be able to be done when you're not in
the state. How you know? There has been reporting, including
from the Tribune, about you know, fundraising in order to
help kind of bear that financial cost. How are you
all going to pay for this? How you know? Are
you raising money? Are you planning to use donor funds
to help bear the cost of this expense?
Speaker 3: So I think we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Speaker 4: We are on day two of our core break, and
we're taking it day by day. Right. I just have
to be honest. I am not concerned about those fines
right now.
Speaker 3: That is not It does not scare me. It is
not a motivator for me.
Speaker 4: What is a moti vader for me is to be
able to protect my constituents. And let me say this,
Let me take a moment to put in perspective and
context what is happening today. So when a thousand people
showed up to oppose these maps, in Arlington to testify. Right,
hundreds and hundreds of people showed up to testify in Austin.
Speaker 3: Over maps that I think have been released twenty four
hours for hours.
Speaker 4: Maybe this has happened so fast, and you see that
Texans are ready for a fight and ready to stand
up to Donald Trump. In some ways, this fight is
a gift to us. It is a rallying call to Texans,
to Americans that we do not have to bend a
need to Donald Trump, and we can take the fight
directly to him. And the support, the overwhelming gratitude that
we are hearing from constituents and from Americans all over
this country reinforces that people are ready for this fight.
And so I'm not motivated by the fear of fines.
I am extremely motivated and propelled by just the determination
of my constituents and Texans and Americans to do what
it takes to stand up to Trump on this this
most fundamental of our values. It is about who we are.
It is our identity as Americans. Representation is why we
exist as a country, and I'm proud to be part
of that.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like there's cohesiveness among the caucus on
that of like we're in this for the long haul
and that mounting dollar amount doesn't scare us.
Speaker 4: Let me say that getting independently elected leaders on the
same page about anything is a struggle.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: Everybody is strong willed and has their own good ideas,
but we all understand the stakes, and so we work
through these things every day because we have the shared goal,
and that's to protect our constituents and stand up for
what's right. So it is a day by day conversation.
It is a day by day fight, and today we
are united in that fight.
Speaker 1: Terry Canalis, one of your colleagues who did not make
the trip, told our reporter Rinzo Downey yesterday that he
thought the outcome of this is inevitable. And I think
what he meant by that was inevitable that eventually these
maps would get passed. Am I hearing from you that
you disagree with that assessment right now?
Speaker 4: I just disagree in that defeatist attitude. It is inevitable
if we do nothing and we don't fight. Sure, yeah, absolutely,
that's inevitable, but that's not what we're doing. That is
the only thing that is inevitable, that it will happen
if we don't fight. So what we learned in the
twenty one Korm break was when we broke korm for
the day to kill the irregular session, and then we
broke korm for the thirty days of the special session.
We went to DC, we lobbied on the John Lewis
voting right sack that it passed. But something else happened,
and that's that Republicans were so shamed by the national
attention they were getting on their bill that they could
not defend that they gutted the most offensive part to
the bill, the parts of the bill that inspired our
corn break. We could not have anticipated that outcome when
we broke korum on that one day to kill that
to kill the end of the regular session or for
the special session. All we knew was that we had
to fight to win that day, and we take it
day by day. That is the lesson from the twenty
one Corm break that we bring to this corn break
where the stakes are even higher.
Speaker 2: And I do think a difference between twenty twenty one
and now is the level of national awareness of what's
going on.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: This has become sort of like a national arms race
in a way. We've got blue states saying they want
to redistrict now certainly do you feel does that feel
different for you all that, like, you know, you're obviously
getting a lot of support from National Democrats.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so in twenty one it was just like this
rogue thing that happened on our own. We had no
support at the time, we just did it. And so
this feels very different. Right, we have the DNC leader
here today, Ken Martin, who's supporting us and grateful for
what we were doing. We had Jeffries come speak, I'm sorry,
Leader Jeffries come and speak to us last week in Austin.
Speaker 3: So yes, it's.
Speaker 4: Very different in that we have institutional support from National
Democrats and in some ways it's easier. What's harder is
we have now a Republican president. Right when we broke
Corman twenty one, it was Biden who was president, we
were able to go to DC. But having Donald Trump
as president is is different and it means that we
have to play this a little differently.
Speaker 1: I think one of the dynamics here, you know, mentioned
other states, California, you know, saying if New York, possibly
if Texas does this, we're going to do our own
type of redistricting. You know, California the part and breakdown
right now already forty three Democrats nine Republicans. It is all,
you know, disproportionately democratic, in the same way that Texas
is disproportionately Republican. I think there are a lot of
people who view this as not an encouraging sign in
either direction when these types of things happen. But there's
also I mean, I'm not naive and thinking that, like
one party is not going to unilaterally disarm in this fight, right,
And I bring that up to sort of ask you
the question is, like, is there any hope of either
side standing down here or or the two sides coming
to an agreement of like, let's just let these maps
stick the way they are in the political climate that
we find them ourselves in. Like, is that even you're
saying that cold war, Yeah, like this is not good
for anyone. Let's let's not redraw any maps here.
Speaker 2: Nice idea.
Speaker 4: Maybe I heard last night from one of our members
of Congress that there were two Republican members of Congress
who had now filed bills to eliminate mid decade redistricting.
So they're starting to feel the heat in other parts
of the country because No, this is not ideal for anyone.
And in fact, if Democrats were the majority in Texas,
we would have nonpartisan, independent citizen redistricting commissions. That is
legislation Democrats have filed. I believe I've signed on to
those pieces of legislation that would be ideal. That's what
we would have if Democrats were in power. We don't
exist in that world today. That world does not exist today.
And so what you're seeing is governor in other states,
in democratic governors in other states, trying to figure out,
given this Trump powerplay in Texas, how can I protect
my own constituents from the outcome of trying to predetermine
the twenty twenty six midterms.
Speaker 3: Right, So it's understandable, right, is it ideal?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 4: What would be ideal is if everybody played by the
same roles and we had these nonpartisan citizen redistricting commissions.
We just don't live in that world today. But again,
this is a day by day deal. You're starting to
see some movement on the Republican side because they don't
like this arms war, and we'll see where it ends.
Speaker 1: Right. I'm going to pause right here to read a
note from our sponsor which is the Texas Tribune. This week.
Our membership program Texas Needs Trusted Journalism, helps sustain fact
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dot org slash donate a right Representative. I want to
ask you about the calculus about the other issues on
the table during the special session, particularly flood relief. Right,
you know, it is true that while Democrats are not
in Texas that they cannot pass a map of new
congressional districts. It also means they cannot pass legislation in
response to these terrible floods that happened, you know, including
in Travis County, but also in the Hill Country as well.
Did that factor into y'all's decision? How do you feel
about that work being grinded to a halt at the
same time this other work is as well.
Speaker 4: That work hardly even kicked off When we were still
in Texas. We had only had two hearings that were
scheduled by the Republican majority on flood relief. We had
eight hearings on Trump's maps, So it became clear to
us that the Republican majority was not interested in prioritizing
flood Really, even if you look at the call on
the House to arrest us, it's to pass the maps,
it's not to pass flood relief. The biggest problem we
have with flooding and extreme weather is more who's elected
and who's in charge than what the laws are. We
know that it was revealed that the all Abbott elected
River Authority had three point four million dollars in their
reserves that they did not use for an emergency warning
system for floods that would have cost a million dollars.
They didn't use that money. We know the governor could,
in fact, on his own use his emergency powers to
transfer money for flood relief victims, just like he transferred
two hundred and fifty million dollars from one agency to
build parts of a border wall in twenty twenty one.
That was not an appropriate use of that power. Today, absolutely,
when you have an Act of God emergency whether emergency,
this would be an appropriate time to use his power.
But what he is doing here is the same thing
that he did with the school voucher fight. He's holding
hostage something that everything wants, everyone wants, which is flood relief.
So as to pass his political maps. He's playing political games.
You remember he did the same thing by withholding funding
for schools because he didn't get his voucher scam passed.
We will not play those games. He needs to be responsible.
He needs to own his leadership position and his authority
to grant that relief now and stop playing these political games.
Speaker 2: Speaking of the governor, you know, we have certainly heard
some big talk from Governor Abbot in the last couple
of days about, you know, saying he would like to
begin the proceedings to declare your seats vacant, talking about
you know, calling special elections to fill those seats. Certainly,
as we mentioned, you know, the felony bribery investigated by
the you know, he's called on the Texas Rangers to
investigate you all for felony bribery. Just talking first about
the vacating the seats. I mean, how credible of a
threat is that to you? How worried are you all?
Speaker 4: I'm not the least bit worried about that. I will
say it's shameful. It is disrespectful to Texans, to the
voters to threaten to remove from office. They're duly elected representatives.
They chose us, elected us to represent them in the House.
They support us with overwhelming support in this endeavor. And
so it is really though, in keeping with what he
is doing with these redistricting maps, right, trying to silence voters,
trying to subvert their will.
Speaker 1: So you don't think it's a you're not worried about
losing your seat.
Speaker 4: He has no legal authority to do that. He's making
threats that are outside the bounds of the law.
Speaker 1: What about the bribery.
Speaker 4: Investigations, all right, it's rich that we have the most
corrupt governor in all of Texas history making allegations of bribery.
Speaker 3: This is the governor who accepted how.
Speaker 4: Many millions of dollars I can't remember, like over six
million dollars from an out of state billionaire to pass
the voucher scam. This is a governor who waives monthly
since twenty twenty, the competitive bidding laws to do no
big contracts, oftentimes to his donors. It is unprecedented grift.
And so it is rich that the governor would be
accusing us of bribery for raising funds during a period
we're able to raise political funds.
Speaker 1: So are you just to make sure I understand though,
are you and your call colleagues raising funds to support
that the actions y'all have taken, Like are you well,
are you collect are you fund are you fundraising off
this quorum break? And are you using donor funds to
help you, you know, sustain the considerable expenses of leaving
your home, staying in a hotel and all that stuff.
Speaker 4: Well, what I'm raising funds for, I'll tell you what
I'm doing personally. I'm raising funds to help with legal advice.
I'm raising fund communications to help with paying my staff
who are supporting this work. So the funds that I'm
raising are to make me more effective.
Speaker 3: At my job.
Speaker 1: Where where is the money coming from for the plane,
for the hotel room, all those things?
Speaker 4: So I'm not making those arrangements that is, those are
being made by the caucus and I don't have that.
I legitimately don't have that information. I will say that
I've flew my own staff here with campaign funds, and
so that's how I.
Speaker 3: Paid for my staff.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us just a little bit about just
like what life is like for you right now, Like
how are you passing your time? What are you all
hanging out together. I mean, what's the scene up there.
Speaker 4: It's very busy. We A lot of what we're doing
is just communicating, communicating. This has happened so fast, and
it's at a time when families are vacationing, they're coming
back to this drama. So we're having to constantly communicate
so that people understand what is happening and why we
took this action. So that's a large part of it.
We're getting legal briefings as well. We are using this
time to exchange ideas about efforts policy efforts as well.
So but there just hasn't I mean, we start first
thing in the morning. I woke up for an interview yesterday.
I had a four fifty in the morning interview yesterday,
and we didn't get home till past ten o'clock, right,
So that's an idea of what our days have been like.
Speaker 2: Do you worry, I mean, after the twenty twenty one
quorum break, now we've got these stricter rules around fines
and things like that. Obviously I was here yesterday in Austin.
Your Republican colleagues are not thrilled with you all for leaving.
Do you anticipate sort of a heightening of those sort
of penalties, or you know, eventually when we have a quorum,
legislation to make it harder to quarm break in the future.
Speaker 4: I don't know what they will do, but let me
say that their outrage is feigned.
Speaker 3: It's fake.
Speaker 4: They knew that doing mid decade redistricting would provoke pretty extreme.
Speaker 3: Opposition from us.
Speaker 4: The last time it was done two thousand and three,
there was also a quorum, right, So to for them
to pretend like this is something they did not anticipate,
did not expect, and is out of the ordinary for
what they are doing is not real.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to me how far we've gone in a year, right,
I mean, there was a lot of sort of you know,
in the lead up to this legislative session that sort
of like defending some of the like bipartisan nature of
the House. We all work together, we work toward Texas,
and now we're in a place where we're talking about,
you know, essentially throwing out almost all of the Democrats,
you know, from their elected seats. Do you see a
long term effect on the ability of the two parties
to work together. Do you see a change in Democrats
support for the current House Speaker who was elected with
the support of many Democrats.
Speaker 4: I did not vote for Speaker Burrows. He is a
maga Republican and I was not going to be a
part of that. Stood from the beginning what his agenda
was and still live. So just speaking for myself, I'm
not surprised by anything he has done. I fully anticipated it,
and there are opportunities for Democrats and Republicans to work together,
but that's when we have shared policy interests. You saw
that vouchers was one of those bipartisan efforts where we
came together to oppose it time and time again until
Donald Trump went in and told Republican members of the
Legislature and of the House that he needed them to
vote for the voucher and they did as told because
they do not feel free to stand up to him.
Speaker 3: So there is a little bit of.
Speaker 4: Space for some bipartisan initiatives on big, overarching policy issues.
It's really hard to come by these days, especially when
they are so obedient to President Trump.
Speaker 1: How are you just feeling about, you know, our democracy,
our state of government these days? I mean, what's your
what's your how are you feeling?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 4: That's why I'm doing this. I have a son who
is thirteen years old. We went to Philadelphia for a
summer vacation this summer, and I needed him to understand
what good ideals, honest, right ideals our country was founded on.
Because politics has become so nasty, so ugly, so bitter,
and we're losing sight of who we are as Americans.
I do this because I believe we have to fight
to maintain what is good about our country and about
public service. So yeah, it's a scary time. We're at
a crossroads in this country and we have to fight
with everything we've got to hold on to what matters
in America.
Speaker 3: So that's the inspiration for why I do what I do.
Speaker 1: All right, Representative, Well, we appreciate you taking some time
to talk to us during what is clearly a busy time.
Thank you for that. Thank you, Eleanor, and thank you
to our producers, Rob and Chris. That's all for this week.
We will talk to y'all next week.
Speaker 4: Thank you.