The cold, hard cash hanging over the Texas redistricting fight: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.

In today’s edition, we zero in on the financial aspect of the Texas redistricting fight: the money Democratic lawmakers are forfeiting to flee the state and the limits of the party’s broader fundraising strategy.

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— Adam Wollner

The financial costs of Texas Democrats’ quorum break are adding up

By Ben Kamisar, Natasha Korecki and Adam Edelman

As dozens of Texas state House Democrats near the one-week mark of their quorum break, fleeing the state indefinitely to prevent state GOP leaders from redrawing congressional lines, it’s not just politics that loom over the strategy. It’s money, too.

The Democrats face a $500 fine for each day they’re “absent without leave,” a rule put into place after Democratic legislators mounted a similar effort to deny the Legislature a quorum in 2021, plus a “pro rata share” of what the state House Sergeant at Arms spends in their efforts to compel them to return to the Capitol in Austin.

Those fines have already eclipsed the $600 monthly salary the lawmakers receive from their part-time elected posts. And given their meager salaries, and the fact that the Legislature only meets for regular session for six months every two years, virtually every state lawmaker has a day job they’ve left behind in Texas, too.

Those monetary factors, plus the realities of being far away from family and other obligations, further complicate the plan for Democrats who have fled their home state to deny Republicans the requisite number of lawmakers needed to move forward with business in the Legislature.

It’s all why state Democrats have been fundraising around their quorum break, why other Democrats have been lending a hand — and why Republicans have been targeting their funding. (Read more on Democrats’ fundraising efforts below.)

“There’s people who are single moms, single dads, with their kids, and we just do what we can. None of this is fun,” state Rep. Gene Wu, the leader of the state House Democratic Caucus, told NBC News.

“We’ve been away from our families for six months already, right?” Wu continued, a reference to the six-month legislative session that started in January. “During the special session, I can’t work. Most people can’t work. They’re away from their families. … All of us are making actual, real sacrifices to be here.”

Read more from Ben, Natasha and Adam →

Democrats learned the wrong lesson from the Alamo

Analysis by Jonathan Allen

Democrats would do well to remember the Alamo — not as a simplistic cry to fight every battle to the last man, but as a lesson in the power of self-sacrifice in service of a common goal.

Rather than standing their ground, despite the inevitability of defeat, Texas Democrats fled the state to delay a Republican redistricting plan that figures to flip as many as five House seats into GOP hands in next year’s midterm elections.

Democratic leaders across the country cheered. And why not? There was so much for them to gain — individually — in backing their Texan brethren.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, eager to position himself as the chief defender of the Democratic realm before the 2028 presidential primary, has threatened to redraw his own state’s lines to his party’s advantage. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who is equally transparent about his presidential ambitions, has given the Texans a blue-state home away from home. Texas Democrats, playing Billy Joe and Bobby Sue, are happy to take the money and run.

And that’s really what this is all about for Democrats, from the national party to the state legislators: cash.

“Democrats are fighting a major battle in Texas — and the outcome will directly impact all of us for years to come,” the Democratic National Committee wrote in a fundraising email Thursday. Contributions will be split between the DNC and the Texas Democratic Party.

It’s not just the DNC. Donors across the country are ready to give to all manner of committees in support of the Texas Democrats. But at what cost?

There’s an opportunity cost of choosing to focus resources on process rather than policy. Texas just experienced devastating, fatal floods. Why aren’t Democrats there, and across the country, pushing plans to mitigate future natural disasters? There’s also a cost to raising the expectations of a national donor base that is still furious over the deceit that went into soliciting cash for the last major sure-to-lose Democratic fight: Joe Biden’s campaign.

But what really highlights the self-interest angle is the damage Texas Democrats may do to their own caucus. The half-dozen moderates who stayed behind and showed up at the Capitol in Austin are now more vulnerable to primary challenges that could result in Texas Democrats losing seats in the state Legislature in Trump-friendly districts — turning the pending GOP win into a two-fer at the national and state levels. It’s hard to say right now if that will happen, but the likelihood has surely increased.

And for what? There’s a different calculation for each Democrat, whether it’s Newsom, Pritzker, or Texas House members. But the common tie is cash. In “Star Wars,” Princess Leia says to Han Solo, “If money is all you love, then that is what you will receive.” And so it goes for Democrats.

The way for Democrats to overcome Texas redistricting is not a national redistricting war, which they are likely to lose. It is to walk into the midterms with more competitive policies, candidates and arguments — and a willingness to sacrifice their own interests to win. That’s the real lesson of the Alamo.

More on the redistricting wars:

• Texas: Republican Sen. John Cornyn said the FBI has approved his request for federal law enforcement to help locate Democratic lawmakers who left the state, Megan Lebowitz and Michael Kosnar report.
• Florida: State House Speaker Daniel Perez announced he was forming a select committee on congressional redistricting, Alexandra Marquez notes.

• Census: Trump said he has instructed the Commerce Department to start a new U.S. census that will be “based on modern day facts and figures” and won’t include undocumented immigrants, Marquez also reports.

• In the courts: Lawrence Hurley outlines how a decade of Supreme Court rulings have given states increasingly unfettered power in redistricting.
• Data dive: Dylan Ebs and Scott Bland have three charts that explain how redistricting can shape American politics for years.

That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner and Dylan Ebs.

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