Texas Republicans and Democrats, locked in redistricting battle, weaponize flood response

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When Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session last month, he put legislation responding to the devastating Hill Country floods at the top of lawmakers’ agenda.

But with the session winding down, the Legislature’s ability to improve disaster response has become tied up in a bitter fight over a rare effort by Republicans to redraw the state’s congressional map halfway through the decade. The new map, as demanded by President Donald Trump, would create up to five new GOP seats ahead of next year’s midterm election.

The Texas House is at a standstill after Democrats left the state en masse last week to prevent the chamber from voting on the map. And both parties have been accusing each other of abandoning Central Texas flood victims, with the tragedy, which killed more than 130 people, becoming a political cudgel in the redistricting clash.

Republican lawmakers have blasted Democrats for delaying measures to bolster the state’s emergency response by fleeing the state to deny the House the quorum needed to advance any legislation.

“The only thing standing between Texas and real disaster relief is whether our absent colleagues decide to show up,” Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, said on the House floor Monday. “When the gavel drops, the question is simple: Will you be in that chair to vote for these critical disaster recovery bills, or will you be remembered as one who did not show up?”

Democrats say their GOP counterparts showed they were never serious about prioritizing the flood response when they put the contentious redistricting effort first on their agenda. They point out that the flood bills saw no movement in the House in the first two weeks of the session, even as Republicans advanced the congressional map at a quick clip.

“Abbott can call a special session today that is dedicated to honoring the loss and memory of the July 4th flooding victims — or, he can once again put DC corruption ahead of Texas communities,” Rep. Gene Wu of Houston, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said in a statement Tuesday.

Ultimately, all legislation — including the flood response, the new congressional map, stricter regulations on consumable hemp and a raft of socially conservative priorities Abbott placed on the agenda — will remain stalled until Democrats return to Austin and the House regains a quorum.

Republican leaders on Tuesday said they would gavel out the special session early on Friday and immediately launch into a second 30-day session if Democrats did not return to Austin this week. They scheduled the flood bills for a Tuesday vote on the House floor — which did not take place due to insufficient attendance — upping the pressure on Democrats to return.

Abbott has launched a flurry of ads targeting the Democrats who walked out, and he has asked the Texas Supreme Court to declare their seats vacant, arguing that they have deserted their office.

“If Texas House Democrats care about the Texans they abandoned, they will return to Austin and do the job they were elected to do,” Abbott’s spokesperson Andrew Mahaleris said in a statement Tuesday.

Democrats said they were eager to pass the flood bills, but refused to play a role in adopting the new congressional map, which they called an attempt by Trump to rig the midterm election and maintain Republican control of the U.S. House.

Special sessions are “for emergency purposes. And we had an emergency in Texas,” state Rep. John Bucy, D-Austin, said about the floods. “That was an emergency that should have been worthy of our time, attention and our focus, and unfortunately, Greg Abbott used that as a charade to go do Donald Trump’s political bidding.”

Dems say flood response wasn’t a GOP priority

Democrats noted that about halfway into the special session, the Republican-led House held four hearings on redistricting and planned a floor vote on the map. The Legislature’s disaster committees, meanwhile, held two joint hearings on the floods in the session’s first two weeks, before specific bills were introduced. The House and Senate panels advanced their proposals last week.

“We have been there for two weeks, waiting to address” the floods, said Rep. Ann Johnson, D-Houston, on Friday. “They only put one bill up for us to debate in the House, and it was redistricting.”

Democrats also argued that Republicans showed their priorities by putting a “call” on the House that would hold until the redistricting map was adopted, without mention of the flood-related bills.

Under a call on the House, members may not leave the chamber unless excused, and any members not present can be “sent for and arrested, wherever they may be found” within state lines, according to House rules. The move laid the groundwork for Republicans to issue civil arrest warrants to the Democrats on the lam.

In a Monday night statement, Burrows spokesperson Kimberly Carmichael noted that the map was the only legislation ready to be considered at the time the call was issued, and that the House has continued work on public safety and disaster relief bills.

“This issue has been a top priority for the Texas House,” Carmichael said, “leading up to a Tuesday calendar with a comprehensive package of bills to strengthen the state’s preparedness for future emergencies — solutions that can no longer move forward without a quorum present.”

What can Abbott do for flood victims without lawmakers?

Democrats also argued that Abbott has the authority to transfer emergency funding to pay for flood relief, without legislative action needed, as he did in 2022 after the Uvalde school massacre and again later that year for Operation Lone Star, a border security initiative.

In a press conference last week, Sen. Molly Cook, D-Houston, said the governor could put money toward temporary housing, restoration work and buying flood-prone land so it doesn’t get redeveloped or continue to have people living on it.

“Abbott doesn’t need a special session for flood relief, and he knows that,” said Rep. Armando Walle, D-Houston and a member of the Legislative Budget Board, which works with the governor’s office on budget issues. “The only thing standing between Texas and real disaster relief isn’t Democrats, it’s Republicans who chose politics over people for over a month.”

Both of the 2022 budget transfers happened when the Legislature was not in session. When the Legislature is meeting, however, only lawmakers can act on these infusions, according to the governor’s office.

Abbott’s office added that the State Disaster Fund now sits at around $70 million, with another $150 million coming on Sept. 1. But the total is meant to cover the state’s emergency response efforts for the next two years, and falls short of the over $200 million lawmakers now want to pull from the rainy day fund to cover local grants and the state’s federal funding match.

“Since the days leading up to the devastating flooding, Governor Abbott has deployed all available resources and support to help communities respond and recover,” Mahaleris said. “Governor Abbott continues to work on flood relief and recovery with state agencies and lawmakers working in Austin.”

A Senate proposal would include $200 million for the state’s federal funding match, $50 million for sirens and rain gauges in the Central Texas flood region, $24 million to improve weather forecasting and $20 million toward a swift water training facility.

Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, said at a hearing Tuesday that she didn’t see a more fitting use for the rainy day fund than to help in this tragedy. She called it the first steps to address immediate community needs.

Committees have now passed multiple flood-related bills

Lawmakers and local officials have stressed that more than funding is needed to adequately respond to the deadly Central Texas floods. Several of the funding proposals also go hand-in-hand with proposed legislation.

The special committees created in the Texas Senate and House to address disaster preparedness and flooding have focused on making changes to state law, which is the job of the Legislature. Some of the ideas have been debated in previous sessions but failed to pass.

Both chambers’ committees have passed long, multi-faceted bills — House Bill 1 and Senate Bill 1 — in response to the testimony they heard from state and local officials.

The bills would create a training program for justices of the peace on how to handle bodies during disasters when many people die, establish licensing requirements for emergency management coordinators and set up a registration system for disaster response volunteers.

The Senate committee’s proposal goes further than the House’s to require all campgrounds in floodplains to develop evacuation plans, which they would have to activate any time the National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning. It would also require campground cabins to have ladders so people could climb onto rooftops as a last resort.

Among other bills, the House committee proposed creating a council to look at emergency communication problems and requiring campgrounds to develop “flood disaster plans” to be defined by the Texas Division of Emergency Management.

The Senate committee additionally approved Senate Bill 2, which would require a state agency to determine which areas in the region that flooded on July 4 should have outdoor warning sirens, and then establish guidance on how to install them. The governor’s office would set up a grant program to help local governments pay for the projects.

Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, the bill’s author, said the governor, lieutenant governor and speaker of the house “have all said that we should have to get this job done within a year.”

Whether that timeline was possible depended on how big of a siren system the state decided to set up because it would take time to get the equipment, Executive Vice President of Water for the Lower Colorado River Authority John Hofmann told the senators.

Perry agreed that both supply chain constraints and taking the time needed to plan the systems across local jurisdictions would present practical challenges — and said that sirens should be pursued along with other solutions.

“Sirens have to be planned strategically and coordinated with other warning systems, or they’re not worth the noise they make,” Perry said.

The House committee has sent five flood-related bills to the full chamber, and the Senate committee has advanced four, in addition to the Senate finance committee’s proposal. All bills must be passed by both chambers in order to receive the governor’s signature.

Disclosure: The Lower Colorado River Authority 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.

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