Beto O’Rourke rallies thousands in Tarrant County to support quorum-breaking Dems
More than 1,000 people filed into Fort Worth’s Ridglea Theatre on Saturday, putting on their “I’m so gonna vote” stickers to hear former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke speak out against what he called President Donald Trump’s “power grab.”
The event, titled “The People vs. The Power Grab,” brought together roughly 8,000 people virtually and in person to hear about the fight against the Texas congressional redistricting and to raise money for the House Democrats who are breaking quorum in an attempt to stop it.
Democrats spread across the country before the House was scheduled to discuss the only proposed redistricting map on Aug. 4. The map aims to flip five Democrat-held districts to Republicans, according to presidential voting data. A district represented by U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, a Fort Worth Democrat, would move fully into Dallas County. Currently it includes parts of Dallas and Tarrant counties.
“Those are racially gerrymandered maps, and they said, ‘Hell no,’” said Tarrant County Commissioner Alisa Simmons of Arlington. “But they are putting it all on the line. They are putting their safety on the line, their families on the line, their family safety on the line, their income, hell, their freedoms.”
Despite this week’s legal efforts by Attorney General Ken Paxton to shut down O’Rourke’s fundraising for House Democrats, the former congressman told the Star-Telegram that he didn’t change anything about the rally.
“We found out 10 minutes before our attorneys jumped on a Zoom (call) and we were able to prevent him from doing what he wanted to do, which was to stop this rally today, to keep me from speaking out, and to prevent me from raising money. And we did all three,” O’Rourke said.
Wearing their “Beto for Texas” regalia, the crowd roared and waved their hands when Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. Gene Wu, of Houston, appeared on the screen with a busload of quorum breaking-Democrats behind him.
“We’re fighting for all Americans, but we couldn’t do it without you guys,” Wu said. “I thank y’all for your letters of support, your text messages and thank you for all the donations. We can’t do it without you. I know your hearts are with us. We’re quorum breaking, but there’s a piece of you with us here right now. So thank you so much.”
Rep. Nicole Collier, a Fort Worth Democrat, also tuned in to the rally from out of state.
“Let me tell you, I am in the midst of the on-the-run tour, but we’re not running from anything. We’re running toward protecting our freedom and our vote,” Collier said.
Collier said that while beef and egg prices rise, Trump’s approval rating is plummeting. To ensure his party stays in power, she said he compelled “his minions in Texas to steal five Democratic seats.”
“Republicans want to win so bad that they’re willing to lie, steal and cheat,” Collier said. “They have no problem changing the long-standing rules and processes that we’ve had in place in Texas. They don’t care who you voted for. They don’t care that you voted for Congressman Veasey. They don’t care about silencing communities of color. They want what they want, and they are willing to knock down whoever stands in front of them.”
Against an American flag backdrop and the theater’s red velvet curtains, Democratic elected officials told attendees that voting is the best way to fight the GOP’s efforts.
“They don’t make it easy intentionally,” Tarrant County Democratic Party Chair Allison Campolo said. “I mean, they try to draw us out of fair representation. They try to make sure that we can’t get good access to the ballot box, on and on and on. Nonetheless, all we can do is show up and vote.”
Campolo said the main reason Republicans are going after Democrats is that they are afraid of losing their seats.
“There’s a reason they are literally hunting our Democrats right now, right?” Campolo said. “There’s a reason they drew Alisa out of her district. There’s a reason they’re trying to redraw Texas mid-decade. There’s a reason they’re trying to send the FBI to find our state reps in other states.”
Congressman Joaquin Castro, a San Antonio Democrat, said that before the redistricting effort was announced, the Democratic representatives were asked to verify their home addresses.
“And then they drew us out of our districts,” Castro said. “And so I want you to do everything that you can to defeat these maps, because we need Marc Veasey back in Congress.”
After sharing his story of being diagnosed with cancer, Castro said that if the redistricting goes through and five more Republicans win seats in Congress, it will affect every Texan.
“I don’t want five more people who are going to take away (Affordable Care Act) subsidies,” Castro said. “I don’t want five more people who are going to strip people of Medicaid coverage or Medicare coverage or Social Security, because this is a matter of life and death for so many people in Texas and across the country.”
The last speaker at the event was O’Rourke, who riled up the audience by saying that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Paramount Global — which now owns CBS — law firms and universities are “bending the knee” to Trump.
“And so he comes to our state to grab even more power in the form of these five congressional districts, including Marc Veasey’s right here,” O’Rourke said. “He thinks that we are going to take it right here. But he doesn’t understand, in Texas, our knees do not bend.”
After the rally, O’Rourke told the Star-Telegram that at each of his stops out of state, the whole room stands up whooping and hollering for the Texas Democrats breaking quorum.
He said that throughout Trump’s second term, “Americans have been waiting for someone to fight back.”
“So I think the reason that this has caught on everywhere and is inspiring people to literally stand on their feet and give these ovations in Omaha and Indianapolis and Milwaukee is because this is the fight we’ve been waiting for, and I think it’s also because it came from an unexpected place,” O’Rourke said. “Texas is not supposed to count. It’s not supposed to matter. It’s not historically been decisive in our presidential or national politics. And yet, Texas is the epicenter of this fight.”
This story was originally published August 9, 2025 at 8:01 PM.