Locked-in Fort Worth Rep. Nicole Collier is ready to fight, even other Democrats | Opinion
Fresh off a two-day stint at Capitol Penitentiary, Rep. Nicole Collier tells me she’s searching for the right word, the right printable word, to describe the colleagues she believes betrayed her and her constituents.
But she’s not talking about Republicans.
Yes, it was Texas GOP lawmakers who sicced state troopers on the Fort Worth representative and the other Democrats to prevent a House quorum in the Legislature’s first special session. They did it to block the hyper-partisan and possibly illegal remaking of Texas congressional maps that President Donald Trump demanded.
And yes, it was Republicans who, once Collier and the Democrats returned from the friendlier confines of Illinois and New York, compelled recalcitrant lawmakers to accept armed, taxpayer-funded escorts if they left the Capitol to ensure that quorum for the redistricting vote was met. Collier refused the Republican-deployed babysitter, continued with her civil disobedience and remained in the statehouse overnight.
But in an interview on Wednesday, minutes after the Fort Worth lawmaker who has held House District 95 since 2013, went beyond criticizing the ruling party, and specifically took aim at her own Democratic cohort. Collier, 52, told me that she was ready, if needed, to support primary challenges for any Democratic incumbent who she believes wasn’t sufficiently confrontational.
“If you’re not ready to fight with me, then you need to go home, because I’m done. I’m done going along with them to make sure that they can get the cushy committee assignments, cushy titles,” Collier said of the typical perks given to House Democrats who reach across the aisle. She likened them to strikebreakers crossing a picket line.
“We were in Chicago — which is a strong union city — and I asked the labor leader, ‘What happens to people who cross the picket line? What happened to them?’ ” Collier said. ‘And he said, ‘Well, first we finish the fight, and then we go after them. We put them out.’ ”
Typically one of the more reserved lawmakers, Collier’s pitch is different than usual, in that you can hear it.
“I’m tired of the time when we go in there and we don’t object because we want to keep the peace. What is this peace at the cost of my people?” she said. “Because my people cannot sleep in peace if they can’t vote. My people can’t sleep in peace if they don’t make livable wages. My people can’t sleep in peace if they are over-policed. So, no, I’m not going to go along with you and try to keep the peace on the floor by standing down and not objecting or asking too many questions. I’m not going to do that anymore.”
Collier’s “anymore” was loud because her vote has, at times, epitomized the compromising posture she condemned. For example, former House Speaker Dade Phelan, a Republican, counted on Collier’s vote twice, both in 2021 and 2023.
But in a preview of the shifting approach to her role, Collier was one of just nine Texas Democrats who, by marking herself a present non-voter, went against the party’s consensus support of Dustin Burrows, the Lubbock Republican who became speaker. He ultimately led the racial gerrymandering effort that packs Black and Latino voters in districts separate from their current Black and Latino members of Congress, including Fort Worth U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey Austin U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The House approved the new map Wednesday, and it will soon be on Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk.
Effective politics necessitates savvy performance. Note where Collier chose to sleep (not her behind her office door, but at her desk on the House floor). Prominently positioned were a book titled about the role of enslaved Black people in American history titled “African Founders” and a LGBTQ-friendly “Y’all Means All” decorative pillow. There was even a bonnet, immediately familiar to any Black person protecting their hair after a long day at work.
All done, rightly, to draw a sufficient number of onlookers to her cause. And if Democrats are going to win in new districts with highly unfavorable demographics, they’re going to have to activate an electorate that typically ignores midterm elections. Before Collier peeled me aside to the chamber elevator for our conversation, she took photos with children who came with their parents holding protest signs, including a little girl about 10 years of age.
“There were children here, and they need hope,” Collier told me. “They need to see somebody that’s fighting for them, because we have to give him a reason to vote, right? … You have to have somebody that’s like ‘Dawggone, I’m hungry, but I got to go vote because I believe in him, I believe in her. I’m gonna go vote and then I’ll go eat.’ ”
Collier’s pivot has drawn uncommon attention her way. She’s getting the media hits, and triggered live streams that reached hundreds of thousands of simultaneous viewers. Sleeping at 1100 Congress Ave. earned support from former presidential candidates, including a call from Kamala Harris and an affirming tweet from New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.
These of course, aren’t the only politicians of prominence to support Collier’s sit-in, but I specify those particular people to articulate the perils of her party as currently composed. Under a certain light (mine), they embody the Democratic appeasement that Collier says she’s committed to uproot.
Harris ran a presidential campaign that conceded Republican narratives on the need to increase border security, premises Trump relied on to push through $170 billion of funding for immigration enforcement while mobilizing existing ICE agents to illegally profile, harass and detain Black, Asian and Latino communities across the United States. (Anyone who, like Collier, has a problem with the overpolicing Trump has deployed in Washington and Los Angeles should remember who gave him his tools.) Harris also pursued cozy relationships with a cryptocurrency lobby that has helped enrich the president and push longtime Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown out of his seat. She embraced Republicans like former Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger to create a constituency that wasn’t just silent, but invisible at the polls.
The result: Harris was the first Democrat to lose the popular vote and every battleground state, while other typical Democratic strongholds like New Jersey and New York went more purple in response to her name on the ballot. The former vice president did not, as Collier implored, give enough people sufficient reason to vote.
Booker, like Collier, used his platform to draw attention to the looming constitutional crisis by breaking staunch segregationist Strom Thurmond’s record for longest Senate floor speech ever. But Booker’s protest was sandwiched between voting with Republicans for Trump appointees including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Ambassador Charles Kushner — what Collier might call crossing the picket line — and posing for friendly photos with Benjamin Netanyahu as the Israeli prime minister engineers a nearly-two year genocide and famine in Gaza. Harris just announced a book tour; Booker’s is probably not far behind.
Collier is in no position to reject a friendly word from the stars on her side, especially as a means of parlaying support for the fight she’s now poised to lead in Texas.
As a journalist, I can operate as something of a perpetual gadfly, who can more freely lay out the terrain as accurately as I see it. If I’m lucky, I’ll show up in your inbox. If you’re lucky, I’ll never show up in your ballot box.
Unlike me, Collier is a politician tasked with building power. That is her job, and she has completely owned the moment, taking the wonkiness of mapmaking and making it salient as a corrupt, racist power grab worth battling.
But “good trouble,” without vigilant accountability, is easily subsumed into hollow performances, enticing golden parachutes, and muted impact. That’s the challenge for Collier and every aspiring reformer of a stagnant institution. Fortunately, there is also great opportunity. If Collier is so inclined, there are many weeds to pull.
This story was originally published August 22, 2025 at 1:27 PM with the headline "Locked-in Fort Worth Rep. Nicole Collier is ready to fight, even other Democrats | Opinion."
