Treatment of Fort Worth rep drags Texas redistricting saga to another low | Opinion

A Fort Worth state representative is suddenly at the center of the ongoing fight over Texas congressional redistricting. What’s happening to her is the latest step in the increasingly ugly deterioration of American politics.

Rep. Nicole Collier, a Democrat whose District 95 includes downtown, parts of southeast and far east Fort Worth and Forest Hill, is camped out at her desk in the House chamber in Austin. House Republican leaders are forcing Democrats to accept Department of Public Safety escorts to leave the building. The lawmakers must sign a slip pledging to return, ostensibly to ensure they can’t again prevent a quorum and spoil another special session.

Collier rejects this, because she’s a self-respecting adult. Or, some might argue, because she’s come up with another attention-getting stunt that’s good for fundraising. Either way, it’s another sad sign that any notions of mutual respect, compromise and collegiality are slipping away.

The redistricting fight —Texas GOP leaders want to redraw districts to ensure the election of five more Republicans to the U.S. House — has been full of such moments.

Republicans, at the behest of President Donald Trump, sought to redraw the map in the middle of the decade. Democrats fled the state to stop a special session for the second time in four years, drawing charges of hypocrisy for appearing with Democratic leaders who have already contorted their states’ maps for partisan gain.

Texas Republicans brought in the law. They threatened to arrest Democrats to force participation, tried to get courts in other states to abet in hunting them down, and imposed huge fines for their absence.

Ken Paxton jumps in to take on Beto O’Rourke

Attorney General Ken Paxton had to get involved, too. He and Gov. Greg Abbott wanted to remove wayward Democrats from their duly-elected seats. Paxton’s latest stunt is to pursue Beto O’Rourke on the laughable charge that his political group’s support for Texas Democrats constituted bribery.

The irony is that all of this comes from Trump-aligned politicians of the very type who decried years of investigations and prosecutions of the president. They bashed it as “lawfare” and criminalization of politics. Attempting to turn quorum-busting into a crime worth overturning elections is the ultimate lawfare.

These are also the ones telling us how dangerous cities and the border are and how much law enforcement help those areas need. Diverting state troopers to babysitting duty makes Texans less safe.

Redistricting is always divisive, but it doesn’t have to be this ugly. If lawfare means the execution of political aims in the legal realm, there may be no one more in love with it than Paxton. He accused O’Rourke of raising and spending money to support the Democrats’ flight to Chicago and other blue havens, ostensibly in violation of a House rule enacted after the last quorum break in 2021. Under that provision, Republicans seek to force Democrats to personally bear the cost of travel and fines for leaving the state to stop legislative business.

Paxton proposes that O’Rourke, the once and perhaps future statewide candidate, committed fraud by raising political money for the Democrats’ personal expenses. His office won a temporary order to halt O’Rourke from supporting the lawmakers. When O’Rourke subsequently held a rally in Fort Worth, Paxton demanded that he be held in contempt of court.

There’s one huge problem with all this: the First Amendment. O’Rourke has the right to raise and donate money to political causes. And despite Republicans’ efforts to make it otherwise, the quorum break was a political act. The House can enforce rules against its members, but it cannot impose those rules on civilians.

And after all, the Supreme Court has long held that money is a protected tool of free speech, a precept that Republicans have generally lauded.

Robert Francis O’Rourke? Are Republicans doing that again?

Paxton gave away the real motivation in a number of ways, including seeking court action to stop O’Rourke rather than having criminal charges brought. His official statements refer to O’Rourke’s full name: Robert Francis O’Rourke. That’s a favorite political dig for Republicans, who like to accuse the former congressman of using his lifelong nickname to make voters think he’s Hispanic.

That’s right — Attorney General Warren Kenneth Paxton Jr. is mocking someone for using a nickname.

It would all be funny if it weren’t such a dangerous precedent. Do Republicans really want a world in which, say, a governor who donates millions to favored candidates to ensure passage of his school choice plan could be prosecuted? Not that that would ever happen here, of course.

A Tarrant County district court judge, Megan Fahey, has to deal with this mess. She should dismiss Paxton’s requests — and reprimand him for another cynical distortion of the law.

And then everyone should grow up a little and get back to work for Texans.

This story was originally published August 20, 2025 at 9:45 AM.