Hello, this is Michael Moss. Heather Cox Richardson is traveling today, and her travel

arrangements did not allow her time to read today's letter, so I will be reading it in her place.

August 3, 2025.

Today, Democratic lawmakers from the Texas House of Representatives

left the state to deny Republican lawmakers the quorum.

The number of legislators required to pass legislation

they need in order to push through a new district map that would take five seats currently held

by Democrats and give them to Republicans. President Donald J. Trump has demanded this rare mid-decade

redistricting in an attempt to hold control of the House of Representatives in 2026. He is urging all Republican-dominated

states to make a similar change to guarantee Republican dominance regardless of the will of voters.

Republicans in the Texas legislature rushed a bill that would make the new map law through committee on Saturday

morning after the one public hearing they held on it showed overwhelming opposition.

Sophia Bousselae of NBC5 and Dallas Fort Worth reports that the Texas House is scheduled to vote

on the bill Monday.

My Democratic colleagues and I have just left our beloved state to break quorum and stop Trump's redistricting power grab.

Texas State Representative James Talariko said in a video posted to social media.

Trump told our Republican colleagues to redraw the

political maps here in Texas in the middle of the decade to get him five more seats and protect

his majority in Congress. They're turning our districts into crazy shapes to guarantee the outcome

they want in the 26 elections. If this power grab succeeds,

they will hang on to power without any accountability from the voters. But Texas Democrats are

fighting back. We're leaving the state, breaking quorum, and preventing Republicans from

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