Activists delivered a message of encouragement to Texas Democrats on Friday morning from a pedestrian overpass spanning I-10 in San Antonio.
The group hung a banner reading “Stay Strong TX Dems” across the walkway near Vance Jackson Road ahead of morning rush hour. The message is directed at the Texas House Democrats who decamped to Illinois, Massachusetts and New York to break quorum and block Gov. Greg Abbott’s scheme to redraw the state’s political maps.
If the Texas Legislature’s special session were to go on, the redistricting would likely pass in the GOP-controlled body, giving President Donald Trump five more Republican seats ahead of the 2026 midterms. Progressive groups and voting-rights advocates warn the rearranged maps would diminish the power of Texas’ Black and Brown voters.
The quorum-breaking Democrats must remain out of state until at least Aug. 19 to run down the clock on the session — although Abbott could just call a new one.
Abbott has threatened to remove the absent lawmakers from office, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said he’ll investigate them for bribery and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn claimed he’d sent the FBI to hunt them down. Those who decamped to Illinois were even targeted with a bomb threat.
Just the same, the Dems said they won’t be intimidated.
“We will stay in Chicago as long as we have to, because the people of Texas deserve to have representation,” Texas Democratic Party Chairman Kendall Scudder told MSNBC this week. “And beyond that, every person in this country has been looking for a Democratic party that will fight. And we have that in Texas.”
The San Antonio activists displaying the message are with the anti-Trump group 50501, which has organized some of the largest protests to take place in San Antonio so far this year, including June 14’s massive “No Kings” march, which drew more than 10,000 people.
50501 has also organized smaller, rapid-response actions such as the demonstration outside the Pearsall ICE detention facility to protest conditions there. Those conditions, reportedly prompting a spike in 9-1-1 calls from inside the facility, were highlighted in a recent Current article.
Members of SATX Indivisible also participated in delivering Friday morning’s message.
“When they take a stand for us, we show up for them,” 50501 organizer Bianca Ramirez wrote on Facebook. “This is grassroots power in action. This is community. This is what democracy looks like.”
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This article appears in Aug 7-20, 2025.
