“A Failure To Communicate”: Democrats Face Costly Calls On Texas Redistricting Bluffs

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

In Cool Hand Luke, Paul Newman’s character famously bluffs in a hand of poker and later explains, “Yeah, well sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand.” It is a great scene and a great movie. The problem is that sometimes nothing can be . . . well . . . nothing. Democrats are learning that lesson this week after Texas legislators headed home and opponents are calling the bluffs of figures from California Gov. Gavin Newsom to Texas’s Beto O’Rourke.

There is a key poker tip left unstated in the movie: You cannot bluff when the other players already know your cards.

After a couple of weeks of posturing in exile in blue states, Texas Democrats returned home as expected, allowing the state to move forward with its redistricting plan. There was never any doubt about what would happen because it has happened before with Democrats —lacking the votes to defeat legislation, they flee the state to prevent all legislative business.

The media predictably lionized the Democrats as stateless freedom fighters while repeating unfounded claims that the state was about to wipe out minority representation, a move that not only contradicted the GOP plan but would contravene federal law.

It was another “I am Spartacus” moment for Democrats seeking recognition as the leaders of the resistance movement. It did not work out particularly well due to the chosen safe harbor for the Democratic political refugees: Illinois.

Illinois is arguably the most gerrymandered state in the union, where Republicans were reduced to just three of the state’s 17 congressional seats, even though they won nearly half the votes in the last election. The districts resemble an electoral Rorschach test, with Democrats snaking dozens of miles to capture pockets of Democratic voters to deny Republicans seats. Standing next to Gov. JB Pritzker (D) (who signed the gerrymandering legislation) as he bellowed about “stealing” congressional seats became an instant punchline.

For Pritzker, the penalty was merely being denounced as a hypocrite, which rarely bothers politicians playing to the extreme parts of their parties. While Pritzker proclaimed that the Texas Democrats would remain safe under his protection in Illinois, the media just shrugged when the resistance collapsed and they returned home to collect their frozen salaries.

For others, it will prove more costly.

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom tried nightly to out chestpound his fellow Democrats like Pritzker.

Lacking the props of actual legislators used by his fellow presidential aspirant in Illinois, Newsom pledged that he would match Texas district for district if they went forward with their redistricting plan.

He then discovered that you cannot bluff with your cards facing the opposing players.

The problem is that states like California and Illinois are already heavily gerrymandered as are many Democratic states. In California, Republicans constituted roughly 40 percent of the congressional vote in 2024 but received only about 17 percent of the House seats. Pushing Republicans to near zero would be expensive and require districts that defy the laws of nature in their bizarre shapes. In comparison, Texas and many GOP-controlled states are largely untapped and can produce many more GOP districts with relatively easy changes.

Nevertheless, Newsom pledged that he would do it if they called his bluff. That will cost over $200 million to a state with a crippling deficit. In the meantime, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott pledged that he could just as easily produce ten districts if California creates five new democratic seats. He could do it.

Newsom would also have to get around state law and the redistricting commission.

Otherwise, his plan would go down in flames in the courts.

The same is true for Gov. Cathy Hochul, who called such redistricting a “legal insurrection” and then pledged to lead her own insurrection. The problem, again, is that New York is already heavily gerrymandered. Harris received only 56% of the vote in 2024, but  Democrats hold 73% of the state’s 26 House seats. Prior Democratic efforts at gerrymandering have been so extreme that courts struck them down.

Of course, Hochul is still better off in her bluff than Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey who pledged to retaliate if Texas moves forward despite the fact that the state’s prior gerrymandering has already reduced Republican districts to zero.

Similar efforts in states like Maryland have led to sharp rebukes from courts. Previously, Democrats turned to Marc Elias, who gained infamy as a key player in the Russian collusion hoax, to defend an outrageously gerrymandered redistricting. A court found the effort not only in violation of Maryland law but also of the state constitution’s equal protection, free speech, and free elections clauses. The court declared that the map pushed by Elias “subverts the will of those governed.”

Perhaps the worst bluff was made by Beto O’Rourke, who has repeatedly tried and failed to get elected as senator, governor, and president. With each defeat, O’Rourke seems to get more extreme and profane. After recently losing a court case barring him from continuing to raise money to fund the unlawful flight of the Democratic legislators, O’Rourke proclaimed he did not care what the law or the courts may say: “F**k the rules, we are going to win whatever it takes.”

O’Rourke is following the John McEnroe school of appealing court rulings, but the difference is that tennis officials cannot put you in jail for a court tantrum.

After his recent speech, I noted that O’Rourke appeared to be not only undermining his own appeal but begging for a contempt sanction.

Now, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is calling his bluff and asking for a contempt ruling. His main witness is likely to be O’Rourke himself in delighting a Democratic rally with statements like this:

“He [Paxton] tried to stop us from holding this rally here today in Fort Worth, he tried to stop us from raising money to support these Democrats in the fight—he lost—and one of the worst things that we could do to Ken Paxton is to right now choose to donate, to have the backs of these fighters… He is trying to stop us from raising the resources they [the Democrat statehouse fugitives] need to ultimately prevail and come through and we are not going to let him stop us. Are you with me on that?”

“F**k the rules” is not exactly a good argument to make to any judge.

Courts may soon explain to figures like O’Rourke what the “Captain” explained in Cool Hand Luke: “What we’ve got here is… failure to communicate. Some men you just can’t reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it… well, he gets it.”

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of the best-selling book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”