Daily Dispatch 7/16/25: Democrats Consider Ditching Special Session To Stop GOP Power Grab, and More

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas:

Drama building for the special session, as Democrats consider breaking quorum to block a Trump-ordered redistricting scheme - including : https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/us/politics/texas-redistricting-trump.html

...Ken Paxton is threatening to "hunt down" any Democrats fleeing the session, while the plan itself could result in a "dummymander": https://www.texastribune.org/2025/07/15/texas-democrats-redistricting-response-trump-republican-five-seats/?_bhlid=f8b2bec379355a332431cf659f421e931ee30532

...A closer look at a potential "dummymander" shows that as it stands, safe blue districts are safer than safe red districts in Texas, making a weakening of those red districts a hazardous prospect: https://prospect.org/politics/2025-07-16-texas-redistricting-maneuver-may-harm-republicans/

...The only real swing seats left in Texas are in the Rio Grande Valley, due to a surprising swing to Trump last year - no surprise, the cancellation of the RGV's biggest annual public health event due to Trump budget cuts: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/07/16/texas-rio-grande-valley-border-health-federal-cuts/

...Ahead of all of this, Ken Paxton has launched an investigation into alleged non-citizen voting in Harris and several other counties: https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/voting/2025/07/15/526434/texas-attorney-generals-office-opens-investigation-into-allegations-of-noncitizens-voting-in-harris-county/

Propublica finds great disparity between claims by Kerr County officials that the July 4 flood couldn't have been predicted, and long oral and written histories that more or less do exactly that: https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-floods-oral-histories

...Polling shows that most Americans believe that the death toll from the flood could have been much less severe if government officials had been better prepared: https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/5403144-poll-flood-deaths-texas/

Republican Kerr County officials, under scrutiny due to the flood, are experiencing an unfortunate work hazard that's become familiar to Democratic leaders in bigger cities - death threats: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/texas-officials-death-threats-flash-flooding_n_68766208e4b0eefef0c4f62c

...Those same officials, at their first meeting after the flood, acknowledge that the actual number of missing people remains uncertain: