Politics

Texas Democrats dig in as Abbott promises fines, extradition and arrests

Published

11 months ago

August 5, 2025

CHICAGO — About two-dozen Texas Democrats huddled around a monitor inside a hotel auditorium just west of Chicago Monday to watch as their Republican colleagues gaveled back into session and threatened “consequences” for their mass departure.

Minutes later, as they stared at their phones, Gov. Greg Abbott celebrated the ordering of their arrest. The atmosphere, according to a person in the room, remained tense while the bell rang to call the session to order but turned more defiant and boisterous during the speakers’ remarks and press conference.

More than a thousand miles away in Austin, Texas, the Democrats who didn’t flee the state hunkered down for the final 15 days of a special legislative session set to end Aug. 19. They gathered to address, in part, a mid-decade redistricting proposal pushed by President Donald Trump.

The splitscreen capped a 24-hour frenzy that began when dozens of Texas Democrats fled the state to protest the remapped congressional lines designed to keep Republicans in power during next year’s crucial midterms. And it underscored the high stakes of the standoff: A president clamoring to cling to partisan control at every level — helped by a high-profile red state governor — facing a coup from the opposing party.

And despite an uncertain endgame and the possibility of Abbott simply calling for another special session, Democrats here are planning extended stays and making arrangements for children and relatives to visit them, according to one person close to the lawmakers who was granted anonymity to speak freely about a sensitive matter.

Democrats, who broke quorum by leaving the Lone Star State, now face an uncertain path. Past quorum breaks, like their 2021 effort to block passage of an elections bill, have been minimally successful.

Without the necessary number of legislators needed to conduct business, the Republican-controlled state House can’t vote on the plan that could cement its party’s power in Congress next year.

“See my bags here,” state Rep. Rafael Anchia said late Sunday evening as he headed to the bus bound for the Q Center, a hotel and conference center. “I’m prepared to be here for as long as it takes to make sure that we stop the redistricting this session, and we’re going to feel our way through additional special sessions, if they’re called by the governor.”

A White House official told Blue Light News Trump’s team is taking “a pretty hands-off approach” to the brewing battle, deferring to Texas Republicans.

“We made our case and now we’re counting on them to get it done,” added the person, who was granted anonymity to freely discuss a matter being privately negotiated.

State Rep. Ana-María Rodríguez Ramos, chair of the Texas Legislative Progressive Caucus, captured her group’s predicament in an interview. “We really do not have a choice,” she said. “What is our alternative? Rolling down and rolling over for Trump’s economy to continue to destroy America?”

The risks are big for Texas Democrats — from $500-a-day fines, to extradition, to the more unlikely scenario of Abbott replacing them with hand-picked legislators, to facing civil arrest for violating the Legislature’s rules. They do not, however, face any civil or criminal charges and can only be forced back into the Capitol to take votes.

It’s unclear who would foot the bill for the hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines members are collectively racking up by abstaining from the legislative session.

There are also political risks. Texas Democrats are not just missing votes related to redistricting, but also on legislation that would provide relief following last month’s devastating floods.

“No one is fooling around this time in Texas,” said Dave Carney, an adviser to Abbott. “In the past, it was like, they came back. Everything was forgiven. It was like kumbaya. That’s not happening. There’s no appetite to say, “Okay, never mind. We’re going to let you do this anytime you fucking want.” Abbott also threatened to arrest Texas Democrats in 2021 when they used the same walkout tactics.

If Abbott chooses to call multiple special sessions to pass the redrawn map that would net five GOP-friendly seats, lawmakers could run into time constraints: New lines must be adopted by early December in order to take effect for the 2026 midterm cycle. The Legislature could collide with filing deadlines for the midterms. Under state law, candidates can declare their intent to seek office from Nov. 8 through Dec. 8, but the state legislature has the authority to extend the deadline.

Each side lacks good options to resolve the stalemate.

Earlier in the day, appearing on the MAGA influencer Benny Johnson’s show, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton acknowledged the struggles ahead for Abbott and his fellow Republicans, saying his “first move would have been to chain them to their desk and not let them out of the door,” before adding, “I think the governor is going to be forced into calling several special sessions.”

In an interview on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” Monday, Abbott said the lawmakers “have forfeited their seats in the state legislature because they are not doing the job they were elected to do.”

And across blue state capitols from Austin to Springfield Monday afternoon, planes flying “Mess With Texas” banners arced through the skies, capturing the newly weaponized redistricting arms race playing out at fever pitch.

As more than two dozen Texas Democrats huddled in Chicago, some of their colleagues met in the New York State Capitol with Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Flanked by six Texas lawmakers, the governor openly embraced a full-fledged gerrymandering of congressional districts in New York to favor fellow Democrats, a further escalation of the national drama.

There, Texas Rep. Jolanda Jones questioned Abbott’s legal rationale.

“I’m a lawyer. Part of my practice is criminal defense work. There is no felony in the penal code for what he says,” Jones said. “So respectfully, he’s making up shit. He’s trying to get sound bites, and he has no legal mechanism, and if he did, subpoenas in Texas don’t work in New York, so he’s going to come get us how?”

Others traveled to Boston for a National Conference of State Legislatures meeting, among them: state lawmakers Sarah Eckhardt, Royce West, Armando Walle and Ana Hernandez. They plan to fly to Illinois on Wednesday.

Leaving a private lunch with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker in Boston, Walle said Democrats are fundraising on their behalf.

Back in Texas, Republican House Speaker Dustin Burrows said he would entertain a motion for civil arrests of those who fled the state. The House then voted to send the sergeant at arms to bring the departed members back to Texas. Lawmakers voted to arrest their absent colleagues — a vote that only applies to Democrats within state lines. While Burrows can sign civil warrants compelling state troopers to arrest legislators and bring them to the Capitol, they will not face civil or criminal charges for leaving.

The House is set to reconvene Tuesday at 1 p.m.

“The people of Texas are watching, and so is the nation,” Burrows said to Democrats from the House floor. “And if you choose to continue down this road, you should know there will be consequences.”

Bill Mahoney and Kelly Garrity contributed to this report.

Politics

The newest GOP campaign surrogates: Confused tourists at Waffle House

Published

40 minutes ago

June 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

If you’ve spent any time on social media recently, you’ve run across the deluge of videos from World Cup tourists celebrating the wonders of the United States. The top Republican in Congress is taking these visual love letters as a validation of his party’s agenda.

“Thanks to social media, we’re seeing a lot of these; this has been encouraging to see the visitors appreciate what we have,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday. “Dutch travelers are in Buc-ees; German players took a midnight trip to the Waffle House. They’re the greatest thing you’ve ever seen. English fans are roaming the Everglades. Japanese tourists marveling over free chips and salsa at a Mexican restaurant in Texas.”

Johnson did not really contend with an undercurrent of these videos — that visitors were expecting something far different, and far less alluring, in their American travels — as he cited them in his election-season messaging about “the socialist takeover of the Democrat Party.”

“What a split screen we’re seeing right now. We’re triumphantly hosting the World Cup games all around the country, and we’re seeing people from different countries come and get a little taste of America, a little taste of freedom, of our culture and our society. And they appreciate it so much more than these socialists running for Congress,” he continued. “Sadly, many of these Democrat candidates and their voters just don’t have the same zeal and affection for America.”

Although few of these latter-day de Tocquevilles cite politics as they marvel at America’s bounty — including Freddy, the footloose German fan who has been invited to the White House — Johnson cited their enthusiasm as endorsement of his policy agenda.

“They’re seeing for themselves the genius of America’s system,” the speaker said. “A system that rewards risk takers and entrepreneurs and job creators and innovators, and people who create jobs for others and expand the economy and opportunity and broaden the pathway out of poverty for more people. That’s what the Republicans stand for.”

Politics

For South Korean men, there’s only one uniform that matters

Published

2 hours ago

June 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

SEOUL — Few subjects can provoke stronger reactions in South Korea than the issue of mandatory military service. So when two Korean reporters were caught on camera last week making demeaning comments about team captain Son Heung-min’s lack of service, it touched a national nerve.

“Is he running around like a platoon leader because he’s the captain?” they mocked, pointing out that he knew nothing about warfare because of a service waiver granted after he led the national team to an Asian Games gold medal in 2018.

Son is no ordinary athlete, despite controversially starting last night’s match against South Africa from the bench. He is a global soccer superstar, often described as Asia’s greatest-ever player. The perception of him as a trustworthy and well-respected national figure can be seen in his endorsements, including as a brand ambassador for Hana Bank.

And so the backlash against the reporters was swift: The disparagement of the beloved athlete was widely criticized, and South Korea’s national team is now boycotting Korean media interviews. That news alone has made headlines in the country, since the national team has effectively cut off access to domestic reporters as they compete in the biggest sporting event on the planet, limiting their interactions to FIFA-required media appearances. It’s a reminder of how sensitive the military service issue remains, even when the underlying rules have long been settled.

At least 18 months of military service is required for every able-bodied man in South Korea. For many, the mandatory sacrifice inevitably creates frustration toward those who are exempted from it — including elite athletes and entertainers, Koreans with foreign citizenship and disabled citizens.

Nearly two decades ago, those exemptions exploded into the spotlight when the 2002 South Korean squad became the nation’s first and only World Cup team to receive military exemptions for its tournament performance, after its historic fourth-place finish. The backlash was overwhelming in subsequent years — Koreans saw the growing range of sports exemptions as unfair, and as a result, the government dropped World Cup-related exemptions in 2008. Despite the policy change, however, the bitterness surrounding military exemption still haunts the sport.

Today, athletes can still qualify for alternative service through achievements such as winning an Olympic medal or a gold medal at the Asian Games. It’s why Son’s military exemption, which replaces full active-duty service with three weeks of basic military training and alternative services, shouldn’t — in theory — be controversial.

But because nearly all able-bodied men are required by law to serve, questions surrounding who receives special treatment continue to generate intense public scrutiny. Even around the time Son received his exemption in 2018, an online survey showed that 74 percent of participating voters thought that military exemptions should be abolished for athletic and artistic achievements.

Politics

Black, red and complicated

Published

2 hours ago

June 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

BERLIN — Across most countries in this year’s World Cup, the national flag is a natural way to support the home team.

In Germany, it’s… complicated.

There is plenty of excitement about the German team surging through Group E: One Berlin bakery chain is advertising slices of black, red and gold cake; shops are hawking tricolor plastic leis, noisemakers and face paint; fans gathering to watch the games don German team jerseys.

But as Germany takes the field against Ecuador today, what is less visible around the country is the black, red and gold of the German flag. That’s because, for the last eight decades, Germany has had a deeply complex relationship with its own national symbols and the concept of national pride.

After the Nazi defeat in World War II, expressions of national pride were taboo in Germany. Instead, the country’s postwar leaders promoted Verfassungspatriotismus, or constitutional patriotism: a sense of pride in postwar Germany’s commitment to democracy and the rule of law. By contrast, overt national pride was largely the remit of the far- and extreme right — so much so that a slogan from the neo-Nazi NPD party in the early 2000s, deeply controversial at the time, was Ich bin stolz, ein Deutscher zu sein (“I’m proud to be German”).

Then came the Sommermärchen (“summer fairy tale”) of 2006, when Germany hosted its first World Cup since unification and found itself uncommonly awash in black, red and gold. A German friend once quipped that, before that year, if you saw a house flying a German flag you knew the person living there was a neo-Nazi; afterwards; they could be a neo-Nazi or a soccer fan.

“2006 was a coming-out moment for Germany,” said Sudha David-Wilp, a Berlin-based vice president and senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund. “It allowed Germans to feel comfortable in their national skin and to unfurl their flag.”

That growing embrace of sports-related patriotism has been complicated in recent years by the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, which has co-opted the flag and favors jettisoning the country’s postwar memory culture to make way for vocal national pride. Its leaders have accused other political parties of being insufficiently patriotic, including during a recent dustup over whether AfD parliamentarians were allowed to let the German flag wave from the windows of their Bundestag offices during a far-right protest.

“The German flag plays a central role in the aesthetics of [the AfD’s] political communication,” said Johannes Hillje, a Berlin-based political consultant who tracks far- and extreme-right rhetoric in Germany. “Part of the AfD’s communication strategy is to reinterpret national symbols and general terms such as ‘homeland,’ ‘nation,’ and ‘patriotism’ in line with its far-right ideology.”

With the AfD leading in national polls, politicians from left-leaning parties have expressed unease with the overt symbolism of waving the German flag. The Left Party advertised a World Cup watch party with the tagline, “No flags, no nationalism, no stress!”

And Philipp Türmer, leader of the youth wing of the center-left Social Democrats, told Spiegel he would gladly wear a German jersey but couldn’t imagine himself waving the flag: “I’ve spent too much time in my life at counter-protests where the [fascists] on the other side of the police barricade decked themselves out in black, red and gold,” he said.

Both the shift toward expressing more national pride and the AfD’s strong association with it were apparent in polling among the German electorate. Sixty percent of German respondents surveyed for this month’s POLITICO Poll said they were very or somewhat proud to be German, compared with 32 percent who said they were not that proud or not at all proud. At the same time, just 30 percent said they owned a German flag and 24 percent said they had clothing with the German flag on it.

And asked to name the political party they most identify with someone saying they are proud of Germany, 35 percent named the AfD, more than twice the figure for any other party.

German captain Joshua Kimmich told Bild ahead of his team’s first match against Curaçao that he hoped the World Cup would be an opportunity to encourage a new kind of “positive patriotism” in Germany — one distinct from the version pushed by the far right.

“Our team can be a model for that,” he said. “If you look at our team, we already have many players with different backgrounds, different religions and from different parts of society. We want to be successful together.”