James Talarico isn’t like most Democrats. For starters, the Texas state representative is a Joe Rogan–friendly guy whose twang leaks out between critiques of the billionaire class. This week, Talarico is making news for leading an exodus of Texas Democrats who fled the state to block a redistricting vote that could carve out as many as five new Republican congressional seats and help the Republicans keep their House majority next year.
Exodus is apropos because Talarico, 36, is the grandson of a Baptist preacher and works on his Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary studies when the Texas legislature is out of session. He was in Illinois on Wednesday when I asked him about the Trump-backed redistricting plan, what it means to be a God-loving liberal, and the future of the Democratic Party.
What is the redistricting effort, and why is it so important?
Typically, state legislators adjust district boundaries at the beginning of a decade to account for population changes after a new census, and Texas Republicans did that in 2021. I voted against that map because it was gerrymandered, and it was discriminatory, but I didn’t break quorum, and neither did my colleagues. But this is different: Trump is now asking those same Texas Republicans to redraw those Texas maps, in the middle of the decade, to ensure that he doesn’t have to face consequences in the next election, and to ensure that he can maintain his majority in Congress despite what the American people may want—and that is incredibly dangerous.
We can’t let the most powerful politician in the country rig the next election because he doesn’t want to face accountability. That’s why we broke quorum—to stop them from being able to pass these corrupt maps.
Where are you now? What are you doing?
I was part of the group that left Texas to come to the Land of Lincoln, which is appropriate because Abraham Lincoln actually broke quorum as a state lawmaker back in 1840 by jumping out of a window at the Illinois State Capitol.
