Texas Democratic state Rep. James Talarico defended his party’s aggressive response this week to the GOP’s attempt to gerrymander the Texas map to nab five more U.S. House seats.
“What I’m advocating for is to stand up to bullies, to look them in the eye and not flinch, because we all know from our personal experiences, you don’t beat a bully by playing dead,” Talarico told Zeteo’s Mehdi Hasan on Tuesday.
Talarico has made a name for himself with a strong social media presence and a slight endorsement last month from Joe Rogan, a podcaster and supporter of President Donald Trump.
Many state House Democrats left Texas on Sunday in a last-ditch effort to block a new congressional map that would give Republicans a better chance of keeping their U.S. House majority in the 2026 midterm elections. The Republican effort is backed by Trump, who said his party is “entitled to five more seats.”
Talarico, who left the state for Illinois, told Hasan that quorum-breaking is protected by the state’s constitution and “is a tool that the minority should use to check the majority, especially when the majority is cheating.”
