🚨 Trumpmandering Starts Tomorrow: Abbott’s “Emergency” Session Is Just a MAGA Map Grab

Special Session begins tomorrow

On July 9, 2025, Governor Greg Abbott announced a Special Session of the 89th Texas Legislature starting Monday, July 21, for a 30-day legislative circus session. He dropped 18 agenda items, a mix of actual issues (like flooding in the Hill Country) and culture war bait designed to rile up the far-right base and distract from the real reason we’re all here:

See: https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-announces-special-session-agenda-

Abbott’s list of 18 agenda items sounds like someone tried to cram a Buzzfeed listicle into a policy memo. A few address the real needs, flood response, Hill Country disaster relief, but most are red meat for the MAGA crowd:

🧨 Donald Trump asked Greg Abbott for 5–8 new MAGA seats in Congress, and Abbott said, “Yes, Daddy.”

Let’s be very clear:
This Special Session is not about helping Texans. It’s about helping Trump.

📊 Let’s Talk Numbers (Because We Love Receipts)

As of Sunday, July 20, here’s what’s been filed:

• 🏛 133 House Bills
  
  

• 🏛 15 Senate Bills
  
  

Breakdown by Party:

• Texas House: 110 Republican bills vs. 23 Democrat bills
  
  

• Texas Senate: 14 Democratic bills vs. 1 Republican bill (seriously, just one)
  
  

Breakdown by Topic (selected highlights):

• Tax - 31

• Recognition and nor bills - 22

• Elections - 13

• Public Education - 14

• Criminal Justice - 10

• Lobbying - 10

• Local Government - 7

• Abortion - 6

• Kerrville and Flooding - 4 (Angie Button, Don McLaughlin (2), Sarah Eckhard. Barbara Gerwin-Hawkins also wrote a bill honoring the victims)

• Healthcare Medicaid - 4

• Housing - 3

• Women’s rights - 2

• Immigration - 2 (one bill includes DNA testing for Immigrants )

• Political Expenditures or Expenses - 2

• Water rights - 2

• Retirement - 1

• Child Support at conception - 1

• Transportation - 1

• Property Rights - 1

• Human Trafficking -1

• Workplace Certifications - 1

• Not agreeing to Federal Govt Regulations - 1

• THC - 1

• Department of Public Safety - 1

• Animals - 1

• Government Raising - 1

• Emergencies on Capitol Grounds - 1

• Small Business - 1

• Trans - 1

• Discrimination - 1

• Ivermectin - 1

Funny how few bills there are about Kerrville and flooding matters or many of the items listed in Abbott’s top priorities. But don’t worry, they found time to talk about culture war issues. Because they don’t know how to actually govern.

The Real Agenda: Trumpmandering

Let’s not pretend this is about flood relief. This is about redistricting without new census data. It’s about carving up Texas like a Sunday brisket and handing Trump the leftovers, 5 to 8 shiny new GOP congressional seats.

And who loses?
Communities of color. Urban voters. Young people. You! Me! Everyone not in Greg Abbott’s donor list!

This isn’t redistricting.
This is Trumpmandering.

🤯 The Hypocrisy

Here’s the kicker: Abbott doesn’t even need the legislature to fund the flood relief. He could do that with his emergency powers. But instead, he’s using it as a hostage crisis, forcing a session just to sneak in partisan redistricting while pretending to care about storm victims.

This is not governing.
This is gaslighting with a gavel.

📅 What Happens Next?

Monday, July 21 – Special Session begins
Thursday, July 24 – Tentative Austin hearing at the Capitol
Saturday, July 26 – Tentative Houston hearing at the University of Houston
Monday/Tuesday, July 29–30 – Tentative Dallas hearing at UT Arlington

🗳 A Select Committee (likely 21 legislators handpicked to be loyal) will “review” public testimony and then magically produce a redistricting map. That map will be fast-tracked to a House floor vote.

⚠️ NOTE: You may see “draft maps” floating around online. Don’t panic. Unless it’s officially introduced, it’s not real.

🚨 Your Mission: PACK THE HEARINGS

This is it, y’all. We need to fill every seat, every hallway, every inch of those hearing rooms. Let them run late into the night with hundreds of Texans speaking truth to power.

Because once these maps are passed, they’ll shape your school board, your roads, your hospitals, and your vote for the next decade.

📲 Take Action

🔗 Use our Toolkit:
Social Media Toolkit

📢 Use these hashtags:
#Trumpmandering
#TxLege

👊 Final Word

This isn’t just politics. This is personal.

If Trump gets his way, we’ll see:

• A national abortion ban

• LGBTQ+ rights rolled back

• Public education gutted

• And communities like ours are silenced

Let’s make damn sure that doesn’t happen.

Fill the rooms. Raise your voice. Flood the streets.

Yours in resistance,
Nancy Thompson