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Photo: Hannah Beier/Bloomberg/Getty Images

One of the major undercurrents of Republican politics in 2025 is a deep-seated desire to arrest, prosecute, and lock up perceived enemies, including many and perhaps most Democrats. It’s sometimes explained as retribution for the alleged weaponization of law enforcement against poor, innocent Donald Trump during his four years in the wilderness (partially protected, thank God, by the U.S. Supreme Court and, of course, by God himself). It’s probably the bedrock reason for the MAGA obsession with the Epstein files, long thought to hold evidence of vast criminal activity by leading Democrats who will only face righteous judgment (and prison!) if the secrets are dug up and exposed.

But right now, the lust for incarceration is most evident in Texas. Republicans are enraged by Texas Democrats’ efforts to subvert the pre-midterms power grab ordered by Trump, aimed at harvesting five extra U.S. House seats for the GOP via a rare and sketchy mid-decade redistricting. Democratic state House members (and most of their state Senate colleagues) left Texas en masse to deny Republicans a quorum for the redistricting gambit, being held during a special session originally intended to approve flood relief. Immediately, the Republicans running the Lone Star State began rattling law-enforcement sabers at the absent Democrats. Governor Greg Abbott threatened to ask judges to declare the Democratic legislative seats absent, effectively expelling lawmakers from the offices to which voters elected them and replacing them with Republicans to create a pure party-line House. The Texas House itself issued civil arrest warrants for the absent Democrats, a rather pointless gesture since these instruments are only effective within the state (which didn’t prevent House leaders from sending state troopers to the homes of these legislators in what one Democrat called “performative theater”).

But the two most avid pursuers of Democrats have been the two Republicans locked in an increasingly vicious 2026 statewide primary fight: U.S. senator John Cornyn and his challenger, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton. Cornyn demanded that the FBI help track down and presumably handcuff Democrats wherever they had gone (they weren’t too hard to locate, since nearly all of them were in Illinois or New York holding regular press conferences). Not to be outflanked, Paxton asked a state judge to issue an actual criminal-contempt warrant to secure the incarceration of a Texas Democrat who was still around: Beto O’Rourke, the famous former congressman and candidate for governor, U.S. senator, and president. As Politico explained:

Paxton’s request accused the Texas Democrat of violating a court order that the judge, Tarrant County’s Megan Fahey, issued last week that barred fundraising by O’Rourke and his nonprofit Powered by People intended to bankroll the efforts by Texas Democratic lawmakers to derail the redistricting effort.

In support of his claim, he highlighted a remark O’Rourke made at a Saturday rally — a day after Fahey’s order — saying “there are no refs in this game. Fuck the rules.”

But an attorney for O’Rourke says Paxton’s characterization of O’Rourke’s remark was an “outright lie.” O’Rourke’s comment, she noted, was a reference to the broader nationwide fight over redistricting — a call for Democratic states to counteract Texas’ redistricting push by undertaking their own partisan redrawing of political boundaries.

It seems reasonably clear that Paxton’s main purpose here was to make it as well known as possible that ol’ Beto had publicly dropped an F-bomb. But still, the MAGA base from whom the fiery AG receives his political sustenance was given the brief fantasy image of O’Rourke behind bars (the contempt citation, if issued, could earn him six months in the slammer). One wonders if Paxton is playing with fire by writing checks he can’t cash.

For all the escalating law-enforcement rhetoric, Texas Republicans know that Democrats can keep delaying legislative action until they’ve abundantly made their point (or perhaps until California voters authorize retaliation via a Democratic counter-gerrymander) and that the GOP will get what it wants in the end. The crisis could end very soon if Democrats outlast the conclusion of the first special legislative session and another begins. Nobody needs to go to jail or lose their offices. But given the national stakes of the Texas fight, it’s possible that a frustrated desire to land some small-fry Democrats like Beto O’Rourke will just stimulate the desire in Washington to go after big fish with names like Clinton, Obama, and Biden.

Why Texas Republicans Are So Eager to Lock Up Democrats

Why Texas Republicans Are So Eager to Lock Up Democrats