The most powerful Democrat in the Texas House—that’s a relative concept—slipped into the hearing room at the last minute. He brushed by reporters eager to talk to him and took his place alongside his Republican colleagues. It was Tuesday at the Texas Capitol, the second day of the quorum break , and Representative Joe Moody, an El Paso Democrat and ally of House Speaker Dustin Burrows, was one of just eight House Democrats who had opted to stay in Texas rather than join their colleagues in Illinois and elsewhere in an attempt to kill, or at least delay, a Trump-ordered bill that would further gerrymander Texas’s already very gerrymandered map. Moody wasn’t talking to the press, but he had put out a statement on Monday.

He offered his “ support ” to his fellow Democrats and condemned t

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