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In sports, the winning team doesn’t get to rewrite the rules to guarantee it’ll never lose again. In a democracy, the same principle should hold: Winning an election shouldn’t allow a party to rewrite the rules so it’s no longer accountable to the electorate.

But Republicans are turning Texas into a testing ground for exactly that kind of power grab. At Donald Trump’s urging, GOP lawmakers launched a mid-decade redistricting push designed to lock in their advantage. With only 62 seats in the House compared with the Republicans’ 88, Democrats had no real power to stop it—except by leaving. They broke quorum, fleeing the Capitol to stall the vote. Texas has seen this kind of maneuver before, but Republicans have their own countermeasure: law enforcement escorts to haul absent lawmakers back and force the Legislature to function.

That’s where Rep. Nicole Collier drew the line. Instead of returning under police guard, she stayed behind, effectively locking herself inside the chamber. Some have described her as a hostage. The legislator has referred to herself as a “political prisoner.” But Christopher Hooks, who has spent years chronicling the mix of absurdity and high stakes that define the state’s politics for Texas Monthly, says Collier’s lonely protest is better understood as matching theater with theater and not a crisis.

I spoke with him about how this protest fits into Texas’ long history of political stunts, why it’s struck such a nerve, and what it reveals about the current political climate in the state. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Aymann Ismail: What the hell is happening in Texas? I’m seeing that a lawmaker is being held hostage in the House chamber. Is that true?

Christopher Hooks: The whole thing is absurd. This was ultimately caused by Donald Trump, who said: “Violate your rules and norms and give me a new congressional map.” That was a huge breach of norms and trust in the Texas House. Democrats leaving the state was a breach to meet that breach. This is the fourth quorum break in 50 years in Texas. A quorum break happens when there’s been a major violation of how democracy is supposed to work in the state. You recognize you’re going to lose on an important point, so you breach the normal rules of the Legislature and leave. It’s happened often enough that there are rules and expectations around........

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