t was midnight in the Texas Capitol, and everyone was waiting for Democratic Sen. Carol Alvarado. They wanted to know if she’d filibuster H.B. 4, the Donald Trump–pushed gerrymandering legislation that aims to gain five more Republican seats in the U.S. Congress. The state Senate had just reconvened after a three-hour dinner break called by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Alvarado, who’d filibustered for over 15 hours in opposition to a voter-suppression bill in 2021, was armed with comfortable sneakers, a catheter (the speaker gets no bathroom breaks), and thousands of letters from Texans across the state who opposed the bill. She would not let the fight die quietly.

It was a doomed effort. Alvarado knew it. Everyone in the Capitol knew it. Around the country, most everyone watching knew it: Texas Democrats lacked the votes to stop Republicans from passing the new maps, and Republicans would stop at nothing to heed Trump’s demand that they help him tip the 2026 midterms in the president’s favor. But state Democrats were determined not just to go down swinging but to bring as much attention as they could to the issue—in the hopes that elsewhere, people with more power would take up the cause.

None of it went according to plan.

By the time Alvarado was set to start, it had already been a long day. For hours, the Democrats had paced the green carpets of the Senate chambers, questioning Republican Phil King, the chair of the body’s redistricting committee. Did he know that U.S. Rep Al Green, a vocal Trump critic, would be cut out of his district? Why was he stacking Black votes in Houston into one district? King certainly knew what the new maps mean for Green, and Republicans are almost certainly packing Black votes to limit their influence in electing Democrats. But no matter the question, King replied with a variation of the same answer, a formulaic denial of intent designed for the court battles that will follow: I know nothing about the making of this map.

Monitored by a sergeant-at-arms at the door, opponents of the bill watched in the upstairs gallery. When a Democratic senator made the case for the illegality of the bill, they quietly clapped or snapped their fingers. “When you’ve got the president of the United States saying Republicans are entitled to five more seats in Texas—well, we want them to know they’re not entitled to it,” said Amy Webberman, a member of Forwrd-ATX, a local activist group. “If people vote for the seats, that’s one thing, but they’re not entitled to it. … Even though they’re going to pass the bill, we are here to make our voices heard. If we don’t, it’s like we’re agreeing with them.”

King concluded by passionately declaring why the senators should support his bill: “I’m convinced that if Texas does not take this action, there is an extreme risk that that Republican majority will be lost. If it does, the next two years after the midterm, there will be nothing but inquisitions and impeachments and humiliation for our country.” With these words, an observer from the gallery played a song from his phone of a chirpy voice singing “Bullshit!” until the sergeant-at-arms made him turn it off.