State Dem Party Prompts Head Scratching
with Headquarters Move Out of Capitol City
Capitol Inside
September 26, 2025
The Texas Democratic Party is following the lead of Democrats and Republicans in Alaska, South Dakota and Delaware with the relocation of the organization's headquarters from the heart of state politics and government to its new leader's hometown of Dallas.
The organization's move from Austin to Dallas is part of an extensive reorganization plan that TDP Chairman Kendall Scudder has in motion with the blessings of the State Democratic Executive Committee as the party's governing board in Texas. Scudder plans to have satellite offices in Austin, Houston, Amarillo and Eagle Pass with another possible location in the Rio Grande Valley.
Scudder, the state Democratic chief since March, portrays the geographical shuffling as an expansion designed to put the party more in touch with the grassroots base with a focus on kitchen table issues like health care, schools and Social Security. The SDEC endorsed the new chair's strategic plan early this week.
The opening of party offices in different cities could be a start to a comeback for a party that ruled Texas for more than a century before the Republicans took over in the late 1990s. But the shift of the state party's operating base out of the Texas Capital City seems to make little sense to most folks beyond the new chairman and his allies on the SDEC.
The price of the headquarters relocation appears to be steep based on a story in the Texas Tribune on Thursday on the exodus of TDP staff members who were reportedly told to move with the party to Big D or to lose their jobs if they refused.
"That would be like moving the Democratic National Committee to Pittsburgh or Denver rather than having it in Washington D.C." Southern Methodist University professor Cal Jillson told NPR in Dallas. "I don’t know why you would decide to do that - nor do I think it makes much sense here in Texas, because the government is in fact in Austin. That’s where you want to have your institutionalized, permanent presence."
Jillson - a veteran observer on politics in the Lone Star State - believes the TDP faces more critical challenges in the fundraising arena, a lack of statewide infrastructure and a massive shortage of precinct chairs in areas that the GOP controls.
Scudder, a married 35-year-old with a son named Lyndon, was serving as the TDP finance chairman before breaking ranks with the old-guard party establishment
and then-Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa about the cause of the Democrats' losses up and down the ballot in 2024. Scudder took umbrage with Hinojosa's attempt to blame a preoccupation with transgender rights for the Democrats' latest disaster here.
Scudder claimed the post in March after Hinojosa stepped down midway through the term he won last year. While Scudder wants to distance the TDP from the national party, he has vowed to make the protection of the LGBTQ community a paramount priority as the chairman.
But the headquarters move out of Austin has Democrats scratching heads. State political parties are based in cities that are not state capitals in some of the smallest states. The state Democratic Party in Delaware has its headquarters in New Castle County about 50 miles north of the Capitol in Dover. New Castle is part of the Wilmington metro area where the Delaware GOP also is anchored. Wilmington is the state's largest city by far.
The Democratic and Republican parties in South Dakota are both headquartered in Sioux City - a four hour drive from the state capital of Pierre. The major parties in Alaska are based in Anchorage, which is almost 900 from the state capital of Juneau.
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