Bomb scares and phony pizza deliveries: Democrats who fled Texas grapple with security threats

Source: NBC News

Aug. 16, 2025, 6:00 AM EDT


The Texas Democratic lawmakers who decamped to Illinois to block a redistricting effort in their state faced threats of arrest and criminal charges if they didn’t return home. But as their time away from the state dragged on, the threats grew more worrisome. A group of state legislators who stayed at a hotel in St. Charles, a suburb outside of Chicago, endured two bomb threats on different days. It reached point that the Texas lawmakers quietly switched hotels and made an internal pact to keep those details private.

Even more concerning to them was what their families were dealing with back at home. Some of the legislators said their homes in Texas received repeated pizza deliveries when they hadn’t made the orders. It’s now considered by law enforcement to be an intimidation tactic after a judge’s son was murdered by an assailant who posed as a delivery driver.

In another instance, state Rep. Diego Bernal said a man wearing a backpack showed up to his family’s residence in San Antonio. Bernal told NBC News in an interview that the individual represented himself as a worker for the water company and started asking for Bernal’s whereabouts, including when he’d be home and how long he had been gone.

The episode was caught on the family’s home surveillance camera, and Bernal said while he doesn’t know if the person was intent on doing harm, he was certain the man misrepresented himself, as he was not wearing the customary identifiers of a water department employee.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/bomb-scares-phony-pizza-deliveries-democrats-fled-texas-grapple-securi-rcna225267