Barack Obama is praising the Democratic state lawmakers in Texas who broke quorum and fled their state last week in protest of their Republican colleagues’ aggressive redistricting effort that’s designed to award the GOP five additional seats in the U.S. House.

In a Zoom call on Thursday with Texas House Democrats, the former president — who has seldom spoken out while Donald Trump has held office — underscored the risks of inaction for his party. “We can’t let a systematic assault on democracy just happen and stand by,” Obama said.

He added: “I think we became a little bit complacent over the years. We assumed that things would continue to get better. That our democracy would become more inclusive. That it would become more fair. That we’d make it easier for people to vote rather than harder for people to vote. That the votes would be counted rather than suppressed.

“And what we forgot is that history doesn’t always move in a straight line, and it’s not always two steps forward and another two steps forward. Sometimes it’s two steps forward and a step back.”

Texas House Democrats are expected to return to Austin, the state capital, next week — possibly as early as Monday — after again denying their GOP colleagues quorum at a special session Friday. In an earlier special session, Texas Republicans’ initial attempt at ramming through a new congressional map — which critics argue would disenfranchise Black and Latino voters — similarly failed, with most of the Democrats absent.

One of the Texas Democrats’ conditions for returning is the release of California Democrats’ proposed new map, which the national party hopes will neutralize any GOP gains in the Lone Star State. On Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom officially called for a special election to be held on Nov. 4, for state residents to decide whether to temporarily strip their independent redistricting commission of power in favor of a new map for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 election cycles.

Last weekend, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to have the Democratic lawmakers who fled arrested. “If they show back up in the state of Texas, they will be arrested and taken to the Capitol. If they want to evade that arrest, they’re going to have to stay outside of the state of Texas for literally years,” he said on Fox News.

On Tuesday, Obama will headline a fundraiser hosted by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, an organization founded by his former attorney general, Eric Holder, in Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. The event will focus on the Texas GOP’s gerrymandering efforts.

“And what we forgot is that history doesn’t always move in a straight line, and it’s not always two steps forward and another two steps forward. Sometimes it’s two steps forward and a step back.”