Texas Governor Orders Arrest of Fleeing Democratic Lawmakers
Promises made, promises kept...
This article originally appeared on ZeroHedge and was republished with permission.
Guest post by Tyler Durden
Update (1630ET): Promises made, promises kept...
Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered the arrest of Democratic lawmakers who left the state to block a controversial vote on new congressional maps.
“Texas House Democrats abandoned their duty to Texans,” Abbott said in a statement Monday.
“I ordered the Texas Department of Public Safety to locate, arrest, and return to the House chamber any member who has abandoned their duty to Texans.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running for the Republican nomination for US Senate, said he supported the speedy arrest of “jet-setting runaways” who left the state during the legislative session.
“This is cowardice and dereliction of duty, and they should face the full force of the law without apology,” Paxton said in a tweet.
...and cue the lawsuits.
* * *
Absconding to -- where else -- Chicago, Democratic members of the Texas House of Representatives fled the state on Sunday to break a quorum and prevent a vote on a redistricting plan that promises to boost the GOP's share of seats in the US House of Representatives by five. In response, Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to remove them from office, replace them, and pursue felony charges against them, using extradition powers if need be.
Their choice of exile location is positively drenched in hypocrisy, as Illinois arguably has the worst gerrymandering in America -- to Democrats' benefit, of course. In 2024, Democrats won 53% of the popular vote in Illinois House races, but took 82% of the seats (14 out of 17).
A quorum is the minimum number of lawmakers present in order to conduct legislative business - a tactic they've used twice before in the 22 years since Republicans have controlled all of Texas state government (efforts which ultimately failed).
The Democrats plan to stay away for two weeks to run the clock on a special legislative session called by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) in order to draw the new map.
By state law, the Texas House can only conduct business when two-thirds of its 150 members are present, meaning at least 51 of the state's 62 Democrats will stay away. So far, 57 have fled the state, according to State Rep. Jon Rosenthal (D), with members fleeing to Chicago, Boston and New York. All plan to remain out of the state until Aug. 19, when the special session concludes.
"Our goal right now is to kill this session," said Rosenthal.
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Abbott said if the Democrats don't return by 3pm on Monday, he will invoke a Texas attorney general opinion and "remove the missing Democrats from membership in the Texas House," and then pick their successors under power granted in the state constitution. Upping the ante, Abbott said many of the fleeing Democrats may have committed felonies, as they're soliciting donations to cover fines they face under Texas House rules -- arguing that they risk bribery charges for accepting money "to assist in the violation of legislative duties." To bring them to justice, he said "I will use my full extradition authority to demand the return to Texas of any potential out-of-state felons." Texas AG Ken Paxton (R), meanwhile, has threatened to arrest lawmakers who break quorum, though he won't have jurisdiction over them outside of the state.
Democrats dismissed the threats. “As the Texas Supreme Court has acknowledged, it is the right of legislators to deny quorum," State Rep. Chris Turner told the Dallas Morning News. "And as Governor Abbott should know, we also have separation of powers in this country.”
"Today this corruption ends," said state Rep. Gene Wu, chairman of the Democratic caucus in his chamber, at a Chicago presser at a county Democratic Party office attended by other Texas Democrats and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.
“This is not a decision we make lightly, but it is one we make with absolute moral clarity. Governor Abbott...is using an intentionally racist map to steal the voices of millions of Black and Latino Texans, all to execute a corrupt political deal. Apathy is complicity, and we will not be complicit in the silencing of hard-working communities who have spent decades fighting for the power that Trump wants to steal.”
Wu also accused Gov. Greg Abbott of making "hostages" out of the victims of last month's terrible floods in Kerrville, since the voting on the redistricting initiative was placed ahead of handling bills that would deliver financial aid to affected communities. The map has been swiftly advancing during the special legislative session that Abbott convened in July to handle the redistricting and flood response, among many other issues.
That said, Wu admitted he didn't know what Texas Democrats would do if Abbott calls another special session after this one.
"We don’t know what the next steps are," he said.
Republican leaders say the new map is a necessary correction, noting that the state’s population growth has warranted mid-decade changes. But Democrats contend the proposal is a blatant partisan power grab, part of a broader Republican effort in several states to shore up congressional majorities before what is expected to be a volatile midterm season.
Texas Republicans currently control 25 of the state’s 38 congressional seats; the new map would likely give them 30, all of which Mr. Trump carried by at least 10 percentage points in 2024. The GOP holds a narrow 219-212 majority in the U.S. House, with four vacancies, and party leaders see Texas as central to preserving their legislative agenda.
Before the map was unveiled, President Trump said he favored “a very simple redrawing” that would give Republicans more seats. “We pick up five seats [in Texas] but we have a couple other states where we’ll pick up seats also,” he said last month.
Texas state Representative Todd Hunter, a Republican and sponsor of the legislation, called the proposal “a good plan for Texas” and said, “The primary changes … are focused on five districts for partisan purposes.”
DNC Chair Ken Martin - of the party that continually floats packing the Supreme Court when they don't get their way - said, “Republicans thought they could just rig the maps and change the rules without the American people taking notice. They were dead wrong.”
Former Attorney General Eric Holder said Sunday on ABC that Democrats might “have to do things that perhaps in the past I would not have supported” in response to the Texas plan.
“I think we need to respond in kind,” said Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas, and chair of the Democratic Governors Association.
The new Texas map, unveiled last week under pressure from Trump and Abbott, was approved by a legislative committee on Saturday and was expected to reach the House floor on Tuesday.
In a separate development that could have profound implications for redistricting battles across America, the US Supreme Court last week said it will consider the constitutionality of redistricting that's intentionally aimed at creating "majority-minority districts" with the goal securing power for blacks and Hispanics. In that Louisiana case filed by self-described "non-African American voters," claiming a violation of the Equal Protection Clause, the high court said it will examine whether that kind of redistricting violates the 14th or 15th Amendments to the US Constitution.
In April 2024, a federal panel of judges in the US District Court for the Western District of Louisiana ruled that purposefully creating a majority-black district was "an impermissible racial gerrymander in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” The 15th Amendment bars governments from denying or abridging the right to vote based on race or color.
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Works for me. They should be removed from Congress, and never allowed to run for public office again.