UPDATE:
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton today (Monday, Aug. 4) issued a statement threatening to arrest Democratic state legislators who left the state to deny a quorum and thus thwart GOP efforts to force through racially gerrymandered congressional district maps before the 2026 midterm elections.
In a statement that uses every MAGA trigger word he could work in, Paxton said: “Instead of showing up to work and doing the jobs they were elected to do, House Democrat members have fled the state in a cowardly desertion of their responsibilities as elected officials. These jet-setting runaways abandoned Texas, abdicated their duties in the House, and sacrificed their constituents for a publicity stunt,
“I am prepared to do everything in my power to hold them accountable because these liberal lawmakers are not above the law. It’s imperative that they be swiftly arrested, punished, and face the full force of the law for turning their backs on the people of Texas.”
Paxton is basing his threats to arrest the lawmakers on a 2021 Texas Supreme Court ruling that held that the House could arrest absent members to secure their presence and establish a quorum, issued after Democrats left the state to stymy Republicans’ efforts to force throufg damaging partisan legislation.
While Paxton is pledging to “to use every legal tool at his disposal to enforce the law and stop the radical lawmakers from ignoring their duty to the people of Texas and breaking quorum,” he fails to acknowledge that Democrats are, in fact, representing their constituents by doing what is necessary to stop Republicans for forcing through congressional district maps specifically and radically gerrymandered to eliminate Democratic representation in Congress at the demand of Donald Trump, who is concerned that his failing presidency is endangering GOP chances in the 2026 midterms.
Paxton’s press release does not mention what law enforcement officials would be traveling out of state to arrest the Democrats. Texas Department of Safety officers’ authority ends at the Texas state line. Defendants in criminal cases who flee the state can be brought back through the extradition process. However, lawmakers leaving the state to break a quorum is a civil matter, not a criminal matter, making extradition unlikely. (Many of the absent lawmakers, by the way, are in Illinois, where Democratic governor J.B. Pritzker, a member of the family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain, is helping facilitate accommodations.)
In 2021, when Texas Democrats left the state to block a voting bill, Texas Republicans issued arrest warrants to compel their return, but those warrants could not be enforced outside of Texas.
ORIGINAL POST:
Democrats in the Texas House of Representatives on Sunday, Aug. 3, staged a walk-out on Gov. Greg Abbott’s called special session of the 89th Legislature to deny Republicans a quorum and thus prevent passage of a new, racially gerrymandered congressional district map.
After Abbott issued a statement later on Sunday threatening to “remove the missing Democrats from membership in the Texas House,” and indicted and impeached Texas Attorney General posted a threat on X to hunt the Dems down and have them arrested, Texas House Democratic Caucus issued the following statement:
“Come and take it.”
The statement was signed by Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. Gene Wu.
Despite Abbott’s threat, the governor does not have the power to unilaterally remove a member of the Texas Legislature from office. And officers with the Texas Department of Public Safety have no power to go to other states to arrest lawmakers there.
Some 30 of the Texas Democrats have gone to Illinois where Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a member of the family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain, has helped arrange hotel accommodations for them.
Abbott called the special session following devastating flooding in Central Texas over July 4 weekend and put flood relief and preparedness efforts at the top of the agenda. But the governor’s true reason for calling the session was to give, at the behest of President Donald Trump, the Texas GOP a chance to approve a mid-decade redistricting plan that would eliminate Democratic seats and give the Republicans five extra seats in the U.S. House before the mid-term elections. Normally, redistricting happens only every 10 years following the release of the national Census.
Abbott called the special session to address redistricting after Trump called him and insisted he do so. Governors in Democratic states, including Gavin Newsom in California, have threatened to respond with redistricting in their states to eliminate Republican seats if Texas follows through with Trump’s demand.
— Tammye Nash