The Texas House of Representatives has approved the GOP’s highly controversial and wildly gerrymandered congressional district map, designed to give Republicans five more seats in the U.S. House in the 2026 midterms.
But not before threatening on high-profile Democrat with felony criminal charges for participating in a press conference call with other Democratic Party leaders from across the country.
Rep. Nicole Collier — who spent 48 hours camped out on the Texas House Floor rather than submit to GOP demands that she sign a “permission slip” and agree to 24-hour surveillance by Texas Department of Public Safety officers before she would be allowed to leave the floor of the House — this afternoon was threatened with a felony criminal charge for speaking to the media and the public, according to a press release from the Texas House Democratic Caucus.
The press release says Collier had joined California Gov. Gavin Newsom, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin and others on a press call to discuss the Texas GOP’s redistricting plan demanded by Donald Trump when she was interrupted by someone off camera who told her was risking a criminal charge for speaking out.
Video of the moment shows Rep. Collier, who was apparently participating in the video call from a restroom in the Capitol, interrupting comments by DNC Chair Martin to say, “Sorry, I have to leave. They said it is a felony for me to do this. Apparently, I can’t be on the floor or in the bathroom —”
She then pauses to look at someone speaking to her from off-camera to her left before continuing, “No you told me I was only allowed to be here in the bathroom” (interrupted again by indistinct mumbling off camera) “no, hang on. ’Bye everybody. I’ve gotta go.”
‘Let me tell you something. Rep. Collier in the bathroom has more dignity than Donald Trump in the Oval Office! That is outrageous!’
U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, condemning GOP threats to charge Rep. Nicole Collier with a felony participating in a video press conference call from a Capitol bathroom
The screen then switches to Sen. Booker who declares, “Hey! That is outrageous!” As the camera switches to an image of Gov. Newsom shaking his head, Booker continues, “Let me tell you something. Rep. Collier in the bathroom has more dignity than Donald Trump in the Oval Office! That is outrageous!
“What they are trying to do right there is silence an American leader, silence a Black woman, and that is outrageous,” Booker continues. “And I hope everybody took note of that. The fact that she can’t even let her voice be heard is frickin’ outrageous.
“This is what we’re fighting for here. This is ultimately what this is about,” Booker adds. “What we just witnessed, them trying to shut her down and say it is illegal for her to be in the bathroom? And on this call? This is the lengths they are going to in Texas to try and bring about a system so unjust and so unjustifiable that they are going to try and silence those leaders from being heard and speaking out.”
The caucus’ press release quotes Collier as saying, “In my heart, I just feel like this is wrong — all of it. Over the past month, I have been threatened with fines, surrounded by law enforcement, endured a bomb threat, been confined to the House floor, and now threatened with prosecution simply for telling my constituents the truth.”
She continued, “My community is majority-minority, and they sent me here to protect their voices. Republicans are so determined to silence us that they’re willing to lock elected officials in place, monitor our every move and criminalize our speech — all so they can get exactly what they want without resistance.
‘Over the past month, I have been threatened with fines, surrounded by law enforcement, endured a bomb threat, been confined to the House floor, and now threatened with prosecution simply for telling my constituents the truth.’
State Rep. Nicole Collier
“What a sad, sorry and scary indictment of the state of American democracy in 2025. I refuse to be intimidated into silence,” Collier declared. “And I hope my stand helps other Americans find their own way to resist this assault on our fundamental rights. Because make no mistake: If we don’t stand together now, they’re coming for us today, and they’ll be coming for you tomorrow.”
Martin said, “Rep. Nicole Collier is a duly-elected official whose only ‘crime’ is standing up for her constituents and their voting rights. Her story is resonating so much that Texas Republicans are holding her in the chamber as a political prisoner and trying to suppress her voice. Her stand against Donald Trump and Texas Republicans as they attempt to rig maps and disenfranchise voters is courageous and Democrats will fight like hell to have her back.
“What happened today on the press call was an outrage and emblematic of Donald Trump and Greg Abbott’s authoritarian abuse of power,” Martin said.
The silencing of Rep. Collier and the vote to pass the gerrymandered maps came this afternoon AFTER Republican Rep. Briscoe Cain of Deer Park “cowardly hid behind a procedural motion” to prevent a vote on an amendment that would have “blocked Trump’s discriminatory redistricting scheme until the complete release of the Epstein files,” according to a separate Texas Democratic House Caucus press release.
“Rather than allowing Texans to see which representatives stand with victims of child sex abuse and which stand with human traffickers, Texas Republicans engineered a point of order — predictably upheld by the Republican Speaker Dustin Burrows [a Republican from Lubbock] — to kill the amendment without having to publicly vote on it.”
House Minority Leader Rep. Gene Wu said after that vote, “It’s genuinely shocking — for years, these same Republicans have claimed to support releasing the Epstein files, but when given the chance to do what 80 percent of Americans want, they chickened out.
“They couldn’t even face the people of Texas and have a debate,” Wu continued. “Today they showed everyone: They stopped caring about protecting children from sexual violence the minute they found out Donald Trump’s name is all over those files.”
The caucus’ press release said the amendment would have presented Texas Republicans with “a simple choice” — to either “pass the racist maps Trump desperately wants, but force him to release the Epstein files that include evidence of his own involvement with a notorious child sex trafficker, or continue helping Trump silence Epstein’s victims by sending more of his allies to Congress and hide the truth from the American people.”
The caucus likened the vote on the amendment to the move by Republicans in Congress to actually shut Congress down for recess early to prevent Democratic efforts to force the release of the Epstein files.
— Tammye Nash