Texas state Rep. Jolanda “Jo” Jones, a Democrat, flips through maps during a public hearing on congressional redistricting in Austin, Texas, on Aug. 1. After the bill passed the committee, state Democrats fled to Illinois and New York to break the quorum and stall a vote on the new maps, which heavily favor Republicans.
Eric Gay/AP
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Eric Gay/AP
The Texas House of Representatives is at a standstill after Democrats fled the state over the weekend to prevent a vote on a bill to redraw Texas’ congressional maps. The bill heavily favors Republicans, with five new GOP-leaning districts, something President Trump has openly advocated for.
Republicans control the Texas House by a wide margin, but without Democrats present, their 88 members alone fall short of the 100-member quorum required to conduct business.
“To be absolutely clear, leaving the state doesn’t stop this House from doing its work — it just delays it,” Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows told the members in the chamber after failing to reach a quorum.
He then asked for the chamber’s doors to be locked and quickly passed a motion for the sergeant-at-arms to issue civil arrest warrants for unexcused, absent House members.
Many of the missing lawmakers fled to Democratic strongholds New York and Illinois rather than show up in the Texas Capitol in Austin for a vote they were certain to lose.
“This is like two football teams coming out of the locker room at halftime and the team that’s ahead says they want to change the rules for the second half because they want to win the game,” state Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, told NPR from Illinois, where he is waiting out the quorum-break.
“I mean, we all recognize that as cheating, plain and simple. And if the Republicans are going to cheat, Texas Democrats are not going to play.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement that the quorum-breaking Democrats should “behave like adults, rather than going AWOL,” and should be expelled from office.
On Monday, after the failed House session, he said he had 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.”
Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat, said in a news release that the current legal framework “allows for rogue lawmakers to be found, arrested, and brought back to the Capitol.”
Two Texas lawmakers attending the National Conference of State Legislatures’ Legislative Summit in Boston spent Monday speaking to reporters and warning their colleagues in other states of what may be coming for them, too.
“It’s Texas now, but it’s going to continue through the rest of the states, and it’s going to kill our democracy,” state Rep. Ana Hernandez told reporters.
She and state Rep. Armando Walle, a fellow Democrat, were both planning to come to Boston before the bill was called in Texas. They plan to stay out of Texas until the special session ends Aug. 19.
