Democratic Texas congressional candidate dragged out, arrested after rant at redistricting hearing, wild video shows
'It is a shame. It is horrific. For what you have … ' Isaiah Martin shouted as he was dragged out of the House Redistricting Committee meeting in Austin, just before a capitol security official fell on top of the 27-year-old House hopeful.
3 Isaiah Martin is running to represent Texas' 18th Congressional District in the House of Representatives.
CBS Austin
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Martin is seeking to replace the late Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Texas), who died on March 5, as the Texas' 18th Congressional District representative.
The Texas Department of Public Safety confirmed Martin was arrested and booked into Travis County Jail on charges of criminal trespass, disrupting a meeting or procession and resisting arrest, according to local outlet KVUE.
All charges against Martin were dropped Friday, and he was expected to be released from jail, his brother said in a social media post, arguing that the state was trying to make 'an example' out of Isaiah.
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Republican state Rep. Cody Vasut ordered the sergeant-at-arms to remove Martin from the hearing after he went over his allotted two minutes to speak and refused to stop talking — even after his microphone was shut off.
It took three men to wrestle Martin out of the room.
'Jesus! Get off of him!' a woman in the crowd demanded after the candidate fell to the ground with the sergeant-at-arms on top of him.
'He tripped,' one of the security members assured the woman.
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'America will rise up against you!' Martin screamed as he was finally pulled into the hallway, where it appeared he fell, or was taken down, once more.
3 Martin was forcibly removed after he refused to stop speaking at the hearing.
Fox News West Texas
3 As he was being dragged out, Martin appeared to trip and fell to the ground.
CBS Austin
Martin's brother contends that Isaiah was simply using his First Amendment rights and 'willingly walked with the officers out of the building' after his arrest.
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'He shouldn't have been arrested in the first place,' Martin's brother said.
Martin, who previously worked as a staffer for late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), is one of eight Democrats currently running in a special election race for the Houston-area congressional district.
He is opposed to Republican-led efforts in Texas to tweak the state's congressional maps further in the GOP's favor.
The redistricting proposal may create five new winnable seats for Republicans ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
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'What we hope for is that the government will recognize that religion is not an enemy to fight, but it's more a positive force to encourage.' Denault recently hosted a podcast episode focusing on Trump; he later shared some thoughts about the president. 'We tend to think that Trump is more using Christianity as a tool for his influence, rather than being a genuine Christian,' he said. 'But Christians are, I think, appreciative of some of his stances on different things.' Trump's religion-related tactics — such as posing with the Bible in his hands — wouldn't go over well with Canadians, Denault said. 'They'd see that as something wrongful. The public servant should not identify with a specific religion,' Denault said. 'I don't think most Canadians would vote for that type of politician.' Repurposed church buildings abound in Montreal In the Montreal neighborhood of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, the skyline is dotted with crosses atop steeples, but many of those churches are unused or repurposed. For decades, factory and port workers worshipped at Saint-Mathias-Apotre Church. Today it's a restaurant that serves affordable meals daily for more than 600 residents. The manager of Le Chic Resto Pop, Marc-Andre Simard, grew up Catholic and now, like many of his staff, identifies as religiously unaffiliated. But he still tries to honor some core values of Catholicism at the nonprofit restaurant, which retains the church's original wooden doors and even its confessional booths. 'There's still space to be together, to have some sort of communion, but it's around food, not around faith.' Simard said during a lunch break, sitting near what used to be the altar of the former church. Simard says the extent to which the Catholic Church controlled so much of public life in Quebec should serve as a cautionary tale for the U.S. 'We went through what the United States are going through right now,' he said. Elsewhere in Montreal, a building that once housed a Catholic convent now often accommodates meetings of the Quebec Humanist Association. The group's co-founder, Michel Virard, said French Canadians 'know firsthand what it was to have a clergy nosing in their affairs.' Now, Virard says, 'There is no 'excluding religious voice' in Canada, merely attempts at excluding clergy from manipulating the state power levers and using taxpayers' money to promote a particular religious viewpoint.' History reveals why role of religion is so different in U.S. and Canada Why are Canada and the U.S., two neighbors which share so many cultural traditions and priorities, so different regarding religion's role in public life? According to academics who have pondered that question, their history provides some answers. The United States, at independence from Britain, chose not to have a dominant, federally established church. In Canada, meanwhile, the Catholic Church was dominant in Quebec, and the Church of England — eventually named the Anglican Church of Canada — was powerful elsewhere. Professor Darren Dochuk, a Canadian who teaches history at University of Notre Dame in Indiana, says the 'disestablishment' of religion in the U.S. 'made religious life all the more dynamic.' 'This is a country in which free faith communities have been allowed to compete in the marketplace for their share,' he said. 'In the 20th century, you had a plethora of religious groups across the spectrum who all competed voraciously for access to power,' he said. 'More recently, the evangelicals are really dominating that. … Religious conservatives are imposing their will on Washington.' There's been no equivalent faith-based surge in Canada, said Dochuk, suggesting that Canada's secularization produced 'precipitous decline in the power of religion as a major operator in politics.' Carmen Celestini, professor of religious studies at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, said that even when Canadian politicians do opt for faith-based outreach, they often take a multicultural approach — for example, visiting Sikh, Hindu and Jewish houses of worship, as well as Christian churches. Trump's talk about Canada becoming the 51st state fueled a greater sense of national unity among most Canadians, and undermined the relatively small portion of them who identify as Christian nationalists, Celestini said. 'Canada came together more as a nation, not sort of seeing differences with each other, but seeing each other as Canadians and being proud of our sovereignty and who we are as a nation,' she said. 'The concern that Canadians have, when we look at what's happening in America, is that we don't want that to happen here. '
