Texas governor orders arrest of Democrats absent at Monday redistricting vote

Reuters

16 hours ago

AUSTIN, Texas, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Texas Governor Greg Abbott has ordered Democratic lawmakers to be brought back to the state capital after they left Texas in a bid to prevent voting on a Republican plan to redraw the state's congressional districts.
The exodus by Democratic members of the Texas legislature was intended to deny Republicans the quorum necessary to vote on the redistricting plan, which President Donald Trump has championed. By redrawing district lines in hopes of flipping some seats currently held by Democrats, the Republicans aim to protect the party's narrow U.S. House of Representatives majority in next year's midterm elections.
At Monday's session the Republican speaker of the state House issued civil warrants for the Democrats - most of whom have gone to Illinois, New York or Massachusetts - to be brought back to Austin. But the orders apply only within the state, and breaking quorum is not a crime.
"To ensure compliance, 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," Abbott said in a statement.
On Sunday, Abbott cited an opinion by the state's attorney general that district courts may determine whether legislators have forfeited their offices "due to abandonment," saying that would empower him to "swiftly fill vacancies." But even if Abbott succeeded in ousting the absent Democrats, it would take time to hold new elections.
Attorney General Ken Paxton told Fox News' Will Cain on Monday that he expected the Texas Supreme Court to ultimately weigh in on any abandonment cases filed against the Democratic lawmakers. "And they're obviously a Republican court," he added.
In another possible tactic, Abbott said that any lawmaker who solicited funds to pay the $500-per-day fine that Texas House rules impose on absent legislators could violate bribery laws. He vowed to try and extradite any "potential out-of-state felons" among the group.
Republicans hold a 219-212 majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, with three Democratic-held seats vacant after deaths and one Republican seat vacant after a member resigned. A stronger Republican majority in the U.S. House would enable Trump to further advance his agenda.
The session - which was also called to address flood prevention and relief - is due to reconvene on Tuesday at 1 p.m. Central Time (1800 GMT). Democrats have threatened to stay out of state until the end of the 30-day special session, which began on July 21.
Democratic U.S. Representatives Greg Casar and Lloyd Doggett led several dozen protesters in a march outside the governor's mansion on Monday afternoon.
"Governor Greg Abbott is a coward for saying that our law enforcement should go out and arrest our local elected officials," Casar told Reuters. "This is America. This is a place where you're not supposed to be sending law enforcement to go and handcuff elected officials that you disagree with."
Gene Wu, the chair of the Texas House Democratic Caucus, told Reuters on Monday that the calls for the arrest of the members of his caucus were "a warning to the public of what they're doing. They're threatening us with arrest because we're defending you."
Wu said the current congressional districts in Texas already dilute the voting power of racial minorities in the state, and the new redistricting plan represented "turbocharged racism."
"To accomplish what Donald Trump wants, you would have to take that racial gerrymandering and kick it up like ten notches," he added.
Abbott in a Monday morning appearance on Fox News' "America's Newsroom" called Wu's accusation "bogus". He said the redistricting would expand the number of Hispanic-majority districts and that it was necessary to give Trump voters in Democrat-majority districts the ability to elect Republican U.S. representatives.
A White House official told Reuters that Trump supports Abbott's threat to remove absent Democratic lawmakers and wants "whatever is necessary" done to get the new map passed. Trump has told reporters he expects the effort to yield as many as five additional House Republicans.
States are required to redistrict every 10 years based on the U.S. Census, but the current Texas map was passed just four years ago by the Republican-dominated legislature. While mid-cycle redistricting occasionally takes place, it is usually prompted by a change in power at the legislature.
Leaders of Democrat-led states such as California and Illinois have recently raised the idea of redistricting their own U.S. congressional maps to boost the number of Democratic seats in response to Abbott's push in Texas.
Under Texas' current lines, Republicans control 25 out of 38 seats, nearly two-thirds of the districts in a state that went for Trump last year by a 56% to 42% margin.
Texas Democratic lawmakers have before tried the strategy of leaving the state to block a redistricting plan. Some fled in 2021 in a similar bid to deny Abbott the quorum needed to pass a voting restriction measure. That bill passed after three of the lawmakers returned, saying they had achieved their goal of bringing national attention to the issue.