Can Texas Gov. Greg Abbott remove Democratic lawmakers who left the state over redistricting?

CBS News

3 hours ago

The Texas Legislature attempted to meet Monday to consider a redistricting plan that would favor Republicans, but Democratic members who left the state over the weekend did not return, denying the quorum needed to convene the session. Gov. Greg Abbott insisted he will take steps to remove those lawmakers from their seats, and Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows said he had signed civil arrest warrants for the absent Democrats.
Republicans "can make idle threats, but as long as they are out of state, there's really nothing that they can do," said Mark Jones, a Rice University political science professor.
More than 50 Texas House Democrats left the state on Sunday, leaving the chamber short of the two-thirds quorum needed to bring a vote to the floor. Democrats are protesting the President Trump-led effort by Republicans to redraw the state's U.S. House congressional map, which could net the GOP up to five more seats.
"We are not fighting for the Democratic Party, we are fighting for the democratic process," Democratic state Rep. James Talarico tweeted about their action.
"This House will not sit quietly while you obstruct the work of the people," Burrows said Monday.
To assist Burrows, Abbot said Monday that 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." However, the Texas DPS does not have jurisdiction to arrest them out of state.
Rep. Ann Johnson, a Houston Democrat, told CBS News' Ed O'Keefe in an interview Monday that "a quorum break is written into the Texas Constitution" and "the threat of arrest is something that should be an alarm for a lot of folks."
Abbott claimed on Fox News on Monday that the Democrats could face bribery charges if their costs while out of state are being covered by others.
"I think based upon comments made by legislators themselves, they face a possibility of facing bribery charges, which is a second-degree felony in the state of Texas, there's one way to cure that, and that is if they get back to the state of Texas and make quorum today at a hearing that we have at 3 o'clock, they can cure themselves of any quid pro quo that would subject them to potential bribery charges," Abbott said.
But Jones noted that "Texas, compared to other states, has very loose ethics laws."
"The governor is certainly welcome to make that argument, and theoretically it has a limited level of potential to move forward, but at the end of the day, if you look at Texas ethics law and look at all of the things that are allowed under Texas ethics law … we would rank receiving money to pay a fine at the lower end at the potential for an ethics violation, let alone things that are illegal," Jones said.
Abbott said Sunday that if members didn't return by a deadline of 3 p.m. Central Time on Monday, he would "invoke Texas Attorney General Opinion No. KP-0382 to remove the missing Democrats from membership in the Texas House."
Abbott is citing a 2021 opinion from Texas' Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, which was written after a previous walkout when Democratic lawmakers left the state to protest a change in the voting laws. The opinion, which is nonbinding, says a "district court may determine that a legislator has forfeited his or her office due to abandonment and can remove the legislator from office, thereby creating a vacancy."
But Jones noted that the only legal ways to remove a Texas lawmaker is either for the person to be expelled by a vote of two-thirds of the Legislature — as was done to expel Republican Rep. Byron Slaton over misconduct in 2023 — or the ballot box.
Republican state Rep. Briscoe Cain posted on social media Monday that he would be filing a bill that would declare a seat vacant if a legislator missed seven consecutive days of a session. But since there is no quorum, the bill can't go anywhere — at least for now.
Abbott called a special session last month to take up the redistricting effort along with 17 other topics, which included relief for Texas flood victims, a review of the flood warning system and emergency preparedness, and a THC ban. Congressional redistricting, however, was considered first.
Texas has a part-time legislature which meets for 140 days every other year. The governor has the right to call a 30-day special session to address certain topics. The current special session started on July 21.
Abbott can call as many special sessions as he wants, which means that if Democrats run out the clock on this special session, he could call another one as soon as it ends.