The Texas State Chamber met briefly on Monday afternoon in the middle of a plan of the majority of the Republican Party of the majority of the Republican Party to draw again the lines of the State Congress, and the Republican legislators voted to approve civil arrest orders aimed at the dozens of Democrats who fled the State, blocking the Republicans to proceed with the plan.
Most of the more than 50 Democrats who left the State are in Illinois, where they have been welcome by Democratic Governor JB Pritzker. Others are in Boston and Albany, New York, where Democratic governor Kathy Hochul, in response to Texas, is pressing for a change in state law to allow the redistribution of districts in the future years.
There, beyond the scope of the State Arms Sergeant and the Texas Public Security Department, arrest orders can have little practical effect. But at home, the Democrats face fines fines, and Republican governor Greg Abbott is threatening to start the state democratic legislators of the position or send to the police to force them to return to the State.
Because the chamber business requires a quorum, 51 of the 62 members of the State Democratic Chamber can, when remaining out of the State, prevent the State Chamber led by Republicans to advance with legislation.
Those absences deprived the house of their quorum, a reality quickly confirmed after legislators were attacked on Monday afternoon.
Republican president Dustin Burrows admonished the dozens of Democrats who fled the State as «abandoned his position and turned his back on the constituents who swore to represent.
«They have avoided their responsibilities under the direction and pressure of politicians and activists outside the State who do not know the first thing about what is correct for Texas,» he said.
«Leaving the State does not prevent this house from doing its job. It only delays it,» he added.
Republican legislators immediately, under the rules of the Chamber, blocked the camera doors and moved to the sergeant of arms to «send» the huscated legislators «under order of arrest, if necessary.» Burrows postponed the camera until Tuesday and told journalists shortly after the camera’s vote continued and signed those civil arrest orders.
It is not the first time that the Democrats in Texas have fled the State to light the legislative works in protest of the legislation that oppose: they did it in 2021 on the changes supported by the Republican Party to the voting laws. The Democrats faced similar threats from the Republicans that time, but this time, Abbott has also raised the possibility of not only sending the police after the Democrats, but, affirming the legal authority not proven and faint, pressing the courts to declare their vacant seats and ask for new elections to fill them.
Abbott has also suggested that Democrats who are raising funds to support their quorum rest may be committing serious crime bribery. (The legislature promulgated a punishment of $ 500 per day for breaking the quorum after a similar democratic effort in 2021.)
«I will use my full extradition authority to demand the return to Texas of any potential criminal outside the state,» Abbott said in a statement on Sunday.
When asked if President Donald Trump would ask federal agents to arrest Texas legislators who have left the state jurisdiction, said an administration official to NBC News: «ABBOTT can handle their own state.»
When asked if I would appreciate the help of the Trump administration that would bring Democratic legislators back to the camera, Burrows replied: «There is nothing outside the table.»
The clash is derived from Abbott’s decision to call a special session of the legislature this summer to address, among other issues, the redistribution of districts. Trump has pressed for a rare redistribution of districts from the middle of the decade, which the president has said that it would allow Republicans to collect five more seats and fill their thin majority in the United States Chamber before the national elections next year, when the Democrats will try to turn the camera.
The proposed map published by a Republican state legislator opened a road to a five -seat Republican party, changing the limits around the main cities and in southern Texas last week to create 30 districts that Trump took to the two digits in the presidential elections of the past fall. Texas Republicans currently control 25 of the 38 seats of the State Congress.
The Democrats have denounced the movement as a power game and criticized the Republicans for advancing in the draft redistribution law of districts before responding legislatively to the devastating floods this summer who killed more than 100 people in Kerr’s county, outside San Antonio. On Monday, Burrows shot arguing that Democrats are delaying their ability to advance other legislative priorities such as addressing floods.
The State Democratic Representative Ann Johnson de Houston, speaking on Sunday night after arriving at a press conference at a shopping center about 30 miles west Chicago, said that the draft redistribution law of districts is only happening because Trump has «fear of the electorate next November.»
«Nobody wants this raffle of Redistrict. No one is asking for this. There is a human who wants this, and is Donald Trump,» Johnson added. «And Abbott has delivered the state of Texas to try to fulfill its purpose. This does not do any good to the people of Texas. In fact, it takes away the voice of millions of Texas.»
But while many Republicans recognize the policy of the situation, they point out the significant majority of their party in the Legislature and the control of Texas state offices as justification. Republican state representative Cody Vasut told NBC News during the weekend that he evaluated the map asking the question: «Does this improve the political performance of Republicans in Texas?»
«When we have seen that all these blue states have a performance with their maps and Texas has a lower performance, that puts the Republicans in a different disadvantage throughout the country,» added Vasut, who presides over the redistribution committee of districts of the state’s house.
What happens later?
The complete scope of Democrats’s plans is not clear. Texas’ special legislative session cannot last more than 30 days, but Abbott could continue to call other new ones.
While Pritzker has asked his staff to provide logistical support from fugitive democrats, and the high profile nature of the fight could help them raise funds to extend their trip, eventually one side has to give in.
«Democrats are considering this as an opportunity for messaging more than a political or legal or legislative strategy,» said Brandon Rottinghaus, a professor of political science at the University of Houston. «The options they have are quite limited, so the best thing they can expect is to use this as a moment of attention to shed light on some of the problems they have with Republicans in Texas and Donald Trump.»
The state representative Gina Hinojosa, a Democrat who represents Austin who helped organize a similar democratic strike in 2021 in response to electoral legislation, told NBC News last week that the effort four years ago was «very successful» because it led the Republicans to eliminate parts of the legislation, although the bills finally became law.
«We could never have anticipated that the amount of advertising we provide to the Republicans would have been ashamed to get those more atrocious parts, so this is what I know: I know we will fight with everything we have. This is situational. We will take it every day, see what our best work is,» he said.
The state representatives of Texas, Armando Walle and Ana Hernández, who represent the districts of the Houston area, were the only two members of the Texas House of Representatives to come to Boston. They had planned to attend the annual summit of the National Conference of State Legislatures there. After the quorum’s break was announced, «we decided that it was a great opportunity to run our colleagues throughout the state, throughout the country,» Walle said outside the summit.
The couple will fly to Chicago after the summit and consider the logistics of the travel plans beyond the special session that has already been called «day to day,» said Hernández.
In response to the arrest threats by Texas Republican officials, Walle reiterated the chorus used by his Texas Democrats.
«Come and take it,» he said.
A group of state Senate Democrats, who also came to Boston for the summit, told NBC News that, although they would remain in the city until Wednesday, their future plans were not yet determined.
«I don’t know how long we can do, but you know, we don’t win all battle,» said state senator Sarah Eckhardt. «We don’t know how this comes out, but not to fight, this is simply not an option.»
