Texas Republicans are scheduled to reconvene Tuesday after they voted to issue civil arrest warrants for Democrats who fled the state to stop a GOP-led redistricting effort.
The Texas House on Monday authorized the warrants for dozens of Democratic lawmakers who didn’t appear and denied the Texas House a quorum necessary to move forward with redistricting. The warrants empowered state troopers to arrest the absent Democrats and bring them to the Capitol.
But the Democrats who left the state fled to Illinois, New York and Massachusetts, three Democratic-led states outside Texas law enforcement’s authority without local officials’ cooperation.
“That’s why in this case and in previous recent quorum breaks, they have left the state to escape the jurisdiction of the marshals and other arresting officers in the state,” Sarah Chen, a voting rights attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, told CNN.
And since the Democrats aren’t breaking any criminal or state laws, Chen said, it wouldn’t be possible for officials to seek the lawmakers’ extradition from the states they’re holed up in.
“Any sort of work with other states or federal law enforcement would be more of like calling in a favor rather than any sort of legal obligation,” she said.
One of the Texas lawmakers who fled to New York, state Rep. Jolanda Jones, said Monday that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was “trying to get soundbites” by threatening arrests of the absent legislators. “Subpoenas from Texas don’t work in New York, so he’s going come and get us how?”
Monday’s action “is just the procedure of what you do when people walk out,” said Andrew Cates, a lawyer in Texas who specializes in legislative and political law. “No one is scared of it” if they’ve left the state.
“They haven’t broken any laws that anyone knows of, so extradition is not going to work,” he added.
The state House is currently scheduled to meet at 2 p.m. EDT (1 p.m. CDT). It doesn’t appear that the House will have enough lawmakers present to reach the two-thirds attendance needed for quorum.
Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows said he had signed civil warrants for the Democratic lawmakers who fled the state. The speaker told reporters that House Republicans will work with the Texas Department of Public Safety “to locate members.” He said one Democrat had announced a fundraiser Tuesday in Austin.
“I’ve sent that fundraising letter to DPS and said they should be invited to attend, as well. We’ll see how that goes forward,” he said.
Abbott said in a statement he had ordered DPS “to locate, arrest, and return to the House chamber any member who has abandoned their duty to Texans.”
“This order will remain in effect until all missing Democrat House members are accounted for and brought to the Texas Capitol,” he said.
The House Democrats’ decision to flee the state and deny majority Republicans a quorum comes as the state’s legislature seeks to redraw the Texas congressional districts to make five seats more favorable for the GOP. Doing so would improve the party’s chances of holding onto control of the US House, where they now have a three-seat majority, next November.
As he presided in the House on Monday, Burrows said he would do “everything in my power to establish quorum and move this body forward by any and all means available to this office.”
“To those who are absent: Return now,” he said. “Show the courage to face the issues you were elected to solve. Come back and fulfill your duty, because this House will not sit quietly while you obstruct the work of the people. The people of Texas are watching, and so is the nation, and if you choose to continue down this road, you should know, there will be consequences.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said he would do “everything in my power” to force Democrats back to Austin.
“It’s imperative that they be swiftly arrested, punished, and face the full force of the law for turning their backs on the people of Texas,” Paxton said in a statement.
Republicans tried a similar tactic to force an end to Democrats’ 2021 quorum break — that one a failed attempt to block restrictive new voting laws. The House sergeant-at-arms sent the warrants to those Democrats, deputized law enforcement to find them and even dropped paperwork off at some members’ homes, though no arrests were made.
The Texas Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that the House does have the authority physically compel the attendance of absent members.
In the wake of that 2021 quorum break, the Texas House also adopted new rules that allow for $500-per-day fines for those who are absent. Lawmakers cannot use their campaign or official funds to cover their own fines. Those new rules have not yet been tested in state court, Chen said.
Cates noted the fine for absenteeism has not been enshrined in state law. If a lawmaker refused to pay, he said: “How do you enforce it?”
Abbott issued warnings about potential bribery charges – and suggested he will seek to remove the absent Democrats from office and replace them – in a Fox News interview Monday.
“I believe they have forfeited their seats in the state legislature because they’re not doing the job they were elected to do,” he said.
The GOP’s threats, and civil warrants, were not a surprise to Democrats who said they knew the consequences when they left the state.
“If law enforcement arrests me, I will go peacefully. But I am doing this because I’m fighting for my constituents,” state Rep. James Talarico told CNN.
CNN’s David Wright, Devan Cole and Fredreka Schouten contributed to this report.
