Texas politics is once again in the national spotlight as Democrat lawmakers have left the state to break a quorum necessary to conduct business.
At stake is a Republican effort to respond to a call from President Donald J. Trump to redraw congressional district lines. The motive is an effort to pick up as many as five new Republican seats in the U.S. House of Representatives ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
More than 50 Democratic state officeholders have vacated the Lone Star State, preventing the legislative process from moving forward.
Governor Greg Abbott has called for the arrest of the absent lawmakers in response to the political move.
“Texas House Democrats abandoned their duty to Texans,” said Governor Abbott. “By fleeing the state, Texas House Democrats are holding hostage critical legislation to aid flood victims and advance property tax relief. There are consequences for dereliction of duty.
“Speaker Dustin Burrows just issued a call of the Texas House and issued warrants to compel members to return to the chamber. 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. This order will remain in effect until all missing Democrat House members are accounted for and brought to the Texas Capitol.”
The Texas governor went one step further on Monday, initiating a lawsuit to remove Houston Representative Gene Wu, the Democrat Abbott calls the “ringleader” of the defection from his seat in the Texas state legislature.
“I made clear in a formal statement on Sunday, August 3, that if the Texas House Democrats were not in attendance when the House reconvened at 3:00 PM on Monday, August 4, then action would be taken to seek their removal,” said Abbott. “They have not returned and have not met the quorum requirements. Representative Wu and the other Texas House Democrats have shown a willful refusal to return, and their absence for an indefinite period of time deprives the House of the quorum needed to meet and conduct business on behalf of Texans. Texas House Democrats abandoned their duty to Texans, and there must be consequences.”
The decision moves to the Texas Supreme Court, and it is uncertain whether or not such a move by the governor will be successful. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has said that it is his office that should be the source of a petition to remove absent Democrats from their seat, and is seeking to widen the target to include others who have left the state.
For his part, Wu is defiant against these moves to remove him from office.
“This office does not belong to Greg Abbott, and it does not belong to me. It belongs to the people of House District 137, who elected me,” Wu said in a statement. “I took an oath to the constitution, not a politician’s agenda, and I will not be the one to break that oath.
“Let me be unequivocal about my actions and my duty. When a governor conspires with a disgraced president to ram through a racist gerrymandered map, my constitutional duty is to not be a willing participant. When that governor holds disaster relief for 137 dead Texans and their families hostage, my moral duty is to sound the alarm — by any means necessary.
“Denying the governor a quorum was not an abandonment of my office; it was a fulfillment of my oath. Unable to defend his corrupt agenda on its merits, Greg Abbott now desperately seeks to silence my dissent by removing a duly-elected official from office.
“History will judge this moment. It will show a Governor who used the law as a weapon to silence his people, and it will show those of us who stood for a higher principle.”
