BOSTON — Texas Democrats say they do not believe Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has the power to remove members of the state House from office as the minority party breaks quorum to prevent Republicans from redrawing U.S. House district map lines.
In interviews here on the sidelines of the National Conference of State Legislatures annual summit, several Texas lawmakers said they were alarmed by letters Abbott sent to House Democrats who absconded to Illinois and New York in order to bring the House to a standstill. But they said they did not believe Texas law gives Abbott the authority to boot them from office.
“I’d like to think it’s an idle threat because the law doesn’t support it, but we have seen laws tumble with a Department of Justice or an attorney general scribbling something on a piece of paper and calling it law,” Sen. Sarah Eckhardt (D) told Pluribus News. “I’d love to say that it was an empty threat, but we’ve got to take it seriously.”
Abbott ordered House Democrats to return by Monday at 3 p.m., an order those Democrats defied. Abbott said he would inititiate legal action to remove absentees from office; state law allows Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) or a local district attorney to file lawsuits against members who “abandon” their offices.
Paxton called for absent lawmakers to be “swiftly arrested, punished, and face the full force of the law for turning their backs on the people of Texas.”
But it is unlikely that such a legal challenge would succeed. The Texas Constitution allows for legislators to be absent, subject to penalties set by their respective chamber. Current House rules subject absent members to a $500 fine for each day they don’t show up for work.
Democrats said the Republican focus on redrawing U.S. House maps is coming at the expense of more pressing matters, particularly the devastating floods that hit the Texas Hill Country, claiming more than 100 lives.
“There has been no bill, at least in the Texas Senate, that has been filed related to flooding. There was one hearing that was related to flooding that was in the Hill Country. However, there have been seven hearings in the Texas legislature on redistricting,” Sen. Carol Alvarado (D) told Pluribus News. “We have spent more time on that than addressing the needs of the flood victims and their families and moving forward with the things that they need to prevent something like that from happening again.”
Alvarado said the new maps, proposed last week as Republicans hope to reclaim as many as five seats currently held by Democrats, intentionally target districts where minority voters make up a majority of the population.
“They’re taking out districts, dismantling districts that have been historically African American — my congressional district where I live, which was a majority-minority district, Latino district,” Alvarado said.
National Democrats have offered support for Texas lawmakers, including offering to pay their daily fines. Several Texas Democrats decamped to Illinois, where they met with Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D), while others flew to New York to meet Gov. Kathy Hochul (D).
Democratic state lawmakers plan a press conference Wednesday in Boston to call for a ban on mid-decade redistricting, though Congress is unlikely to take steps toward barring the practice. The message, Eckhardt said, will be that Texas is only the first domino.
“We’re getting overwhelming support. I think that people really are beginning to understand that if you don’t stop this in Texas, it can metastasize across the entire nation,” Eckhardt said.
