Can Texas Gov. Greg Abbott remove Democratic lawmakers who left the state over redistricting?
Texas legislature attempted to meet on Monday to consider a redistribution plan that would promote the Republicans, but Democratic members who have left the State During the weekend, he did not return, deny the quorum necessary to summon the session. Governor Greg Abbott insisted that he would take measures to withdraw these legislators from their seats, and the president of the Texas Chamber, Dustin Burrows, had signed civil arrest mandates for absent democrats.
Republicans “can make inactive threats, but as long as they are out of the state, there is really nothing that they can do,” said Mark Jones, professor of political science at Rice University.
More than 50 Democrats from Texas House left the state Sunday, leaving the room short of the two -thirds quorum was to take a vote on the ground. Democrats protest against the The effort led by President Trump by the Republicans To redraw the card of the Congress of the American Chamber of the State, which could Net the gop up to five other seats.
“We are not fighting for the Democratic Party, we are fighting for the democratic process,” tweeted the representative of the Democratic State James Talarico about their action.
“This house is not quietly situated while you obstruct people’s work,” said Burrows on Monday.
To help Burrows, Abbot said on Monday that he had ordered Texas’s public security department to “locate, stop and return to the Chamber of the Chamber of any member who abandoned their obligation to the Texans”. However, Texas DPS does not have competence to stop them outside the state.
Representative Ann Johnson, a Democrat from Houston, told Ed O’Keefe de CBS News in an interview on Monday that “a quorum break is written in the Texas Constitution” and “The threat of arrest is something that should be an alarm for many people”.
Abbott said on Fox News on Monday that Democrats could face corruption charges if their costs outside the state were covered by others.
“I think that according to the comments made by the legislators themselves, they are faced with a possibility of facing accusations of corruption, which is a crime in the second degree in the state of Texas, there is a way of healing this, and it is that if they return to the state of Texas and to make the quorum today during a hearing that we have at 3 hours, they can take care of themselves.
But Jones noted that “Texas, compared to other states, has very cowardly ethical laws”.
“The governor is certainly welcome to make this argument, and theoretically, he has a limited level of potential to move forward, but ultimately, if you look at the Texas ethics law and look at all the things that are authorized under the law of ethics of Texas … We are classifying money to pay a fine at the lower extremity of the ethics of the ethics, Jones, “said Jones.
Abbott said on Sunday that if the members did not return to the deadline for 3 p.m., he “would invoke the opinion of the Attorney General of Texas No. KP-0382 to withdraw the democrats who disappeared from the membership of Texas House”.
Abbott quotes an opinion in 2021 of the Texas Republican Attorney General, Ken Paxton, who was written after a preceding scraper when Democratic legislators left the state to protest against a change in the laws on voting. Opinion, which is not binding, indicates that a “district court can determine that a legislator has lost its office due to abandonment and can withdraw the legislator from its functions, thus creating a vacancy”.
But Jones noted that the only legal ways to withdraw a legislator from Texas is that the person is expelled by a two -thirds vote of the legislature – as was done to expel Republican rep. Byron Slaton Above misconduct in 2023 – or the ballot boxes.
The representative of the Republican State, Briscoe Cain, posted on Monday on social networks that he would table a bill which would declare a vacant seat if a legislator had missed seven consecutive days of a session. But as there is no quorum, the bill cannot go nowhere – at least for the moment.
Abbott called a special session Last month, to occupy the redistribution effort with 17 other subjects, which included help for the flood victims of Texas, an examination of the flood alert system and emergency preparation, and a THC BAN. The redistribution of the congress, however, was considered first.
Texas has a part -time legislature that meets for 140 days every two years. The governor has the right to call a special 30 -day session to approach certain subjects. The current special session began on July 21.
Abbott can call as many special sessions as they wish, which means that if the Democrats are exhausted on this special session, he could call another from its end.
