Both Texas Republicans and Democrats are ratcheting up their rhetoric over proposed US House maps that could give the GOP five more seats. But the action in Austin is stalled for now.
Most Democrats who left the state to stop the redistricting effort are showing no signs they will come back to Texas. Republicans are escalating their threats, with Gov. Greg Abbott going to court to request the removal of a Houston lawmaker from office. And President Donald Trump is keeping the pressure on, saying Tuesday on CNBC that Republicans are “entitled” to five more US House seats in Texas.
Meanwhile, the stakes of the argument are only increasing nationally. Democratic-led states have taken in the fleeing lawmakers and are looking for ways to redraw their own House maps in response to Texas. And the White House is seeking pickups in other Republican states, including Indiana, where Vice President JD Vance has scheduled a Thursday trip to meet with state leaders.
Here’s a look at what’s next in Texas and around the country:
When will the legislature try again?
Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows, who signed civil arrest warrants for more than 50 absent Democrats, said Tuesday he had been briefed by the Texas Department of Public Safety. He said law enforcement “will need some time to work” and will not try again to move forward on redistricting until Friday at 2 p.m. EDT (1 p.m. CDT).
Moments later, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a firebrand Trump ally, issued a statement saying he would seek a court ruling declaring the seats of the absent Democrats as vacant. Hours after Paxton’s statement, Abbott petitioned the Texas Supreme Court to request that it declare vacant the seat of state Rep. Gene Wu, a Houston Democrat who fled to Chicago.
Responding to the petition, Wu accused Abbott of using “the law as a weapon to silence his people” and said his own actions were “a fulfillment of my oath.”
“My purpose has been clear from the start: to serve my constituents and fight for what’s right, no matter the cost. You will find that my commitment to the people of Texas is unbreakable,” Wu said in the Tuesday statement.
In addition to Paxton and Abbott saying they will seek to remove the absent Democrats from office, and the House speaker signing civil arrest warrants, state House rules allow $500-per-day fines. Lawmakers cannot use official or campaign funds to pay them.
Republican leaders face pressure from their own right flank to take more aggressive action.
Republican state Rep. Brian Harrison said Tuesday on Fox News that if GOP leadership had been “bolder,” the party might have locked the House doors last week, when Democrats were in the chamber.
“We had the maps, we had the Democrats, we had the quorum,” he said. “The leadership of the Texas House had all the authority and tools they needed to keep them here and instead our speaker adjourned early after only seven minutes to let them go scheme with Hakeem Jeffries on how they could flee the state.”
Will Democrats return?
Democrats say they will not return to allow the new maps to advance in the legislature, despite Republican threats. Experts have said Texas’ arrest warrants would be unenforceable outside the state without local officials’ cooperation.
Texas state Rep. Ramón Romero said at a news conference in Chicago, where many Texas House Democrats are currently staying, that the boycotting members believe they are “standing tall.”
“I’ll pay that price for America,” he said of the threat of arrest. “That would be a very small price to pay for what we would save for these Americans that have fought so hard and against the maps that aim directly at Black and brown voices.”
Democratic state Rep. Lulu Flores told CNN on Tuesday that she and several other members of the Texas delegation who traveled to Illinois “plan to stay as long as it takes.”
Still, pressure will mount on Democrats, as well.
Six Democrats remained in Austin, including Rep. Richard Peña Raymond, who noted that previous quorum breaks have faltered after a few weeks.
He and a handful of colleagues stayed behind to “figure out a path forward” with the GOP and “try to keep the temperature low, as low as we could, instead of letting it become a nuclear war.”
“Members who are not in Texas right now are not going to be away from Texas forever,” Raymond, who joined Democrats to break quorum in 2003 and 2021, told CNN. “I’m just being realistic that you have to engage everybody. Because unless we stay out for six months, it’s going to be very difficult to come out with a total victory in Texas.”
Can Democrats who fled actually be removed from office?
Wu and other state Democrats have prepared to fight over whether they could be disqualified from office for breaking quorum. When asked by CNN on Monday if Abbott had the power to remove legislators from office, Wu responded: “Absolutely not. And that’s very clear.”
Chad Dunn, a longtime Texas voting rights lawyer and legal director of UCLA’s Voting Rights Project, said there is “no basis” for Paxton’s Tuesday statement.
He said Paxton would have to prove in court that absent House members did not comply with a duty and demonstrated that they intended to vacate their office.
“He has evidence of neither. Quorum breaking is enabled in the Texas constitution. It is fulfilling a duty of office to refuse to form a quorum to enable the enactment of a law that discriminates on the basis of race in violation of the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act,” Dunn said.
“Quorum breaking is more American than apple pie,” he said. “And no member has indicated an intent to abandon office. They are serving as their people’s representatives with the actions they have taken.”
Quinn Yeargain, a state constitutional law expert at Michigan State University College of Law, argued that GOP threats to remove the boycotting Democrats might have more bark than bite.
“I am really not sure that a state court in Texas would have jurisdiction to arrive at the legal conclusion that a legislator has abandoned their office and that that court would have jurisdiction to issue as a remedy some order vacating the office,” Yeargain said. “That does not seem clear to me.”
But even if a court concluded that it does have the authority to decide the case, the question of whether a state lawmaker’s decision to leave the state constitutes “abandonment” under the law, as Abbott claims, is another major consideration for judges.
“What abandonment would mean in this context is that they went on a cruise around the world and had no desire to return, and therefore missed votes,” Yeargain said. “It cannot possibly apply to a situation where they’re strategically using the power … to prevent the legislature from meeting and conducting business.”
CNN’s Devan Cole, David Wright, Maureen Chowdhury, Shania Shelton and Ethan Schenker contributed to this report.
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