A Texas Democratic state lawmaker abruptly left a call with Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin and other top party leaders on Wednesday after she was warned she was committing a felony.
“Sorry, I have to leave,” state Rep. Nicole Collier (D) said at one point in the call, interrupting Martin. “They said it’s a felony for me to do this. Apparently I can’t be on the floor or in a bathroom.”
“You told me I was only allowed to be here in the bathroom,” she told someone who was out of view of the camera. “No, hold on — bye everybody, I’ve got to go.”
Collier, a seven-term legislator who previously served as the chair of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus, was participating in the call from inside the Texas Capitol, where the state House was currently moving forward with a vote on a GOP-friendly House map. Democrats had initially fled Texas to block passage of the map but returned earlier this week.
Democrats who wanted to leave and come back to the Capitol in between House meetings could only do so after “agreeing to be released into the custody of a designated DPS officer appointment under the rules of the House,” according to Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R). They also have to sign a form saying they will come back to the state Legislature.
Collier declined to agree to the terms and instead has slept inside the state House in protest, quickly receiving national attention.
“At the moment that the directive was issued, I felt like it was wrong. It’s just wrong to require grown people to get a permission slip to roam about freely,” Collier said in a recent interview on MSNBC. “So I resisted. I objected, in the only way I knew how, and that’s to resist.”
It was not clear exactly what Collier did that constituted a felony, though the incident angered Democrats on the call.
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) blasted the news as “outrageous,” saying “Rep. Collier in the bathroom has more dignity than Donald Trump in the Oval Office.”
“That is outrageous. What they’re trying to do right there, is silence an American leader, silence a Black woman and that is outrageous,” he added.
Other national leaders also slammed the move to restrict Collier from participating in the call while in the Capitol bathroom.
“I was just on a press call with @NicoleCollier95, @CoryBooker, and @GavinNewsom,” Martin wrote on X. “Rep. Collier joined us from the TX Capitol. She was ordered to leave the call, and threatened with a felony charge if she didn’t comply. This is an outrageous violation of her freedom of speech.”
Updated at 5:18 p.m. EDT.
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