Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is preparing to vacate the seats of the Democratic Party state lawmakers who fled to stop redistricting.
As RedState reported, the left-wing legislators boarded private jets and flew off to Illinois and New York as a way to deny a quorum to Texas Republicans, which is required to pass the new congressional map. Arrest warrants have since been passed and ordered enforced by Gov. Gregg Abbott (R-TX), a provision allowed under the state’s constitution to combat this type of gamesmanship.
SEE: Texas Dems Run to Illinois to Deny a Quorum for Redistricting, and Now the Real Fun Begins
According to Paxton, the next shoe is getting ready to drop. If the derelict Democrats don’t return by Friday, he will seek judicial orders to certify that their seats are now vacant.
🚨BREAKING: I will seek judicial orders declaring that runaway Democrats who fail to appear by the Speaker’s deadline have vacated their office.
The people of Texas elected lawmakers, not jet-setting runaways looking for headlines. If you don’t show up to work, you get fired. pic.twitter.com/yyPWavY38P
— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) August 5, 2025
Democrats have abandoned their offices by fleeing Texas, and a failure to respond to a call of the House constitutes a dereliction of their duty as elected officials,” said Attorney General Paxton. “Starting Friday, any rogue lawmakers refusing to return to the House will be held accountable for vacating their office. The people of Texas elected lawmakers, not jet-setting runaways looking for headlines. If you don’t show up to work, you get fired.
Rulings issued by the Supreme Court of Texas do not allow the minority faction in the legislature to improperly interfere with the legislative majority’s prerogative to conduct business. By removing themselves from the State for the explicit purpose of interfering with the proceedings of the Texas Legislature, Democrats are refusing to perform their duties in a manner that amounts to abandonment of office. If the runaway members of the legislative minority do not return to the House and resume performance of their duties by the deadline, Attorney General Paxton will seek judicial relief confirming that their office is vacant.
The legal case here surrounds a part of the Texas Constitution that allows a seat to be declared abandoned if a legislator fails to fulfill their duties for too long. How that would be applied here is still an open question, though one would think leaving the state with the express intent of not fulfilling one’s duties would qualify after some period of time. What no one should expect is for this to happen quickly. According to Paxton, they will have to bring lawsuits in each individual district, and that process won’t conclude overnight.
Still, I think it’s a path that needs to be taken. In the meantime, Abbott should continue to call special sessions every 30 days to ensure these Democrats remain exiled with no ability to return without facing arrest. Let’s see how long they are willing to live in hotel rooms in Chicago, racking up fines for every day they are gone.
At this point, I wouldn’t even give them the option to return voluntarily. Republicans did that in 2021, backing off threats of arrest when Democrats came back to provide a quorum for election reform. Obviously, no lessons were learned, and they are abusing the system again. This time around, the moment they hit the ground, they should be put in handcuffs and drug down to the Texas State Capitol. I don’t care about the optics. The optics went out the window a long time ago with this stuff.
Further, a ballot initiative doing away with the quorum requirement should be proposed to stop this once and for all. Gerrymandering exists for a reason, and we can’t have a system where Democrat-led states like Illinois, Maryland, California, and others get to push things to the max while Texas doesn’t. The way you stop congressional gerrymandering is by winning state-level elections. Texas Democrats should try it sometime.
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