{"id":1236,"date":"2025-08-07T11:05:25","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T11:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=1236"},"modified":"2025-08-07T11:05:32","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T11:05:32","slug":"can-the-out-of-state-texas-dems-be-arrested","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=1236","title":{"rendered":"Can the Out-of-State Texas Dems Be Arrested?"},"content":{"rendered":"

P<\/span>resident Donald Trump suggested the FBI may get involved in bringing a group of Texas Democrats back to their home state.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey may have to,\u201d Trump\u00a0said\u00a0at a White House executive order signing event Tuesday, when he was asked whether the federal law enforcement agency should help locate and arrest the state lawmakers at the center of a\u00a0political standoff\u00a0over a Republican\u00a0redistricting plan. \u201cA lot of people are demanding they come back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The controversial redistricting plan, backed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and the Trump Administration, would redraw the congressional district map to give Republicans about five more U.S. House seats, which could significantly boost the GOP\u2019s chances of maintaining its slim majority after the 2026 midterm elections. But Democrats in the state legislature have criticized the effort and are resorting to a\u00a0quorum-busting method\u00a0of moving to blue states like Illinois and New York to try to stall votes on the plan. Abbott ordered\u00a0the fleeing lawmakers\u2019 arrest\u00a0on civil warrants, directed\u00a0investigatins\u00a0into whether there have been state law violations, and\u00a0sought to oust\u00a0the lawmakers from their state legislative seats.<\/p>\n

Despite the threats, the Democratic lawmakers appear unfazed. In response to Abbott, the Democratic caucus in the state House issued a\u00a0succinct statement: \u201cCome and take it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump is not alone in calling for the FBI\u2019s involvement: Texas\u2019 senior U.S. Senator, John Cornyn, urged the agency, in\u00a0a letter\u00a0to FBI Director Kash Patel on Tuesday, \u201cto take any appropriate steps to aid in Texas state law enforcement efforts to locate or arrest potential lawbreakers who have fled the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear whether the FBI will intervene, and the agency declined to comment. The FBI\u2019s website, however,\u00a0states\u00a0that the agency does not \u201csupervise or take over\u201d investigations of state and local law enforcement agencies, as its primary mandate is to look into federal crimes and enforce federal laws. State warrants can only be enforced by state troopers, but the FBI\u00a0may assist\u00a0local law enforcement in locating fugitives.<\/p>\n

What legal repercussions might the Democrats face?<\/h2>\n

The act of denying quorum\u00a0dates back centuries\u00a0in the Texas legislature. States have their own means of acting upon quorum-breaking in the legislative chambers, and Texas\u2019 House Rules Manual\u00a0states\u00a0that \u201call absentees for whom no sufficient excuse is made may, by order of a majority of those present, be sent for and arrested, wherever they may be found, by the sergeant-at-arms or an officer appointed by the sergeant-at-arms for that purpose, and their attendance shall be secured and retained.\u201d The state Supreme Court in 2021\u00a0upheld\u00a0that rule, giving the House the power to arrest absent members to establish a quorum.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the Texas House voted to arrest the Democratic lawmakers who fled the state, enabling the state legislature\u2019s sergeant-at-arms and the Texas Department of Public Safety to conduct these arrests. Abbott said the arrest order will remain in effect \u201cuntil all missing Democrat House members are accounted for and brought to the Texas Capitol.\u201d<\/p>\n

But many have downplayed the arrest warrant, because the lawmakers are no longer in Texas territory. \u201cThey like to talk a big game,\u201d U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Democrat representing Texas\u2019 30th congressional district,\u00a0told\u00a0ABC News on Monday. \u201cYou have a lot of intelligent attorneys that actually serve in the Texas House. And so they know that there\u2019s nothing that [Abbott] can do outside of the Texas jurisdiction to bring them in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chad Dunn, a Texas election and voting rights lawyer, told election news outlet\u00a0Democracy Docket\u00a0that a warrant issued by the Texas House \u201cis not effective out of the state unless another state chooses to domesticate it and enforce it under that state\u2019s laws.\u201d The Texas Democratic lawmakers, however, have fled to sympathetic Democratic-led states. \u201cWe\u2019re very happy to host these heroes,\u201d\u00a0said\u00a0Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. \u201cThis is not breaking the law, this is a legitimate process that has been used before,\u201d\u00a0said\u00a0New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Aug. 4.<\/p>\n

Abbott, however, has alleged that several absentee Texas House Democrats \u201chave solicited or received funds to evade conducting legislative business and casting votes.\u201d Abbott said that these lawmakers \u201cmay have violated\u201d bribery laws under the\u00a0Texas Penal Code, which assigns a second-degree felony charge to \u201cone who offers or confers a benefit on any public servant or voter to influence him, and the public servant receiving or soliciting the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

State representative Jolanda Jones, who is in New York, said at the Aug. 4\u00a0briefing\u00a0with Hochul: \u201cThere is no felony in the Texas Penal Code for what [Abbott] says, so respectfully he\u2019s making up some sh-t, OK? He\u2019s trying to get sound bites. And he has no legal mechanism\u2026 he\u2019s putting up smoke and mirrors.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Texas Democrats who fled the state are likely to face a $500 daily\u00a0fine\u00a0for each day they are absent without leave. The Republican-led state government approved the fine, which must be paid personally and not from office funds or political fundraising, in\u00a02023 after Democratic lawmakers fled for three weeks in 2021 to break quorum on a state election law overhaul.<\/p>\n

As for whether the lawmakers could actually be booted from their office and replaced by Abbott, Abbott\u00a0referred\u00a0to a 2021 opinion by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that asserts Texas law allows for a legislator\u2019s seat to be considered vacant if a court determines that they forfeited their office by abandonment.<\/p>\n

Paxton\u00a0said\u00a0Tuesday that starting Friday, a deadline set by Republican Speaker of the Texas House Dustin Burrows, \u201cany rogue lawmakers refusing to return to the House will be held accountable.\u201d Paxton said he would seek a court order declaring the Democrats to have abandoned their offices. \u201cIf you don’t show up for work,\u201d he said in a statement, \u201cyou get fired.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump suggested the FBI may get involved in bringing a group of Texas Democrats back to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics","category-us"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1236"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1238,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236\/revisions\/1238"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}