Texas Supreme Court refuses to remove Democrats who fled state

[red dog 1]

Texas Supreme Court refuses to remove Democrats who fled state #TheHill

— #TuckFrump (@realtuckfrumper.bsky.social) 2026-05-15T18:07:54.000Z

[SWBTATTReg]

1. This is rather short and uninformative, perhaps another DUer has more FYI on this...

- remove democrats who fled state? I'm assuming they fled TX?

-remove democrats from the states they fled to, from TX?

-how can TX (the TX supreme court) have any authority to move other non-TX people? And to what, relocate them back to TX or what?

Thanks in advance for any FYI you can provide.

[Bettie]

2. Link and Exerpt:

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/5880282-texas-supreme-court-redistricting-democrats/

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday shut down Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) effort to penalize the dozens of Democratic legislators who fled the state last summer in an attempt to block a rare mid-decade redistricting effort.

Abbott asked the all-Republican court in an emergency petition last August to find that the Texas House’s Democratic leader, Houston Rep. Gene Wu, had vacated his office when he and more than 50 other Democrats refused to return to Texas to pass a new GOP-drawn congressional map.

In a concurring opinion, Justice James Sullivan similarly indicated that the court could penalize lawmakers who break quorum in the future.

“I concur because this constitutional crisis passed too quickly for us to engage in factfinding that might’ve justified quo warranto relief,” Sullivan wrote. “But we should be prepared to perform this grave task if legislators refuse to do their jobs again in the future. To that end, I offer these preliminary thoughts on how such quo warranto proceedings might go.”

[SWBTATTReg]

4. Thank you!! I suspected that this was the issue...I'm surprised that they didn't throw them in jail and lose the keys.

Abbott is a jerk.

[sheshe2]

3. They fled to deny GOP a quorum.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5434491-gop-redistricting-texas-democrats/

Texas House Democrats on Sunday left the state in a bid to stop Republicans from advancing House maps that would give the GOP five more pickup opportunities ahead of 2026.

The Texas Democrats said they were denying Republicans a quorum, or the minimum number of lawmakers needed present in order to conduct legislative business, following a similar tactic they employed the last time the GOP pursued midcycle redistricting in 2003. Most of them traveled to Illinois, New York and Massachusetts, all of which are Democratic-led states.

“We’re not here to have fun. We’re not here because this is easy, and we did not make a decision to come here today, we did not make a decision lightly,” Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu told reporters in Illinois, with members of his delegation and Gov. JB Pritzker (D) behind him.

“But we come here today with absolute moral clarity that this is the absolutely the right thing to do to protect the people of the state of Texas,” he continued.