Texas Supreme Court refuses to remove Democrats who fled state

[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.”