Texas Supreme Court refuses to remove Democrats who fled state

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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.