Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is moving forward with a plan to remove quorum-breaking House Democrats from office, asserting that by leaving the state they have abandoned their positions, his office announced Tuesday.
Paxton said he would begin asking Texas courts on Friday to remove the Democrats if they do not return to Austin.
“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,” Paxton said in a statement. “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.”
The legal process to remove the lawmakers will likely take time. First, Paxton must file a case against each individual absent Democrat in various district courts, a process that would surely lead to appeals and could drag out long beyond the end of the special session on Aug. 19.
Even if Paxton succeeds in getting them removed, Gov. Greg Abbott would need to call for special elections to fill the seats, according to Texas law, which says that “an unexpired term in office may be filled only by a special election.”
Paxton issued a nonbinding legal opinion in 2021 during Democrats’ last quorum break, which Republican Gov. Greg Abbott cited on Monday while also accusing the lawmakers “absconded from their responsibility.”
In that opinion, Paxton took no position on whether breaking quorum is constitutional. He also declined to say whether fleeing Democrats could or should be removed from office. Rather, he called it a “fact question for a court” that he said was beyond the scope of his office to decide. He noted instead that he could file what are known as “quo warranto actions” in court, asking a judge to determine whether the missing lawmakers had officially vacated their seats.
When Abbott made the same argument on Monday, Democrats responded simply: “Come and take it.”
Democrats have fled Texas to blue strongholds like Illinois, New York and Massachusetts in order to prevent the legislature from voting on a recently-drawn congressional map — pushed by President Donald Trump — that would give the GOP five more friendly seats ahead of next year’s midterms.
“Democrats are going to fight this tooth and nail and until the will of the voters is respected,” Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin said during a press conference on Tuesday. “This is not the Democratic Party of your grandfather, which would bring a pencil to the knife fight. This is a new Democratic Party. We’re bringing a knife to a knife fight.”
The Texas Constitution allows for quorum-breaking, and lawmakers and legal experts alike were quick to dismiss Paxton’s claims that Democrats had abandoned their positions.
Kyle Cheney and Shia Kapos contributed to this report.
