Texas attorney general sues to remove 13 absent Democrats from office

ST. CHARLES, Ill. – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) asked the state’s high court Friday to remove 13 Democrats from office for leaving the state this week to prevent the GOP from giving themselves five more safe congressional districts by redistricting.

The Republican attorney general’s office said in a news release that he was focused on 13 of the more than 50 Democrats who left the state because the 13 had made “incriminating public statements regarding their refusal to return.”

His suit before the Republican-dominated Texas Supreme Court comes days after Gov. Greg Abbott filed a similar lawsuit before the court alleging the leader of the state House Democrats had abandoned his office.

In another Friday lawsuit, Paxton asked a court to issue an order barring a group run by former Democratic congressman Beto O’Rourke from bankrolling the Texas Democrats while they are out of state.

The crush of litigation ramps up a standoff that has turned into a nationwide clash over congressional lines, with red and blue states preparing to engage in an unprecedented round of map drawing for political gain. Republicans hold a 219-212 majority in the U.S. House, and a handful of redrawn seats could help decide the balance of power in Congress for the second half of President Donald Trump’s second term.

Texas Democrats said Abbott and Paxton were unleashing “a campaign of legal harassment.”

“This new front of lawfare is a desperate attempt by Republican leaders to achieve in the courts what they have failed to do in the court of public opinion: break the will of the Texas Democrats who are fighting their corrupt, racist gerrymander,” the Texas Democrats said in a statement.

Trump is at the center of the fight. He urged Texas to act, insisting he’s “entitled” to five more seats there while calling for other GOP-led states to shift more districts from Democrats to Republicans. On Thursday, he said he would conduct a census that excluded people living in the United States illegally. Doing so would reshuffle how many congressional districts each state gets and would likely draw litigation.

Drawing new districts in the middle of a decade is rare. Ordinarily, states draw political lines once every 10 years after the census to ensure districts have equal populations. Using sophisticated software, states can slice up cities and neighborhoods to greatly advantage one political party over the other.

Writing maps for political advantage stretches back to the early days of the country and was given the name “gerrymandering” after Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry carved up his state in 1812. Fights over redistricting have only intensified in the two centuries since and have kicked into hyperdrive in recent weeks.

Abbott called a 30-day special legislative session to draw a new map last month, and dozens of state representatives left the state on Sunday to stall passage of the measure. The state House needs at least 100 of its 150 members present to conduct business, and it remains frozen while the Democrats are absent.

During a brief session Friday, state House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R) announced the chamber once again did not have enough members present to conduct business. Lawmakers would have to pick up their paychecks in person, he said, effectively cutting off absent Democrats from getting paid while they’re away. He scolded them for their departure, saying they were holding up separate legislation to respond to last month’s deadly floods.

“With each passing day, the political cost of your absence is rising, and it will be paid in full,” Burrows said.

Republican lawmakers have issued civil arrest warrants for the Democrats, and Sen. John Cornyn , R-Texas, has said the FBI has agreed to help track them down. The FBI has declined to comment on what, if anything, it is doing, and Democrats said the agency has no authority over them.

The Democratic lawmakers have tried to keep their exact location in Illinois private. On Friday morning, police here in the Chicago suburb of St. Charles responded to a possible bomb threat at the hotel where many lawmakers are staying – two days after a similar threat forced the legislators to evacuate. No explosive devices were found in either incident.

Abbott said Friday that if the Democrats don’t return soon, Republicans might draw a map that is even more GOP-friendly than what they have already proposed.

“If they don’t start showing up, I may start expanding,” Abbott said on the “Ruthless” podcast. “We may make it six or seven or eight new seats we’re going to be adding on the Republican side.”

Republicans now hold 25 of Texas’s 38 congressional districts, and the proposed map would provide them with 30. If Republicans drew additional seats in their favor, they would have to dilute the Republican lean of other districts, potentially creating headaches for GOP incumbents.

Abbott has asked the state Supreme Court to remove Minority Leader Gene Wu (D) from office, arguing that he had abandoned his post. Wu has said he and his colleagues have done nothing wrong and are representing their constituents by fighting the map. Wu is required to file a response to Abbott’s lawsuit on Friday. It is unclear when the justices will decide what to do with the case.

If Abbott succeeds in removing Wu from office, he could call a special election to replace him and begin similar legal actions against other Democrats who have left the state. Abbott, who served on the state Supreme Court from 1996 to 2001, appointed six of the nine justices now on the court.

Seth Tillman, an American constitutional scholar and associate professor at a law school in Ireland, said he did not find Abbott’s arguments persuasive and doubted the state’s high court would agree with him. Part of the governor’s argument hinges on the requirement that the legislature meet when the governor calls a special session. But the state constitution doesn’t require individual lawmakers to show up, Tillman said.

“A member of the state legislature doesn’t work for the governor,” he said.

Paxton said this week that trying to remove lawmakers would be difficult because legal actions would probably need to be filed in courts where the lawmakers live, which are in “districts that are not friendly to Republicans,” he said on a podcast. But on Friday, he made his filing with the state Supreme Court instead, just as Abbott had.

During an appearance on “Fox & Friends” Paxton said he was trying to get an Illinois court to recognize the civil warrants to “get them back to the state of Texas, hold them in contempt and if they refuse to come, hopefully, put them in jail.”

More than half a dozen of the 62 Democrats in the state House have stayed behind in Austin. Rep. Richard Peña Raymond (D), the longest-serving Latino lawmaker in the chamber, said he chose to stay to fight rather than leave the state but that he stood in solidarity with colleagues who had departed.

Raymond, who after 31 years in the state legislature is accustomed to brinkmanship, said he wasn’t surprised to see GOP lawmakers doing all they could to force Democrats to return to Texas, including enlisting state troopers and the FBI.

“Everybody that’s involved in this process is going to do whatever they think they can to enhance their position. There’s no holds barred,” Raymond said after lawmakers adjourned. “I’m doing what I can by being here.”

Republicans are also considering adding seats in Florida, Ohio and Missouri, and Vice President JD Vance met Thursday with Indiana Gov. Mike Braun and state lawmakers to talk about their prospects there.

To counteract them, Democrats are pledging to help themselves in states they control. The most imminent action is underway in California.

“You’ve heard about California, Florida, Indiana – the list isn’t getting shorter,” Raymond said. “You’re seeing it across the country. It’s a mess.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom , a potential 2028 presidential candidate, said Thursday that state lawmakers would authorize a ballot measure by Aug. 22 that would establish districts more favorable to Democrats if Texas carried out its plan. If approved by legislators, California voters would get to decide whether to accept the new map this November.

Newsom is scheduled to hold a news conference with some of the Texas Democrats, California state legislative leaders, U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. and others about his plans.