The Texas House of Representatives returned to business on Thursday for the first time since the Legislature’s special session began in July, when more than 50 of the chamber’s Democrats fled the state Capitol to obstruct consideration of Republican-backed voting reform bills.

Enough Democrats gathered in Austin Thursday evening to ensure a legislative quorum, ending the caucus’s weekslong protest that took many absent lawmakers to Washington, D.C., and denied Republicans a chance to take up their election reform efforts.