Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has one option to deal with the fugitive Democratic state legislators who fled the state in order to block a Republican voting bill during a special session: wait them out.
Texas state Democrats are hoping to stop a quorum to block Republican-backed state voting legislation from advancing in a special session that ends on Aug. 6.
Nearly 60 quorum-breaking Democrats flew to Washington, D.C., on chartered planes, on which they were pictured without masks, where they are lobbying for ill-fated federal voting rights legislation and raising awareness about the Texas bill that they oppose.
Legislative and gubernatorial powers
Both the Texas state House and Senate need at least two-thirds of the members present in order to carry out business: At least 100 of 150 in the House and 21 of 31 in the Senate. That means at least 51 of the 67 Democrats in the House would have to be absent to prevent a quorum in that chamber. In the Senate, that is 11 of the 18 Democrats.
TEXAS DEMOCRATS LEAVE STATE IN BID TO STONEWALL VOTING BILLS
Under Texas House rules, any member can make a motion to force a quorum, called a “call of the house.” If it is seconded by 15 members, those who are absent can then be sent for “and arrested wherever they may be found, by the sergeant-at-arms or an officer appointed by the sergeant-at-arms for that purpose, and their attendance shall be secured and retained.”
Republicans in the Texas House did just that on Tuesday and voted to send law enforcement to track down the 63 Democrats who were absent, and the fleeing lawmakers became legislative fugitives. Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan has pledged that the House will “use every available resource” to secure a quorum.
But because Texas law enforcement lacks jurisdiction outside the state, officers cannot arrest the lawmakers who are in the Washington area.
Abbott’s only tangible power, aside from ensuring Texas law enforcement operates according to the House’s orders, is to call another special session, repeating what then-Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry did during a 2003 standoff.
In a Monday interview, Abbott promised to do so.
“I can and I will continue to call a special session after special session after special session all the way up until election next year,” he told KUVE. “And so, if these people want to be hanging out wherever they’re hanging out on this taxpayer-paid junket, they’re going to have to be prepared to do it for well over a year. As soon as they come back in the state of Texas, they will be arrested. They will be cabined inside the Texas Capitol until they get their job done. Everybody who has a job must show up to do that job, just like your viewers watching right now. State representatives have that same responsibility.”
The fugitive Democrats expect that move.
“We know that’s exactly what he was going to do. We went into this eyes wide open. We know exactly what will happen,” Texas state Rep. Chris Turner, the Democratic Caucus chairman, told the Washington Examiner in a press conference at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday. “Our message is very simple. Our intent is to stay out and kill this bill this session and use the intervening time — I think 24, 25 days now before the end of the session — to implore the folks in this building behind us to pass federal voting rights legislation to protect voters in Texas and across the country.”
But it is not clear that they have the political will to stay past Aug. 6 if and when Abbott calls another special session. Those in D.C. have not committed to staying through a second special session.
“They cannot leave for the entire year. They all have jobs and families they’ve got to come home to,” said Rick Green, a former Republican Texas state representative.
But how long Abbott and Republicans keep the fugitive Democrats a national issue, lowering their popularity, could determine how long they stay away from the state.
“The issue is, do the Republicans have the courage to press on this?” Green said.
A repeat fugitive lawmaker strategy that failed in the past
This is not the first time that Texas Democrats fled the state in order to prevent a quorum and block bills from passage. During a 2003 redistricting fight, they stayed closer to home and eventually returned to Texas voluntarily.
In May 2003, 58 Texas House Democrats broke a quorum with the bulk of them holed up at a Holiday Inn in Ardmore, Oklahoma. Texas Department of Public Safety officers were present at the hotel and offered transportation back to Austin but could not compel them to do so. The lawmakers voluntarily returned after running out the clock on a key deadline.
But the saga did not end there. Perry called a series of three special sessions that summer in order to get the bill to his desk. In late July, 11 Democrats in the state Senate fled to Albuquerque, New Mexico, for weeks. But one lawmaker caved and returned to Texas over Labor Day weekend, saying that the Democrats had no “exit strategy,” and voluntarily returned to the special session.
Something Abbott might avoid is seeking help from other law enforcement jurisdictions to increase the pressure on the fugitive Democrats.
During the 2003 incident in May, one Texas officer searching for the private plane carrying the lawmakers reportedly called the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, leading a bureau officer to believe that a plane of lawmakers was “missing, lost, or possibly crashed,” the bureau said in a statement at the time. The bureau was unable to assist or use any aircraft in the instance, but Democrats in Congress criticized the attempted use of federal law enforcement resources to track the Democrats down.
Political pressure could increase urgency
A larger question is how this incident could affect relationships between Republicans and Democrats in the state Legislature.
Despite having a majority in the House, Republicans have traditionally allowed Democrats in the Texas state Legislature to hold some committee chairmanships. That tradition might end after the fugitive Democrats have fled to Washington.
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“Republicans have asked for a long time for their leadership in Texas to stop rewarding Democrats with chairmanships,” Green said, adding that they are empowered “to shut down the state Legislature and prevent the people’s representatives from doing their work. The blowback here is going to be pretty significant.”
Primary challenges from the Right could also prompt Abbott to be more aggressive, Green suggested. Abbott faces primary opponents Allen West, a firebrand former Florida congressman who was recently chairman of the Texas Republican Party, and former state Sen. Don Huffines.
