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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) – Texas House officials issued civil arrest warrants to more than 50 absent Democrats Wednesday as frustrated Republicans stepped up efforts to end a stalemate over a comprehensive electoral law that stretched through day 31.
What you need to know
- Arrest warrants were issued on Wednesday for more than 50 Texas Democrats
- Still, the quorum in the Texas house remains broken, preventing lawmakers from passing new laws
- The exodus of the Texas Democrats has now lasted more than a month
- The NAACP has called on the Justice Department to investigate Republican threats to arrest Democrats
But after the NCOs finished their rounds at the Texas Capitol – leaving copies of the arrest warrants in the Democrats’ offices and politely asking staff to tell their bosses to please return – there were few signs of the stalemate that was beginning when the Democrats fled to Washington, DC in July to bring the statehouse to a standstill, a solution was closer.
The recent escalation plunged the Texan legislature into unusual territory, with either side unsure of what comes next or how far Republicans could take their determination to reach a quorum of 100 legislators in attendance – a threshold they only have four members achieved.
“I’m not worried about things that I can’t control,” said State MP Erin Zwiener, one of the Democrats convicted on an arrest warrant and refused to return to the Capitol. “Nothing about these warrants comes as a surprise, and they don’t necessarily affect my plans.”
Democrats, recognizing that they cannot permanently halt the GOP voting law due to Republican dominance in both houses of the Texas legislature, responded to the warrants with new demonstrations of defiance. One showed up in a Houston courtroom and obtained a court order to prevent him from being forced to return to the Capitol. In the Texas Senate, Democrat Carol Alvarado attempted to delay the passage of the Voting Bill in her chamber by speaking about it indefinitely in the form of a filibuster, although she admitted it would likely not be prevented.
The NAACP also stepped in on behalf of the Texas Democrats, calling on the Justice Department to investigate whether a federal crime had been committed when the Republicans threatened arrest.
Refusing to attend legislative sessions is a violation of house rules – a civil offense, not a criminal, and leaves the warrants’ powers to bring Democrats back to the Chamber unclear, even to the Republicans who invoked it. Democrats would not be jailed. Republican Travis Clardy, who helped negotiate an early version of the voting bill that the Democrats first stopped with a strike in May, told ABC News he believed “they can be physically brought back to the Capitol.”
State Rep. Jim Murphy, who heads the Texas House’s Republican caucus, said while he hadn’t experienced a situation like this during his tenure, he believed officials could go to the missing lawmakers and ask them to come back.
“I hope they’ll come because the warrants are out and they don’t want to be arrested,” Murphy said. “To me, it’s incredible that you have to arrest people for doing the work they stood up for, for which they took an oath of office to uphold the Texas Constitution.”
The Texas Department of Public Safety, the state’s law enforcement agency, referred questions about the warrants to the Speaker of the House.
The move marks a new attempt by the GOP to end the protest against the electoral law that began a month ago when 50 Democrats took private jets to Washington to make Texas the front line of a new national struggle for the right to vote.
Republicans are now in the middle of their third attempt since May to pass a series of tweaks and changes to the state’s electoral law that would make it more difficult – and sometimes even legally risky – to cast a vote in Texas that already has some to the most restrictive electoral laws in the country.
Texas is one of several states where Republicans have rushed to introduce new voting restrictions in response to former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 elections were stolen. The current bill is similar to the one the Democrats blocked last month when they went to the country’s capital. Among other things, it would ban 24-hour polling stations, drive-thru voting and give party election observers more access.
It was unclear on Wednesday how many Democrats remained in Washington, where they had hoped to get President Joe Biden and other Democrats to pass federal laws that would protect voting rights in Texas and beyond. Senate Democrats have promised to make this the first order of business when they return this fall, despite lacking a clear strategy for overcoming staunch Republican opposition.
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