The Texas House failed to achieve a quorum again this morning as dozens of state Democrats remain in hiding in Illinois. Texas AG Ken Paxton had warned Democrats earlier this week that if they didn’t return by Friday he would seek to have them removed from office.
“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.”
As promised, AG Paxton has started the process to remove 13 of the 50 or so absent Democrats.
He made good on that threat about an hour after the Texas House met for just eight minutes on Friday, long enough to determine that Democrats had ignored the Republicans’ deadline.
Mr. Paxton’s lawsuit is part of an increasingly aggressive effort by Republicans to compel the Democrats’ return. His office said he had focused on 13 Democratic lawmakers — out of the 54 who did not show up in Austin on Friday — because they had made “incriminating public statements regarding their refusal to return.”
That process could take weeks and has never been tried before. So, for now, Democrats are planning to remain in hiding until the special legislative session ends later this month. However, the pressure, including financial pressure, is building.
Texas Rep. James Talarico on Monday noted that state lawmakers in Texas make just $600 a month before taxes, a figure that hasn’t changed since 1975.
“That’s not much to live off of” Talarico said in an interview with YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen released Monday…
By breaking quorum, dozens of democratic Texas lawmakers face $500 in fines for each day they are absent from the House.
Texas Democratic House Caucus chair Gene Wu told the Associated Press, “We’re getting a lot of small-dollar donations, and that’s going to be used to help keep this thing going.”
Back home, Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows is making things even harder on the Dems, telling them they could pick up their paychecks in person.
On Thursday, he sent a memo to all members and their staffs requiring that any member who is absent from the special session to break quorum must collect their monthly paycheck in person. Direct deposits were suspended for those skipping out until the House reaches quorum, according to memo.
Today, Speaker Burrows upped the ante even further.
Burrows said that 30% of each absent member’s monthly operating budget “will be reserved and made unavailable for expenditure.”
He noted that he is now requiring absent members to appear in person in order to make certain requests, including requests for travel reimbursement, requests to change staff salaries and requests to approve newsletters.
He said that if members did not appear in person, newsletters and “the encumbered funds” would be cancelled.
There was one report at CNN that some Democrats were concerned their collective resolve was waning.
Concern is growing that some Texas Democrats who left the state to stall progress on Republicans’ redistricting push could soon return, eroding their party’s position in the ongoing standoff.
“That’s something that we’re hearing,” said Texas Rep. Ron Reynolds, who has been staying in Illinois after he fled Texas.
Obviously, nothing changed today so it appears those concerns were overblown. But there are other issues the Democrats are ignoring with this stunt and at some point those could come back to bite them.
“We are continuing to explore new avenues to compel a quorum, and will keep pressing forward until the job is done,” Burrows told the members who were in attendance Friday, pointing to the other item on the agenda — disaster relief for floods that plagued the state last month — as a reason to return.
“Every hour you remain away is time stolen from those Texans in need,” he said, referring to the redistricting bill that Republicans strategically attached to flooding relief.
Republicans will try Monday to establish a quorum for the 4th time. So that’s the next time we could see something change.
