Gov. Greg Abbott threatens to arrest, remove Texas House Dems involved in redistricting walkout

Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to begin the legal process of removing Texas House Democrats from office if they don’t return to Austin by 3 p.m. Monday for a scheduled vote on controversial plan to redraw the state’s congressional maps.

In a Sunday tweet, Abbott also suggested that House Democrats who accept donations to cover the $500-a-day financial penalty for breaking quorum could face bribery charges.

Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican ally of Abbott’s, also fired off a tweet threatening to arrest House Democrats and bring them back to the Capitol by force.

Through an emailed statement, House Democrats sent a four-word response to Abbott and Paxton: “Come and take it.”

Sunday’s dramatic back-and-forth came after a plane carrying a large group of House Democrats left Austin for Illinois to break quorum in effort to prevent state Republicans from passing a new congressional map that would help the GOP retain control of Congress in the 2026 midterms.

The House was set to vote on the new maps Monday afternoon.

To pass the plan, which includes redrawing five congressional districts to make them more likely to go Republican, the House needs two-thirds of its 150 members at the Capitol. On Sunday, at least 50 Texas House Democrats departed Austin, preventing a vote.

“The only thing we have in our minds is what do we need to do to protect Texans,” Texas Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu, D-Houston, said during a Chicago press conference alongside Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker. “We will not be complicit in the destruction of our own communities.”

Abbott placed the highly unusual mid-decade redistricting on the agenda of the Lege’s special session, which began July 21. President Donald Trump requested the action as his approval rating plunged below 40%, increasingly the likelihood voters will flip the U.S. House and possibly the Senate to check his power.

“We aren’t going to help Republican Texas bend the knee to a tyrant who’s afraid of his own people,” Texas Rep. Diego Bernal, D-San Antonio, tweeted Sunday about his party’s walkout.

Under Texas law, Attorney General Ken Paxton and local district attorneys do have the power to file a “quo warranto,” which allows them to remove public officials from office if they’re found guilty in court of forfeiting the office.

“Democrats in the Texas House who try to run away like cowards should be found, arrested, and brought back to the Capitol immediately,” Paxton wrote in a Sunday tweet. ‘We should use every tool at our disposal to hunt down those who think they are above the law.”

However, attempts to remove Democrats for breaking quorum virtually guaranteed to face court challenges, legal scholars said.

It’s not the first time Texas House Democrats have fled the state to break quorum. Indeed, Dems staged a walkout during the 2021 special legislative session in a bid to block Senate Bill 7, which overhauled the state’s election laws, making it harder for marginalized groups to cast ballots.

After that walkout, the Republican-controlled Lege implemented a $500-per-day fine on House members who are absent without approval and violate quorum rules.

National Democratic groups have been fundraising to help cover the fines for those who break quorum this time around. However, Abbott said in a tweet that accepting those dollars is the equivalent of bribery.

“It seems to me that the only way some of the fleeing Democrats can avoid bribery charges is to not break quorum,” Abbott wrote. “It seems that would eliminate any potential quid pro quo connected to any payment they received to deny a quorum and skip a vote.”

Stay tuned.

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This article appears in Jul 23 – Aug 6, 2025.