‘We’d have to go sue in every legislator’s home district,’ Paxton said.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said that prosecuting Democratic state House members who left the state to block a Republican-backed redistricting plan will not be easy.
Democrats on Monday prevented the state House of Representatives from moving forward with a redrawn congressional map sought by President Donald Trump to shore up Republicans’ 2026 midterm prospects.
“We‘d have to go through a court process, and we’d have to file that maybe in districts that are not friendly to Republicans,” the Republican attorney general said in an interview on Aug. 4 with podcaster Benny Johnson.
Paxton said that it would be “a challenge because every district would be different” and “we’d have to go sue in every legislator’s home district.”
After dozens of Democrats left Texas, the Republican-dominated House was unable to establish a quorum of lawmakers. Gov. Greg Abbott has threatened to remove absent members from their seats. Democrats said that Abbott, a Republican, is using “smoke and mirrors” to assert legal authority he doesn’t have.
The House quickly issued civil arrest warrants for absent Democrats, and Abbott ordered state troopers to find and arrest them. Lawmakers physically outside Texas are beyond the jurisdiction of state authorities, however.
“If you continue to go down this road, there will be consequences,” Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows said from the chamber floor, later telling reporters that this could include fines.
Legislative walkouts often merely delay the passage of a bill, including in 2021, when many Democrats left Texas for 38 days to protest proposed voting measures. Once they returned, Republicans passed that measure.
Lawmakers cannot pass bills in the 150-member House without two-thirds of the members present. Democrats hold 62 seats in the majority-Republican chamber, and at least 51 left the state, according to a Democratic aide.
In a separate interview with Fox News on Monday, Paxton said that Democrats would face some sort of penalty and noted that Burrows “sets the consequences, so he can find them.”
