Texas House Democrats met with police surveillance upon return to state Capitol after quorum break

AUSTIN, Texas (CN) — Texas Democratic lawmaker Nicole Collier is poised to be stuck in the state’s House chamber until Wednesday, after she refused to sign a permission slip that would have allowed her to leave the Capitol only if she agreed to have a law enforcement escort follow her this week.

After a two-week walkout, many Texas House Democrats had returned to the state Capitol on Monday to begin a new line of attack against state Republicans’ redistricting efforts. They had agreed to end their protest only after the special legislative session had ended — and Democratic lawmakers in California had released their own redistricting plans to counter the efforts of the reigning powers in Texas.

Just outside the House Chamber, supporters held signs and cheered as Democrats filed through the doors and headed to their desks. Many Republicans welcomed their colleagues with a smile and a hug, mere days after voting to send state police after their colleagues who had absconded to Illinois, California and New York.

“No one here needs a reminder that the last few weeks have been contentious, but from this point forward, the rules of engagement are clear," Republican House Speaker Dustin Burrows told the chamber Monday. “Members, the House has been through a tumultuous two weeks, but this institution long predates us, and it will long outlast each of us. Representatives come and go, issues rise and fall, but this body has endured wars, economic depressions and quorum breaks dating back to the very first session. It will withstand this, too.”

But while attempting to move forward from the bitter fighting that has transpired, Burrows did not relent from his mission to have absent members return and remain at the Capitol.

Last Friday, the first special session came to an unceremonious end with no legislation being sent to Governor Greg Abbott, who called for a second special session to begin just hours after the first ended.

Members who are still absent, of which there are a few, still run the risk of being arrested and brought back to Austin and will incur a $500 fine for each day they are absent. Those fines will be added to the $7,000 each member racked up over the course of their 14-day protest.

And the Democrats who were present on Monday were told they could only leave if they obtained written permission from the speaker. Moreover, they had to agree to be escorted by a Texas Department of Public Safety officer for the foreseeable future.

When state Representative Collier, a Democrat from Forth Worth, refused to sign the permission slip and have an officer with her at all times, she became effectively trapped on the House floor where she has remained as of 7:30 p.m. Central time.

A press release from the House Democratic Caucus, described Collier as a political prisoner for refusing to agree to being surveilled.

“I refuse to sign away my dignity as a duly elected representative just so Republicans can control my movements and monitor me with police escorts,” Collier said in a statement. “My community is majority-minority, and they expect me to stand up for their representation.”

Hours into her detention, Collier filed a habeas corpus petition with a court in Travis County, requesting a judge to declare her restraint illegal. In the filing, she argues that the House seargent-at-arms has the authority to compel the attendance of absent member. However, she is present therefore contradicting the need for her to be held in the House’s custody, she said. Moreover, Collier noted in the petition that there is no upcoming action for which a quorum is required, thus making her attendance a moot point.

Collier has asked the court to order the sergeant-at-arms to release her and be prohibited in the future from restraining her unless she is physically absent during the legislative session.

While leaving the House floor Monday, Democratic Representatives Toni Rose of Dallas and Gene Wu of Houston posed with their slips for reporters.

“This is an unnecessary use of state resources,” Rose remarked.

Representative Ann Johnson, a Houston Democrat who joined the quorum break, told Courthouse News that Abbott has hijacked DPS to meet his political needs.

“I think it’s really comical that you start by saying we’re going to get back to normal and back to decorum, and then you put a police officer on me as an American citizen,” Johnson said in an interview. “I am not free, and my only crime is that I am an elected Democrat. That’s not okay. This is not normal. Nobody should treat this as normal.”

In response to the Democrats’ flight from the state, Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton have also filed petitions with the Texas Supreme Court, requesting that those members who fled be removed from office. Abbott and Paxton assert that by fleeing the state, the members abandoned their seats. But now that the members have returned, expressly to fight Republican redistricting through debate, it is unclear how those suits will be received by the all-Republican members of the high court.

While the fight over quorum has come to an end, the war over mid-decade redistricting is far from over.

Republicans in the Legislature are moving swiftly to pass their proposals for newly drawn congressional districts that would favor their party in the 2026 midterm elections. If passed, Republicans would satisfy a request made by President Donald Trump to get the GOP five additional seats in Congress from the Lone Star State.

Since Abbott added mid-decade redistricting to the first special session agenda in mid-July, Democrats in the Legislature have been unified in their opposition to redrawing the maps. They have argued that the maps are discriminatory to diverse urban communities by breaking them up and drawing them in with largely rural, Anglo, Republican-friendly districts. It is that exact accusation that they aim to bake into the legislative record during this second special session to give lawyers the ammunition needed to challenge the maps in court.

“The maps that they have drawn are grossly unconstitutional and discriminatory,” Johnson said. “That will be a fight for the courts, so now we take that fight to the courts.”

Republicans are not wasting any time during this special session. The House Select Committee on Redistricting advanced their new version of the map Monday evening along a party line vote of 12-8. The Senate’s Redistricting Committee also approved an identical version to the House’s on Sunday. Both chambers are expected to take up the proposals for a final vote before sending them to the other for approval.

In addition to redistricting, Abbott has called on lawmakers toaddress the needs of victims of the recent July 4 floods, approve new regulations to protect those living in flood-prone areas and regulate the state’s legally nebulous consumable hemp market.

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