Civil Arrest Warrants for non-attending Democrats in Texas.

The Texas House speaker said he signed civil arrest warrants for Democrats who did not show up to the special session today. State House Democrats fled Sunday in a bid to block a redrawing of the state’s congressional map, which was orchestrated by Republicans with the support of President Donald Trump. Legal experts say the civil arrest warrants are likely unenforceable outside of state lines.

The Texas House is set to convene again, after it didn’t reach quorum. Lawmakers are meeting under a special session that can last for only 30 days, and the current session will end August 19. The proposal put forward last week by Texas Republicans could potentially eliminate five Democratic US House seats as the GOP enters the 2026 midterms with a razor-thin majority.

Possible consequences for absent lawmakers: Republican Governor Greg Abbott previously threatened to remove and replace lawmakers who didn’t show up, equating an absence to an “abandonment or forfeiture of an elected state office”.

The Importance –

The Texas Constitution requires two-thirds of the state House present to conduct legislative business, so without dozens of Democrats, there could not be a vote on the new map. Republicans face a narrow margin in the US House, and the new map would eliminate five Democratic seats ahead of the midterms. The effort to redraw the district lines was pushed by President Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has ordered the state’s Department of Public Safety to arrest the Democrats and Texas Rangers to investigate those who fled out of state. Earlier, Abbott had warned that Democrats who left Texas could have to forfeit their seats in the legislature and potentially face bribery charges if they accept donations to help pay the $500 fine for each day they miss.

Civil arrest warrants: The lawmakers who were at today’s session passed a motion authorising the House speaker to issue civil warrants for the arrests of Democrats who did not attend. Speaker Dustin Burrows said he signed them and was working Texas law enforcement “to locate members”.

However, legal experts say the civil arrest warrants are likely unenforceable outside of state lines. Most of the lawmakers fled to Democratic-led states: New York, Illinois and Massachusetts.

Some Democrats who left: State Representative John Bucy said today that he and other Democrats are “running into the fight to stand up for our democracy”. While, State Representative James Talarico said he is fighting for his constituents and that “if law enforcement arrests me, I will go peacefully”.

Another State Representative Linda Garcia said she is not worried about threats and that she was “hired by the people in my district to do what is in their best interest”.

It is noteworthy that other Republican-led states are considering following Texas’ lead as Democratic governors weigh their options to retaliate with their own mid-decade redistricting efforts. Dive deeper into the political landscape here.

While reacting to the alleged threat of ‘Issuing Arrest Warrants’, Sarah Chen, a voting rights attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, told Reporters that the civil warrants may ultimately be meaningless given that the lawmakers are outside of Texas and instead in three Democratic-led states: New York, Illinois and Massachusetts. “That is why this case and in previous recent quorum breaks they have left the state to escape the jurisdiction of the marshals and other arresting officers in the state”, she said.

And since the Democrats aren’t breaking any criminal or state laws, Chen said, it wouldn’t be possible for officials to seek the lawmakers’ extradition from the states they’re holed up in. “Any sort of work with other states or federal law enforcement would be more of like calling in a favor rather than any sort of legal obligation”, she said.

Chad Dunn, a longtime Texas voting rights lawyer and legal director of UCLA’s Voting Rights Project, echoed that opinion, saying Burrows’ warrants “have no authority outside of the state” unless another state chooses “to enforce them under the laws of the other state”.

Monday’s action by lawmakers to approve a civil warrant for the absent lawmakers “is just the procedure of what you do when people walk out,” said Andrew Cates, a lawyer in Texas who specialises in legislative and political law. “No one is scared of it, if they’ve left the state. They haven’t broken any laws that anyone knows of, so extradition is not going to work”, he added.

Team Maverick