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- Texas AG says he's filed suit to remove 13 absent state Democrats from office</p>
<p>OREN OPPENHEIM, IVAN PEREIRA and BRITTANY SHEPHERDAugust 8, 2025 at 4:53 PM</p>
<p>Texas Democrats on Friday again defied Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and the state GOP and did not show for a vote on a Republican-proposed redistricting plan</p>
<p>Shortly after, the state's Republican attorney general went to court to try to remove some of them from office.</p>
<p>The GOP-proposed new congressional maps would give Republicans more seats in Congress -- potentially allowing the GOP to keep control of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington.</p>
<p>Despite threats of arrest, restriction on pay and calls from the governor that they be removed from office, the majority of the Democrats did not appear for the special session when the Texas House convened Friday afternoon and no quorum was reached.</p>
<p>Brandon Bell/Getty Images - PHOTO: U.S. Congressional District maps are displayed as the Senate Special Committee on Congressional Redistricting meets to hear invited testimony on Congressional plan C2308 at the Texas State Capitol on August 6, 2025 in Austin, Texas.</p>
<p>Democratic state Rep. Gene Wu, the Texas House minority leader, earlier told ABC News Thursday that he believes his caucus would hold out on Friday and once again deny the legislature a quorum, though he said they would be willing to come back to Austin if state Republicans promise to focus solely on other issues before the special session, including flood mitigation and disaster preparedness.</p>
<p>Members who were present Friday do not have to return in person until Monday at 2 p.m. ET, when the Texas House Republicans will attempt to reach a quorum for the fourth time.</p>
<p>Democrats who have fled the state appear likely to stay away until Aug. 19, the end of the special session.</p>
<p>The defiance took place as Abbott has also requested the Texas Supreme Court to remove Wu from office.</p>
<p>Wu's attorneys repsonded Friday afternoon asking the court to deny the governor's request.</p>
<p>The attorneys argue, in part, that the court does not have jurisdiction over state legislators, that Rep. Wu would have a right to a jury trial, which the state supreme court cannot provide. That the governor does not have the standing to bring the case, according to Wu's attorneys who added Abbott's suit would "fail in any court."</p>
<p>His lawyers also argued that the state constitution covers lawmakers for quorum breaking in certain circumstances.</p>
<p>Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told Fox News on Friday that he is willing to take other Democrats to court if they don't return.</p>
<p>MORE: Texas governor orders police to find and arrest Democrats who fled over redistricting</p>
<p>"If they show up today, we're all happy, we can get our business done, and everybody is good. If they do not show up, we will be in an Illinois courtroom ... [trying] to get them back to the state of Texas, hold them in contempt, and if they refuse to come, hopefully put them in jail," he said.</p>
<p>He shrugged off concerns that the optics of arresting Democrats would give them a public opinion win.</p>
<p>"I think in Texas -- I don't know what it's like in other states, but I do know in Texas, people expect their representatives to go to work," Paxton said.</p>
<p>Paxton said on Friday afternoon that he had filed a lawsuit with the Texas Supreme Court petitioning for 13 of the over 50 Texas House Democratic members who left the state to break quorum to be removed from their positions.</p>
<p>The filing argued that these members "have absented themselves from the State with the express purpose of denying the House a quorum so that the Legislature as a whole cannot carry out its constitutional lawmaking function."</p>
<p>"These cowards deliberately sabotaged the constitutional process and violated the oath they swore to uphold. Their out-of-state rebellion cannot go unchecked, and the business of Texas must go on," the AG said in a statement.</p>
<p>Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows targeted the wallets of the absent Democrats in an effort to draw them back.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Burrows says that he expects more suits filed in other states to come after the one filed by Abbott Thursday to try to enforce the civil arrest warrants out of state, and that another legislator contacted the Sergeant at Arms of the Illinois House of Representatives asking for their assistance in bringing back members.</p>
<p>He added later that if the Department of Public Safety civilly arrests "our absent colleagues" during the weekend, legislators are on call and need to come back to Austin with a minimum of six hours' notice.</p>
<p>Abbott has called for the Democrats' arrest, and Republican Sen. John Cornyn has called on the FBI to track down those elected officials.</p>
<p>Congressional Democrats who sit on the House Judiciary and House Oversight Committee sent a letter Friday to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel asking them to clarify and explain if and how their agencies are involved in locating Democratic Texas lawmakers who left the state to prevent a quorum in order to stop the new congressional maps.</p>
<p>"We write with great concern about the abuse of federal public safety resources for completely political purposes and without a law enforcement rationale that is reportedly taking place right now," the members wrote.</p>
<p>The governor said in a podcast released Friday that he was willing to go further than creating more than five new seats the GOP could flip if the Democrats continued to block the GOP effort.</p>
<p>Jacquelyn Martin/AP - PHOTO: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaks during a roundtable discussion with President Donald Trump, first responders and local officials at Hill Country Youth Event Center in Kerrville, Texas, during a tour to observe flood damage, July 11, 2025.</p>
<p>"We may make it six or seven or eight new seats we're going to be adding on the Republican side," he said during an interview on the podcast "Ruthless."</p>
<p>MORE: GOP's Texas map has Austin residents sharing district with rural Texans 300 miles away</p>
<p>In the meantime, Texas Democrats have fled to various blue states, including Illinois and California.</p>
<p>Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images - PHOTO: Texas Rep. Gene Wu speaks in front of Democratic members of Congress and Texas House Democrats during a news conference, August 4, 2025 in Warrenville, Illinois.</p>
<p>California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is slated to hold a news conference with those Democrats Friday afternoon, along with Rep. Nancy Pelosi and California state Democrats to show their support.</p>
<p>"The governor and state leaders have floated a potential statewide ballot measure that would reaffirm California's commitment to national independent redistricting and allow voters to temporarily adjust the state's congressional map only if Texas or other GOP-led states manipulate theirs," Newsom's office said in a statement.</p>
<p>California Democrats are preparing to respond to Texas Republicans' proposed new congressional districts by possibly targeting five GOP-held districts in the Golden State, sources recently confirmed to ABC station KGO-TV. But the office of the California Secretary of State told ABC News that if legislators don't move fast, it becomes nearly impossible for the state to run a statewide election that meets federal standards.</p>
<p>ABC station KGO-TV's Monica Madden contributed to this report.</p>
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