Greg Abbott Escalates War With Democrats Over Gerrymandering Plan
Texas Governor Greg Abbott is threatening to expel any Democratic legislators who don’t show up to the Texas Capitol by Monday afternoon—after Democrats fled the state to stop a vote on Republicans’ obviously gerrymandered congressional maps.
Fifty-one Texas Democrats left the Lone Star State over the weekend, thus denying Republicans the two-thirds quorum needed for votes in the state’s 150-member legislature. They plan to stay away for the duration of the two-week special legislation in which the House is scheduled to vote on the GOP’s new congressional maps.
“We’re walking out on a rigged system that refuses to listen to the people we represent,” said state Representative Gene Wu, who chairs the Texas House Democratic Caucus. “As of today, this corrupt special session is over.”
In a statement Sunday, Abbott fulminated against the Democrats. “This truancy ends now,” he wrote. “The derelict Democrat House members must return to Texas and be in attendance when the House reconvenes at 3:00 PM on Monday, August 4, 2025.”
Citing a 2021 opinion by Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton—who, during this ongoing gerrymandering saga, has called Democrats “cowards” who ought to be “hunt[ed] down”—Abbott said he may treat quorum-breakers as having forfeited their offices, in which case they, purportedly, could be removed from office and “swiftly” replaced.
He also accused the Democratic lawmakers of possible felonies for receiving donations to offset daily $500 fines for their absence.
The Paxton opinion, however, does not say that lawmakers who break quorum can be removed, but rather that “this is a fact-specific question only resolvable by a court,” noted Politico’s Kyle Cheney. It also refrained from deciding on the constitutionality of breaking a quorum.
Texas Democrats replied to Abbott with a storied Texas battle cry, issuing a four-word statement: “Come and take it.”