(CNN) — Texas Republicans on Tuesday failed again to move forward with their redistricting efforts despite issuing civil arrest warrants for Democrats who fled the state to stop them.
A day after authorizing the warrants against Democrats, Republican House Speaker Dustin Burrows said the Texas Department of Public Safety is “actively working to compel their attendance.” However, he said the agency “will need some time to work, and we will try again to make quorum on Friday.”
The warrants empowered state troopers to arrest the absent Democrats and bring them to the Capitol. But the Democrats fled to Illinois, New York and Massachusetts, three Democratic-led states outside Texas law enforcement’s authority without local officials’ cooperation.
“That’s why in 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,” Sarah Chen, a voting rights attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, told CNN.
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.
State Rep. Lulu Flores said Tuesday that she and several other Texas Democrats who traveled to Illinois “plan to stay as long as it takes” to stall the aggressive Republican redistricting push, which has the support of President Donald Trump.
“You just heard that the special session lasts till August 19. That’s the very least time that we expect to be out here,” Flores said in an interview on CNN.
Issuing arrest warrants “is just the procedure of what you do when people walk out,” said Andrew Cates, a lawyer in Texas who specializes 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.
When does the Texas House meet next?
After failing to meet quorum on Tuesday, the state House is scheduled to try again Friday at 2 p.m. ET (1 p.m. CT). It’s not yet clear whether any of the more than 50 absent Democrats will return to the state. If they do not, the House will still not have enough lawmakers present to reach the two-thirds attendance needed for quorum.
What are Texas Republicans saying?
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement he had ordered DPS “to locate, arrest, and return to the House chamber any member who has abandoned their duty to Texans.”
“This order will remain in effect until all missing Democrat House members are accounted for and brought to the Texas Capitol,” he said.
The House Democrats’ decision to flee the state and deny majority Republicans a quorum comes as the state’s legislature seeks to redraw the Texas congressional districts to make five seats more favorable for the GOP. Doing so would improve the party’s chances of holding on to the US House, where they have a three-seat majority, next November.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said he would do “everything in my power” to force Democrats back to Austin.
“It’s imperative that they be swiftly arrested, punished, and face the full force of the law for turning their backs on the people of Texas,” he said in a statement.
Could fleeing Democrats face fines?
Republicans tried a similar tactic to force an end to Democrats’ 2021 quorum break — that one a failed attempt to block restrictive new voting laws. The House sergeant-at-arms sent warrants to those Democrats, deputized law enforcement to find them, and even dropped paperwork off at some members’ homes, though no arrests were made.
The Texas Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that the House does have the authority to physically compel the attendance of absent members.
In the wake of that 2021 quorum break, the Texas House also adopted new rules that allow for $500-per-day fines for those who are absent. Lawmakers cannot use their campaign or official funds to cover their own fines. Those new rules have not yet been tested in state court, Chen said.
Cates noted the fine for absenteeism has not been enshrined in state law. If a lawmaker refused to pay, he said: “How do you enforce it?”
Abbott issued warnings about potential bribery charges — and suggested he will seek to remove the absent Democrats from office and replace them — in a Fox News interview Monday.
“I believe they have forfeited their seats in the state legislature because they’re not doing the job they were elected to do,” he said.
Flores said Abbott’s legal threats and warnings of potential bribery charges were “upsetting” but, she added, “I don’t know that he has anything to back that up.”
“None of them are accepting money right now — at least I am not personally — to defray any of the fines,” Flores said of the Democrats. “We left fully knowing that we were taking great risks, but it’s important to us to save our democracy in our state and also our nation.”
CNN’s David Wright, Devan Cole and Fredreka Schouten contributed to this report.
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