Texas Governor Greg Abbott has said he is taking legal action to remove from office dozens of Democrats who have fled the state to block a plan to redraw electoral boundaries.
He filed a lawsuit with the Texas Supreme Court seeking to fire Democratic legislator, Gene Wu, whom he called the “ringleader” of a plot to “hijack” state government.
While the filing focuses on Wu, Abbott said in a statement that the departure of more than 50 Democrats would “constitute abandonment of their office, justifying their removal”.
The redrawn congressional map would create five more Republican-leaning seats in the US House of Representatives in Washington DC, where Republicans hold a slim majority.
Gerrymandering – redrawing electoral boundaries to favour a political party – has been a practice of both Democrats and Republicans nationwide over the years.
But typically, states undergo redistricting every 10 years, when voting maps are redrawn to account for population changes noted in the US census. Texas last re-drew its congressional lines in 2021, just after the 2020 census, and wouldn’t typically change those lines again until the next population count in five years.
“Texas House Democrats abandoned their duty to Texans, and there must be consequences,” the governor said in a statement.
At least two-thirds of the 150-member state legislative body in Texas must be present to proceed with the vote. The quorum became unreachable after the Democratic lawmakers fled the state at the weekend.
“The court’s decision will determine if only one third of the Legislature can dictate the outcome for 100% of Texans,” the lawsuit says.
It argues: “Most people who repeatedly fail to show up for work get fired. Public servants must be held to the same standard.”
The filing asks the state’s highest court to grant a rarely used writ of quo warranto to oust Wu from his office.
Quo warranto is a court action used to resolve a dispute over whether a specific person has the legal right to hold public office.
The lawsuit came a day after the Republican governor ordered that the absent Democrats be arrested and returned to the statehouse so a vote on redistricting can go ahead.
At a White House event on Tuesday, President Donald Trump said the FBI “may have to” help Texas authorities in locating and arresting the lawmakers.
“I know they want them back, not only the attorney general … the governor of Texas is demanding they come back. So, a lot of people are demanding they come back,” Trump said.
Wu, who is chairman of the Texas House Democratic Caucus, told the Texas Tribune that denying a quorum was “not an abandonment of my office”, but “a fulfillment of my oath”.
He accused Abbott of seeking to “silence my dissent by removing a duly-elected official from office”, and argued “my constitutional duty is to not be a willing participant”.
The lawsuit asks the Republican-dominated Texas Supreme Court to issue its ruling by 17:00 local time on Thursday – one day before the House session is scheduled to resume.
All nine justices on the Texas Supreme Court are Republican, and the chief justice was formerly Abbott’s general counsel.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is pursuing a separate action to have the Democrats’ seats declared “vacant”, said on Monday the legal process would possibly be long and drawn-out.
Paxton told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson that to remove the lawmakers, separate lawsuits would need to be filed against each one in their individual counties.
“We’d have to go through a court process, and we’d have to file that maybe in districts that are not friendly to Republicans,” Paxton said. “So it’s a challenge because every district would be different.”
Democrats have defended their decision to break quorum.
Speaking to BBC News from Chicago, Texas Democrat Ana-María Rodríguez Ramos said: “We have to use every tool at our disposal… to continue to protect our democracy.”
Trump has urged on Texas Republicans in the redistricting process.
He told CNBC on Tuesday: “I got the highest vote [last year] in the history of Texas, as you probably know, and we are entitled to five more seats.”
Now Democrats nationwide are threatening to up the ante with tit-for-tat tactics, although they face legal hurdles.
Democrats in California want to reshape their own district maps and shed five Republican seats, although voters would have to approve such a plan. Democrats in Wisconsin filed lawsuits last month seeking to redistrict.
New York’s Democratic Governor wants to redistrict, too, but doing so would require an amendment to the state constitution.
Republican governors in Florida and Missouri have expressed willingness to redistrict congressional seats in those states.
Ohio Republicans will draw a new map that could wrest away at least two Democratic seats before next year’s midterm elections.
