The Texas House failed to reach the quorum needed to vote on a new congressional map that could have given Republicans five new seats, after House Democrats forced a legislative standstill.
The Texas House of Representatives is at a standstill after Democrats fled the state over the weekend to prevent a vote on a bill to redraw Texas’s congressional maps. The bill heavily favors Republicans with five new GOP-leaning districts, something President Trump has openly advocated for.
Republicans control the Texas House by a wide margin, but without Democrats present, their 88 members alone fall short of the 100-member quorum required to conduct business.
“To be absolutely clear, leaving the state doesn’t stop this House from doing its work, it just delays it”, Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows told the members in the chamber after failing to reach a quorum.
He then asked for the chamber doors to be locked and quickly passed a motion for the Sergeant-at-Arms to issue civil arrest warrants for unexcused, absent House members.
Many of the missing lawmakers fled to Democratic strongholds New York and Illinois rather than show up in the Texas Capitol in Austin for a vote they were certain to lose.
“This is like two football teams coming out of the locker room at halftime and the team that’s ahead says they want to change the rules for the second half because they want to win the game”, State Rep.
