Texas Republicans insisted that Democrats have around-the-clock police escorts to ensure they wouldn’t leave again and scuttle Wednesday’s planned House vote on a new political map.
Democratic state Rep. Nicole Collier refused to come to the Texas state Capitol for two weeks. Now she won’t leave, and fellow Democrats are joining her protest.
Collier was among dozens of Democrats who left the state for the Democratic havens of California, Illinois, Massachusetts and New York to delay the Republican-controlled Legislature’s approval of redrawn congressional districts sought by President Donald Trump. When they returned Monday, Republicans insisted that Democrats have around-the-clock police escorts to ensure they wouldn’t leave again and scuttle Wednesday’s planned House vote on a new political map.
But Collier wouldn’t sign what Democrats called the “permission slip” needed to leave the House chamber, a half-page form allowing Department of Public Safety troopers to follow them. She spent Monday night and Tuesday on the House floor, where she set up a livestream while her Democratic colleagues outside had plainclothes officers following them to their offices and homes.
Dallas-area Rep. Linda Garcia said she drove three hours home from Austin with an officer following her. When she went grocery shopping, he went down every aisle with her, pretending to shop, she said. As she spoke to The Associated Press by phone, two unmarked cars with officers inside were parked outside her home.
“It’s a weird feeling,” she said. “The only way to explain the entire process is: It’s like I’m in a movie.”
The trooper assignments, ordered by Republican House Speaker Dustin Burrows, was another escalation of a redistricting battle that has widened across the country.
