Topline
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wants to oust from office the Democratic leader who fled the state to block Republican's attempt at redistricting — though it’s unclear if the latest move in the escalating battle over redistricting will actually work.
Abbott filed a lawsuit with the state Supreme Court Tuesday that asks the court to declare that state Rep. Gene Wu, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, has forfeited his office by leaving the state.
Wu and more than 50 of his Democratic colleagues left Texas on Sunday in order to block GOP lawmakers from changing the state’s congressional map to more heavily favor Republicans; their absence left the legislature short of the quorum that’s necessary in order to hold votes.
Abbott argued the Supreme Court should expel Wu because the Democrat abdicated his position by leaving the state and refusing to show up for work, writing, “This Court should make clear that a legislator who does not wish to perform his duties will be stripped of them.”
Texas law gives the state Supreme Court power to issue what’s called a “writ of quo warranto”—Latin for “by what warrant”—against state officials, which is a legal determination over whether the official has the right to hold office.
Paxton also said he will take legal action against Democratic lawmakers if they don’t return to Texas by Friday, invoking a separate state law that gives attorneys general and district attorneys the power to file “quo warranto” petitions in court if a “public officer does an act or allows an act that by law causes a forfeiture of his office.”
Wu has remained defiant—saying in a statement that leaving the state “was not an abandonment of my office; it was a fulfillment of my oath”—and it’s unclear if Abbott and Paxton’s legal gambit will work, whether for Wu or as a broader effort to expel Democratic lawmakers.
Abbott has asked the state Supreme Court to rule on whether Wu has forfeited his office by Thursday at 5 p.m. local time, though Paxton asked justices to hold off on making their decision until Friday, which is Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows’ deadline for Democratic lawmakers to return to the state. Paxton has said he “intends to pursue all available judicial remedies” if Democrats don’t return by Friday, including through the “quo warranto” petition process. It remains to be seen if the attorney general will also take aim at Wu specifically, or if he could file more legal challenges against all of the absent Democrats.
“I took an oath to the Constitution, not to a politician’s agenda, and I will not be the one to break that oath,” Wu said in a statement Tuesday responding to Abbott’s lawsuit and allegations that the lawmaker has abdicated his duty as a legislator. “When a governor conspires with a disgraced president to ram through a racist gerrymandered map, my constitutional duty is to not be a willing participant … Unable to defend his corrupt agenda on its merits, Greg Abbott now desperately seeks to silence my dissent by removing a duly-elected official from office.”
It will ultimately be up to the courts to determine whether or not lawmakers can be removed. The legal statute that Abbott invoked in his lawsuit doesn’t specify a legal process for the Supreme Court issuing a writ of quo warranto, and it remains to be seen if justices will draw out the process by asking for a hearing or additional court briefs to be filed. The separate statute giving Paxton and local district attorneys authority to ask courts to remove lawmakers says that if there’s “probable ground” to challenge a person’s office, local judges will ultimately decide the outcome of those requests. That suggests that any effort to remove lawmakers could take a while to play out, particularly if challenges are filed against multiple lawmakers in different courts. That would leave it up to each individual judge to determine when any rulings could come out, Politico notes, and Paxton told right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson that bringing “quo warranto” challenges won’t result in an “immediate answer” over whether lawmakers can be removed. “We’d have to go through the court process, and we’d have to file … in districts that are not friendly to Republicans,” Paxton told Johnson, noting “every, every district would be different.” “We’d have to go sue in every legislator’s home district to try to execute on that idea,” the attorney general said.
It’s still unclear how the Texas Supreme Court could rule on Abbott’s request to expel Wu. In a 2021 legal opinion, Paxton said lawmakers breaking a quorum could constitute an “abandonment of office” that justifies removing them, but that opinion is non-binding, and Paxton said the issue must ultimately be decided by the courts. The state’s Supreme Court is made up exclusively of Republicans, including multiple justices that Abbott appointed himself. Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock is also Abbott’s former general counsel, and the governor said when he appointed the justice in 2018 that he “wanted to make sure that the person I appointed was going to make decisions that I know how they are going to decide.” That being said, Blackrock authored a 2021 opinion that said the Texas Constitution “does enable quorum breaking by a minority faction,” suggesting Democrats’ actions are lawful—though he also said the Constitution allows lawmakers to impose penalties in order to compel members’ attendance. Legal experts cited by the Texas Tribune argued it’s unlikely that taking action to break a quorum would be considered abdicating a lawmaker’s duty, as Abbott claims. “I am aware of absolutely no authority that says breaking quorum is the same as the intent to abandon a seat,” University of Missouri constitutional law expert Charles “Rocky” Rhodes told the Tribune, arguing that would be “inconsistent with the very text of the Texas Constitution.”
Democrats left the state in order to halt a special session of the legislature that’s slated to end in late August. They would have to stay out of state for even longer in order to actually block the redistricting process, however, as Abbott could simply call a new special session whenever they return. Lawmakers would have to stay out of Texas until at least November to successfully stop the new maps, Rice University political science professor Mark P. Jones told the Texas Tribune. That’s when filing opens for the 2026 midterms, meaning new congressional districts would have to be set by that point. It’s unclear if Democrats will successfully be able to stay out of state for that long, given lawmakers’ commitments at home and a $500 fine that accrues per lawmaker for each day they remain out of state.
Texas Democrats’ decision to leave the state in order to block redistricting comes as the issue of changing states’ congressional maps outside the normal 10-year timeframe has become a national issue ahead of the 2026 midterms. Democrats are historically favored to fare better in the midterms as the minority party, prompting Republicans in states like Texas to try and manipulate congressional districts to their advantage and add GOP-leaning seats. In addition to Texas, Republican officials in states such as Missouri, Florida and Indiana have at least floated the idea of redistricting—prompting Democrats in states like California, New York and Maryland to also consider redrawing their maps in order to balance out any advantage Republicans give themselves. Texas has become the first flashpoint in the redistricting debate, with Democrats leaving the state Sunday afternoon—repeating a playbook that Texas Democrats have used before to stymie the legislature, most recently in 2021. Abbott’s lawsuit Tuesday came after the governor previously threatened over the weekend to take legal action against the lawmakers. The Texas House has separately issued arrest warrants for the missing lawmakers. Those warrants are ineffective while the lawmakers remain out of state, however, as Democratic lawmakers in the states where the legislators have relocated—primarily Illinois—have refused to extradite them to Texas to be prosecuted.