While their evening counterparts were nowhere to be seen on Monday, ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Today followed through early Tuesday in celebrating Texas Democrats returning to the Lone Star State, painting them as conquering heroes for (temporarily) halting the GOP-proposed congressional maps and trumpeting their latest demand for attention.
“We’re going to turn now to the showdown in Texas. A Democratic state lawmaker is locked inside of the state capitol in the latest move in an ongoing battle over Republican plan to redraw the congressional map,” declared ABC co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos.
Chief Washington correspondent and three-time anti-Trump author Jon Karl picked up from there:
Texas House Democrats returned to the state capitol on Monday after a two-week walk-out as they tried to stop a redistricting effort that heavily favored Republicans. But one of those state lawmakers is now stuck there, locked inside the Capitol building, and officials say she can’t go home unless she agrees to a mandatory law enforcement escort. This morning, Texas Democratic lawmaker Nicole Collier is waking locked inside the state Capitol. She has been there since Monday afternoon, because she refused to sign a permission slip for a law enforcement escort home.
Touting the far-left crowds inside the Austin complex demanding Collier be let out, Karl recapped the previous proceedings and that Texas House Democrats “returned on Monday, greeted by cheers as they walked the halls of the capitol.”
“On Monday, the Republican House Speaker announced that all lawmakers who left the state still face civil arrest warrants and the doors of the House floor would lock them inside unless they agreed to leave with a police escort...But Collier refused to sign the document agreeing to the police escort. Instead, remaining inside the statehouse,” he added.
In one of her many videos made from the floor, Collier insisted she was “tired of being pushed around and told what to do when I disagree with the actions of our government,” but was joined by two colleagues for support.
Spoiler alert: Voting is how you voice disagreements with the government.
Over on Today, correspondent Ryan Chandler beamed in from Austin that Democrats have returned to “fac[e] up new legal consequences and setting up a vote that could trigger a response far outside of Texas.”
Then came the fluff for Collier and her colleagues, including lamenting he couldn’t interview her in-person (click “expand”):
CHANDLER: The standoff in the Lone Star State may be over, but the showdown over Congress has just begun. Texas Democratic lawmakers returning to Austin to cheers — [CHEERS] — and consequences —
STATE HOUSE SPEAKER DUSTIN BURROWS (R-TX): The door keeper will lock the doors.
CHANDLER: — ending their quorum break, but not escaping law enforcement. Republican leaders barring Democrats from leaving the chamber without a police escort. State agents seen in plainclothes walking lawmakers around the capitol, a sign to watch them around the clock.
STATE HOUSE REPRESENTATIVE ANN JOHNSON (D-TX): That’s not American. There is nothing about this that is normal or constitutional.
CHANDLER: The Texas House speaker’s office tells us the escorts are in accordance with House rules authorizing leadership to compel attendance. But one Democrat refusing to comply, sitting at her desk on the House floor in protest. [TO COLLIER] You’re right inside these doors, but we can’t get to each other because you say you are not free to leave.
[SCREEN WIPE]
STATE REPRESENTATIVE NICOLE COLLIER (D-TX): They’re showing they have power over us, and that’s why they’re using the force of law enforcement.
Collier at least gave voice to Texas Republicans with sound from Governor Greg Abbott on Fox News plus Representative Brian Harrison blasting Democrats inside the Capitol for not having had “any problem whatsoever with re-drawing maps to maximize political partisan advantage,” but now do because “a Republican state is finally standing up.”
To see the relevant transcripts from August 19, click here (for ABC) and here (for NBC).