The 3 pm Monday deadline passed for missing Texas House members to return to the state's special Legislative session, so the remaining members voted to issue arrest warrants for the more than 50 lawmakers who fled the state on Sunday to avoid a vote on redistricting
Governor Greg Abbott says he will now take his next steps, which could include ordering the arrests of Democrats who left the state Sunday evening to avoid a vote on redistricting.
"Instead of showing up to work to do the jobs they were elected to do, House Democrat members have fled the state in a cowardly desertion of their responsibilities as elected officials," Gov. Abbott wrote in a statement Monday afternoon.
"I am prepared to do everything in my power to hold them because these liberal lawmakers are not above the law."
The Governor says he has already called on Department of Public Safety troopers to track down the fleeing Democrats.
The House arrest warrants will compel state troopers and the sergeant-at-arms to arrest the missing members if they can be found, but the warrants apply only to those who are within state lines; all the Democrats who fled are now in New York, Illinois and Massachusetts.