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Texas’ runaway Democrat lawmakers could be headed for a protracted exile from the state.
“This could literally last years,” exclaimed Governor Greg Abbot in an interview on Fox News Channel. “This is the most un-Texan thing we’ve ever seen. From the time of the Alamo to today, Texans stand and fight.”
Last week dozens of state House members left the state to prevent a vote on a plan to redraw the state’s congressional districts. The lower chamber is set to reconvene Monday afternoon.
Since the lawmakers fled, to Democrat-run states like California, Illinois and Massachusetts, the House has convened repeatedly, and then accomplished nothing because it needs a quorum, a minimum number of members present, to conduct any votes.
“What these cowards did, they didn’t stand and fight,” Abbot said. “They fled and went to leftist blue states.”
Abbot has promised to have the fugitive lawmakers arrested. Attorney general Ken Paxton and House Speaker Dustin Burrows have filed complaints in Illinois and in California to have them arrested there.
Paxton’s office reports that he has filed a lawsuit in the state Supreme Court to officially declare their seats “vacated.”
And he vows not to let the issue drop.
“In Texas I’m authorized to call a special session every 30 thirty days,” he said. “It lasts 30 days. As soon as this one is over, I’m going to call another one, then another one, then another one, then another one, then another one. If they show back up in the state of Texas, they will be arrested and taken to the Capitol. And if they want to evade that arrest, they’re going to have to stay outside of the state of Texas for literally years.”