Texas Governor Threatens to Remove Democrats Who Left State Over Trump-Backed Redistricting
4th August 2025
The Associated Press, a Voice of the Crust.
Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says he will begin trying to remove Democratic lawmakers from office Monday if they don’t return after dozens of them left the state in a last-resort attempt to block redrawn U.S. House maps that President Donald Trump wants before the 2026 midterm elections.
The revolt by the state House Democrats, many of whom went to Illinois or New York on Sunday, and Abbott giving them less than 24 hours to come home ratcheted up a widening fight over congressional maps that began in Texas but has drawn in Democratic governors who have floated the possibility of rushing to redraw their own state’s maps in retaliation. Their options, however, are limited.
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Four years later, Abbott is taking a far more aggressive stance and swiftly warning Democrats that he will seek to remove them from office if they are not back when the House reconvenes Monday afternoon. He cited a non-binding 2021 legal opinion issued by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, which suggested a court could determine that a legislator had forfeited their office.
He also suggested the lawmakers may have committed felonies by raising money to help pay for fines they’d face.
“This truancy ends now,” Abbott said.
It is not clear to me what legal basis there would be to remove them from office aside from impeachment. The U.S. House of Representatives can expel a member, but Adam Clayton Powell demonstrated that if constituents support a member in being an asshole, there isn’t much that a legislative body can do about it in the short term. I’m not sufficiently knowledgeable about Texas politics to say what options there might be, nor am I sufficiently interested to put any time in researching it; things will happen as they happen.
UPDATE: Texas Begins Construction On Northern Border Wall To Keep Democrat Lawmakers From Returning (Babylon Bee)