Since Sunday, Texas Democratic legislators have been embroiled in a face-off towards state Republicans and Gov. Greg Abbott. The governor has threatened to oust and substitute the representatives for leaving the state to forestall redrawing Texas congressional maps.
However this isn’t the primary time lawmakers have fled the Texas State Capitol keep away from voting on a measure they disagreed with, “breaking quorum” by depriving the statehouse of sufficient legislators to conduct enterprise. They’ve been doing it since 1870 — greater than 150 years in the past.
Texas state lawmakers final broke quorum in 2021 when Democratic home representatives fled Texas to forestall measures limiting voting choices. The measures finally handed after internal Democratic fissures led to sufficient representatives returning to type a quorum.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaks throughout a roundtable dialogue with President Donald Trump, first responders and native officers at Hill Nation Youth Occasion Middle in Kerrville, Texas, throughout a tour to look at flood injury, Friday, July 11, 2025.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
The legislators first stalled the election invoice through the common session via a last-minute walkout. After Abbot known as a particular session, 57 Democrats fled to Washington, D.C., prompting Republicans to enact a “name of the Home,” a process which mandates legislators’ attendance on the statehouse and permits the sergeant-at-arms to arrest members inside Texas and convey them there.
When one state consultant, Philip Cortez, briefly returned to Austin in late July earlier than rejoining the opposite quorum-breakers out of state, then-Home Speaker Dade Phelan signed a civil warrant for his arrest. By that point, nonetheless, Cortez was outdoors of Texas regulation enforcement’s jurisdiction.
Democrats ran out the clock on the primary particular session however weren’t in a position to maintain members from returning to Texas after Abbott known as a second.
Whereas a state district decide issued a short lived restraining order to forestall Abbott and Phelan from arresting the Democrats, the Texas Supreme Courtroom rapidly quickly blocked that order, permitting Phelan to signal warrants for the 52 remaining absent Democrats. Legislation enforcement didn’t truly arrest or detain any of the legislators.
Lawmakers started to trickle again to the state capital, citing varied private and legislative considerations, such because the looming redistricting course of that required maps to be authorized earlier than November that yr. Finally, the Home reached quorum, ending the 38-day walkout and permitting the invoice to move.
The Texas Capitol is seen on August 04, 2025 in Austin, Texas.
Brandon Bell/Getty Photographs
State Rep. James Talarico posted on X on the time that he had come again to “clear up Greg Abbott’s newest messes from COVID to ERCOT [the Electric Reliability Council of Texas].”
Some Democrats who remained in Washington had been displeased. U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, then a state consultant, accused the legislators who returned of “making an attempt to please the Governor and His OPPRESSIVE Agenda.”
Past the monetary value, lawmakers confronted few penalties as soon as they returned to the state, moreover then-speaker Phelan stripping state Rep. Joe Moody of his title of speaker professional tempore Present Home. Speaker Dustin Burrows reappointed Moody in 2025.
Democrats in 2021 didn’t face the $500-a-day nice, a penalty solely applied in 2023 in an effort to dissuade future quorum breaks.
The Texas Tribune reported that Democrats spent round $10,000 a day on lodging and meals through the walkout, paid by the Home Democratic Caucus, extra fundraising across the quorum break, and out of lawmakers’ pockets. Powered by People, backed by former U.S. Rep and Texas Senate and gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke, gave $600,000 to help their keep in D.C. — the group can be funding the present walkout, based on the Houston Chronicle.
Some 55 Democratic Home members additionally fled the state in 2003 to forestall one other Republican redistricting effort. They returned to Texas after ready out one particular session. When then-Gov. Rick Perry known as a second particular session, 11 Democratic senators left to interrupt quorum once more.
Finally, then-Sen. John Whitmire was the only Democrat who returned to type a quorum. The redistricting plan handed throughout a 3rd particular session. Whitmire said he returned because of a concern that the two-thirds quorum requirement wouldn’t maintain throughout a second session, the necessity to deal with different political priorities and the shortage of a decision in sight.
State regulation enforcement looked for the Democrats. College of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus informed ABC Information the FAA tracked planes that had been suspected of taking Democrats out of the state, and no formal punishments had been levied as soon as they returned.
Texas state Rep. James Talarico speaks throughout a rally to protest towards redistricting hearings on the Texas Capitol, July 24, 2025, in Austin, Texas.
Eric Homosexual/AP
The New York Times reported on the time that then-Republican Home Speaker Tom Craddick requested Texas Rangers to seek out and convey again the lacking Democrats, however they didn’t have the authority to take action for the reason that legislators had been in Oklahoma.
In 1979, 12 Democratic senators fled the state and efficiently prevented Republicans from shifting the date of the presidential major in Texas to allegedly profit former Texas Gov. John Connally.
Republicans used a name of the home, and then-Lt. Gov. William Passion Jr. threatened to take away the absent legislators from workplace, the Washington Post reported on the time.
The Texas Tribune reported that Passion ordered Texas Rangers and state troopers to seek out the Democratic lawmakers with out success. No senators had been arrested, Rottinghaus stated.
The senators finally all returned willingly after Passion had agreed to not put the measure shifting the first date to a vote once more or arrest any of the legislators.
The primary occasion of quorum-breaking in Texas passed off in 1870, when 13 legislators withdrew from the Senate however remained within the state, based on the Texas State Historical Association. They opposed laws from the 15 Radical Republican members of the Senate.
The Senate undertook a name of the home, which led to the arrest of 9 of the 13 legislators. The remaining 4 had been obligatory for quorum, which then allowed for the passage of the Radical Republicans’ laws.
