‘Come and Take It’: Texas Dems Stand Their Ground as Abbott Threatens Removal

Democrats are brushing off attacks from Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who has said he will expel Democratic members of the Texas State Legislature if they fail to show up to vote on a partisan redistricting plan Monday afternoon — and potentially arrest them.

“Frankly, Democrats say, ‘Come and Take It,’” Gene Wu, the state’s House Democratic Caucus chair, told CNN. “It’s all bluster. Sound and fury signifying nothing.”

Many of Texas’ Democratic lawmakers fled the state over the weekend to stop a vote Monday on a redistricting plan that would redraw the Texas congressional map in Republicans’ favor. The new map would make it more difficult for some congressional Democrats, like Rep. Jasmine Crockett, to be reelected.

“Democrats hatched a deliberate plan not to show up for work, for the specific purpose of

abdicating the duties of their office and thwarting the chamber’s business,” Abbott wrote in a statement Sunday night. “That amounts to an abandonment or forfeiture of an elected state office.”

Abbott said that Democrats who are not in attendance when the Legislature convenes Monday afternoon would be removed from membership. Additionally, he stated that the legislators may have committed felonies, arguing that accepting funds to offset the cost of fines related to their absence amounts to bribery.

Abbott said he would demand the extradition of any out-of-state felons, though a number of Democrats are calling his bluff.

Texas Rep. Mihaela Plesa, meanwhile, told Politico the legislators would pay the fines out of their own pockets.

Hakeem Jeffries, minority leader in the House of Representatives, told CNN Abbott’s threats were idle, and that the Texas governor is “all hat and no cattle.”

“The Republican governor of Texas is out of his mind,” he said. “There is no basis to charge these House Texas Democrats who have refused righteously to, at the moment, vote on an extraordinary map that would hurt their constituents that they are privileged and sworn to represent.”

Texas Democrats have fled to Albany, New York; Boston and Chicago, where they were welcomed by Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, who pledged to shield them from arrest.

“They’re here in Illinois. We’re going to do everything we can to protect every single one of them and make sure that — ’cause we know they’re doing the right thing, we know that they’re following the law,” Pritzker said in a press conference Sunday night.

Texas Rep. Jolanda Jones questioned Abbott’s legal basis for attacking Texas Democrats.

“There is no felony in the Texas penal code for what he says. So respectfully, he’s making up some shit,” she said during a press conference in New York alongside Gov. Kathy Hochul. “He’s trying to get sound bites, and he has no legal mechanism. And if he did — subpoenas from Texas don’t work in New York, so he’s going to come get us how?”

In 2021, Texas House Democrats fled to Washington for three weeks to break quorum and block a vote. At the time, Texas Democrats were attempting to block an overhaul of election law that they worried would restrict voter access and that Republicans argued would bolster election integrity.

The bill was eventually signed into law after weeks of delays.