Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) filed a lawsuit on Friday to pursue judicial declarations that 13 seats held by runaway House Democrats have been vacated due to continued unlawful absences. The move comes after many House Democrats refused orders to return to the Texas Capitol to resume their duties in the called special session.
“The rogue Democrat legislators who fled the state have abandoned their duties, leaving their seats vacant,” Attorney General Paxton said in a written statement on Friday. “These cowards deliberately sabotaged the constitutional process and violated the oath they swore to uphold.”
“Their out-of-state rebellion cannot go unchecked, and the business of Texas must go on,” Paxton added. “I have asked the Texas Supreme Court to declare what has been clear from the beginning: that the runaway members have officially vacated their offices in the Texas House.”
Paxton’s office stated that the initial lawsuit focuses on 13 Democrat members of the House who “made incriminating public statements regarding their refusal to return.” The statement says the lawmakers’ own words are the very grounds for this action.
Texas law provides the Attorney General with explicit authority to represent the State in quo warranto actions and to appear before the Texas Supreme Court in matters where the State has a direct interest.
The petition filed by the Texas Attorney General states:
The Texas Constitution, statutes, and rules provide a broad range of tools for members of a legislative minority to be heard. But those tools do not include concerted effort by members of the minority to disrupt the functioning of the Legislature by abdicating their duties, including spurning the constitutional authority of the remaining members to compel their attendance. When members of the Legislature disregard arrest warrants, refuse to perform their duties, and announce that they intend to prevent the Legislature from exercising its constitutional responsibilities, they have, through words and conduct, demonstrated an intent to relinquish and abandon their offices.
Paxton previously announced an investigation into Powered by People and Texas Majority PAC for potential criminal charges relating to what he called an “illegal financial influence scheme to bribe Democrats into breaking quorum.”
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