Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit Friday in downstate Illinois asking for an order that would return dozens of Texas Democrats who fled to Illinois to try to stop Texas Republicans from enacting new congressional maps that would give the GOP five more seats.
Downstate Sen. Jil Tracy, R-Quincy, joined Paxton in filing the lawsuit against 33 Texas Democrats in the Circuit Court of downstate Adams County, about 270 miles southwest of Chicago along the Mississippi River.
Paxton filed another lawsuit Friday directly to the Texas Supreme Court that seeks to have 13 of the more than 50 absent Democratic lawmakers immediately removed from office, or at least given a 48-hour warning that they must return or have their offices declared vacated.
Forty Texas Democrats left for Illinois on Sunday to deny Republicans a quorum needed during its special legislative session to approve new congressional maps. Other Texas Democrats fled to New York.
At least a dozen Texas Democrats are staying at the Q Center hotel and convention complex in St. Charles, where two bomb threats reported this week were deemed unfounded.
The majority Republican Texas House of Representatives has issued civil arrest warrants for lawmakers who left the state, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered state troopers to search for them and arrest them, but Illinois is outside their jurisdiction. The Democrats who have left the state still face fines of up to $500 per day.
On Thursday, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said the FBI had agreed to help find the dozens of Democratic lawmakers who fled the state, but Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker called the move “grandstanding,” and Pritzker said he wouldn’t allow federal agents to arrest them.
The lawsuit filed Friday in Illinois seeks an order recognizing the civil arrest warrants issued by the Texas House of Representatives, and it asks for assistance from Illinois law enforcement agencies to enforce the warrants.
“Each of these members has a voice and a vote — they do not have the right to deny the voices and votes of other members by withholding their own,” the lawsuit states. “They do not have a right to bring the machinery … to a screeching halt over results with which they do not agree.”
Contributing: Associated Press