Texas Supreme Court rejects attempt to expel Democrats for blocking gerrymander, in blow to Abbott

The Texas Supreme Court has rejected an effort by GOP officials to expel Democratic lawmakers who briefly fled the state last summer in an attempt to prevent Republicans from passing a partisan gerrymander.

The Democrats ultimately returned two weeks later, and the Republicans passed their unprecedented, mid-decade redistricting proposal, setting off a wave of similar gerrymanders across the country.

Nonetheless, the ruling by the state’s highest court is a blow to Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) — and is noteworthy because all the justices are elected Republicans.

In its decision, the Supreme Court concluded that judicial intervention was not necessary and could prove risky given the case’s “potential constitutional magnitude.”

“Whatever wrong may have been committed by the absent House members, the Texas Constitution’s internal political remedies, none of which involve the judicial branch, were sufficient to the task of restoring the House’s ability to do business,” Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock wrote in the opinion.

The ruling marks the end of the road for two lawsuits attempting to mete out political retribution to Democrats who voted with their feet in opposition to redistricting.

Last year, President Donald Trump called on Republican-led states to pass new congressional maps mid-decade in a bid to tilt the 2026 midterm elections to the GOP. Texas was the first state to take up redistricting, proposing a map that could give Republicans up to five more seats in Congress.

Starting in August, more than 50 Democratic lawmakers left the state in an attempt to deny the House of Representatives a quorum and block the redistricting measure. 

In August, Abbott filed an emergency petition with the Texas Supreme Court seeking to forcibly remove Rep. Gene Wu, the House Democratic leader, from office, alleging he had violated the state constitution by fleeing the capitol. 

Not one to be outdone, Paxton soon asked the Supreme Court to remove 13 Democratic state lawmakers from office, alleging they had “abandoned their offices.”

Republicans also had civil arrest warrants issued for the Democrats, threatened to return them to the state by force, and accused them of committing bribery to fund the quorum break.

“Abbott sent us threats. He sent lawyers. He sicced his lapdog, Ken Paxton, on us,” Wu said in a statement Friday. “He asked the highest court in Texas to remove elected Democrats from office because we refused to be bullied into helping him pass a rigged map for Donald Trump. Today, the Republican-controlled Supreme Court said: no. The Constitution does not let a Governor erase voters’ choices when their choices are inconvenient to him.”

Breaking quorum is a long-standing legislative strategy. Moreover, the Democrats soon returned to Austin and the legislature was ultimately able to pass the gerrymander. 

Nonetheless, Abbott and Paxton continued to pursue the lawmakers’ expulsion.

In its ruling, the Texas Supreme Court did not exclude the possibility of intervening in similar cases in the future.

Should remedies envisioned in the Texas Constitution “prove inadequate in a future case, we might have occasion to consider whether any judicial remedy could ever be available in circumstances such as these,” Blacklock wrote in the opinion.

In a message to a Houston Chronicle reporter, an Abbott spokesperson framed that as a win.

The Supreme Court “has warned them against pulling a similar stunt in the future,” he said. “If Democrats abandon their offices again, the Governor will bring them right back to the Texas Supreme Court.”