Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) said he will keep calling special legislative sessions for as long as it takes to pass a new congressional map, meaning Democrats would have to keep up their disappearing act for years.
The Democrats fled the state to deny the Texas legislature a quorum, disabling the Republican majority from bringing the GOP-friendly maps to a vote. Abbott has threatened the Democrats with arrest and expulsion from the Texas House to coax them back but has been unsuccessful.
“I’ll tell you this also, Democrats act like they’re not going to come back as long as this is an issue,” Abbott told NBC News on Thursday. “That means they’re not going to come back until like 2027 or 2028, because I’m going to call special session after special session after special session with the same agenda items on there.”
The governor said the state is in the process of “searching for, preparing to arrest Democrats who may be in Texas, may be elsewhere.”
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said Thursday that the FBI will assist Texas law enforcement in seizing the Democrats and bringing them back home.
“I’m not going to disclose, though all may or may not be involved,” Abbott said when asked about the FBI’s involvement. “All I can say is we’re going to use every tool that we can to make sure that these runaway Democrats are going to be held accountable.”
The governor justified the redistricting by saying that “both the law and facts have changed since we drew the lines back in 2021,” and pointed to the last election.
“A lot of people who voted Republican, who voted for Donald Trump, were trapped into Democrat districts,” Abbott said. “And so when you look at the facts, when you look at the law, there is every reason to go ahead and draw the lines so that we can assure that every voter is going to have the opportunity to vote for their candidate of choice.”
Democrats across the nation have revolted against the Texas effort. Several large blue states such as New York and California have floated doing their own redistricting. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) said he would call a special election later this year to allow voters to decide whether to enact Democrat-friendly congressional maps.
ABBOTT THREATENS EXPANDING NEW MAP TO GIVE GOP EIGHT MORE SEATS IF TEXAS DEMOCRATS DON’T RETURN
There is no exact timeline for the Texas Democrats’ return. Texas House Minority Leader Gene Wu said they are committed to staying until the special session is over.
“Our group is committed to ending this corrupt special session,” Wu told CNN. “Whether that’s a week, whether that’s two weeks, I don’t know. That’s not up to us.”