Texas Democrats Break Quorum, Flee Austin to Stop Republicans’ Election Bill

What’s the story?

• For the second time in seven weeks, Texas Democrats have left the state capital in Austin to break a quorum and deny Republican majorities in the legislature the ability to send legislation ― including a controversial election reform bill ― to the GOP governor’s desk.
• Texas House Democratic lawmakers bussed to an airport near Austin (with a case of Miller Lite onboard) and took a pair of private jets to Washington, D.C. While not all members of the Democratic caucus left the Lone Star State, the traveling party is large enough to deny the necessary two-thirds quorum for the House to conduct business.
• A special session of the legislature convened last week to address several of Republicans’ legislative priorities that were left unfinished after the regular session concluded at the end of May with a walkout by Texas Democrats over the election bill.
• In addition to the election reform bill, the GOP’s agenda for the special session includes a bill to require that transgender student-athletes only compete on teams designated for the sex that is stated on their birth certificate, border security, bail reform, and several other pieces of legislation.
• Under the rules of the Texas legislature, the party in the majority can request that public safety officials compel the attendance of absent members. Those officials only have jurisdiction within the state and are unable to travel to D.C. to bring the Democratic lawmakers back and restore a quorum, but GOP leaders have signaled that they will call for the arrest and compulsory attendance of non-compliant lawmakers who return to Texas.

What they’re saying

• Leaders of the Texas House Democratic Caucus released the following statement on their decision to break quorum:

“Today, Texas House Democrats stand united in our decision to break quorum and refuse to let the Republican-led legislature force through dangerous legislation that would trample on Texans’ freedom to vote. We are now taking the fight to our nation’s Capitol. We are living on borrowed time in Texas. We need Congress to act now to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to protect Texans ― and all Americans ― from the Trump Republicans’ nationwide war on democracy.”

• Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R-TX) blasted Democrats for breaking quorum in a video post to Twitter in which he said:

“Texas Democrats’ decision to break a quorum of the Texas Legislature and abandon the Texas State Capitol inflicts harm on the very Texans who elected them to serve. As they fly across the country on cushy private planes, they leave undone issues that can help their districts and our state. Issues like property tax relief, funding to support sheriffs and law enforcement in high crime areas, funding for children in the foster care system, and funding for retired teachers. The Democrats must put aside partisan political games and get back to the job they were elected to do. Their constituents must not be denied these important resources simply because their elected representative refused to show up to work.”

What’s next?

• Texas’s Senate Democratic caucus may join their House colleagues in denying the quorum, which would prevent the chamber from taking votes even though the absence of a House quorum forestalls the legislature’s ability to send bills to the governor’s desk for enactment. Democrats have said that they will deny a quorum for as long as necessary, with progressive Rep. James Talarico (D-Round Rock) tweeting:

“We left behind our families, our livelihoods, and our beloved Texas. But our sacrifice is nothing compared to the sacrifices brave Americans have made throughout history to protect the sacred right to vote. We’re prepared to stay out of Texas for the rest of the session. This decision wasn’t easy. Many of my colleagues left kids, elderly parents, and sick loved ones. Many are risking their day jobs & their seats in the House. But we won’t sit by and watch democracy wither on the vine.”

• Gov. Abbott said in an interview that he will keep trying to bring back the Texas legislature, which holds biennial sessions and isn’t scheduled to conduct business in 2022, and said in an interview:

“I can and I will continue to call a special session after special session after special session all the way up until the election next year. And so if these people want to be hanging out wherever they're hanging out on this taxpayer-paid junket, they're going to have to be prepared to do it for well over a year. As soon as they come back to the state of Texas, they will be arrested, they will be cabined inside the Texas Capitol until they get their job done.”

What are legislative quorums?

• The U.S. Congress and state legislatures around the country require that a quorum of lawmakers be present for business to be conducted on the floor. The Constitution defines a quorum in Congress as a majority of each chamber, which amounts to 51 senators and 218 House members when the chambers are at their full complement of lawmakers. Similar definitions have been adopted by state legislatures.
• In Congress, both chambers presume that a quorum is present when they’re in session for floor votes based on unanimous consent from leaders, so each can conduct business without a quorum being physically present in the chamber, although a member can “suggest the absence of a quorum” and initiate a quorum call to verify it. 
• The Senate often holds routine quorum calls to bide floor time ahead of a vote or to allow work to continue off the floor without adjournment. These are occasionally punctuated by a senator asking to “vitiate the quorum call” so that they can deliver remarks, and are usually rescinded by unanimous consent so senators aren’t actually being asked to register their presence. Occasionally, the Senate will hold a “live” quorum call in which senators are asked to come to the floor ahead of a key vote or to verify there is a quorum.
• To deter the practice of “quorum busting” ― in which lawmakers collude to not respond to the quorum call so as to prevent the chamber from conducting business ― legislative bodies often allow a minority party to compel the attendance of absent members. While this can theoretically entail the arrest of the absentee lawmaker, that route has been used rarely as the Senate Historical Office notes the first physical act of compulsion didn’t occur until 1988 when then-Sen. Bob Packwood (R-OR) was carried feet-first into the chamber by Capitol Police in an effort to establish a quorum on a campaign finance reform bill.
• This isn’t the first time the Texas legislature has seen quorum busting. In 2003, Texas House Democrats fled to Oklahoma to stop a redistricting bill in the regular session while their Senate counterparts fled to New Mexico during a special session later that year.
• There have also been quorum busting efforts or “walking filibusters” embarked upon in other states in recent decades. Oregon Democrats staged walkouts in 1971, 1995, and 2001, with the most recent being over redistricting, while Oregon Republicans walked out three times in 2019-2020 to block climate, gun control, and tax increase bills after many traveled to Idaho. In 2011, Indiana Democrats held a six-week walkout to block a right-to-work bill while across Lake Michigan, Wisconsin Democrats fled to Illinois to stall a budget bill. Tennessee Democrats also attempted a walkout to stop a 2019 bill that created block grants for Medicaid in the Volunteer State.
• In late May 2021, Texas Democrats walked out to break quorum at the end of the regular legislative session to prevent the enactment of the Republican election bill.

— Eric Revell

(Photo Credit: runneralan2004 via Flickr / Creative Commons)