A confrontation takes place in Texas while Governor Greg Abbott threatens to withdraw the Democrats who fled the State to protest against the effort led by the Republicans to create a new card of the Congress.
Abbott said that the Democrats in the Texas Chamber had until 3 p.m. local time to return to the State House for the Special Session or risk losing their jobs. The Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, suggested that the Democrats who left should be arrested and brought back.
The response of the Texas House Democratic Caucus to the threat of Abbott was “come and take it”.
Democratic members who have left the State should organize various events throughout Monday day in New York, Massachusetts and Illinois.
The proposed congress card, supported by President Donald Trump, could create up to five new republican seats and help the Republicans keep control of the room in the mid-term elections of 2026. The consideration of the bill had been set on Monday, but cannot continue if Democrats deny a quorum.
The State Capitol was seen on July 21, 2025 in Austin, Texas.
Brandon Bell / Getty images
The first press conference with Texas Democrats on Monday was with New York Governor Kathy Hochul in Albany.
“We do not sit on the sidelines while the Republicans try to compel the system to give Donald Trump a more uncontrolled power,” said Hochul in a statement. “Texas Democrats defend the future of our democracy, and I am proud to stay with them in the fight against priority.”
The Democrats of the Chamber of Texas who went to Massachusetts for the national legislators’ summit of the National Conference will be joined by the Governor of Illinois JB Pritzker for a press conference in Boston on Monday at 1 p.m.. Then, the Democrats of the Texas Chamber who met in Illinois will hold a press conference with Democratic members of the Congress in Chicago.
Pritzker accused Trump of “regaining” the new cards of Texas out of despair and worrying that because of his policies, he was in danger of losing the republican majority of the house in Washington. The Governor of Illinois also warned that the newly proposed cards have established a dangerous precedent across the country.
“It’s not just the rigging of the system in Texas,” said Pritzker. “It is a question of fueling the system against the rights of all Americans for the years to come.”
Abbott, in his warning to the Democrats of the Texas Chamber, said that leaving the state to protest was “abandoning or confiscating an elected state office”.
“Real Texans do not flee a fight,” Abbott said in the press release. “But that’s exactly what most of the Democrats in the Texas Chamber have just done. Rather than doing their job and voting on urgent legislation affecting the life of all Texans, they fled Texas to deprive the Queorum Chamber necessary to meet and lead business.”
