Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton outlined a "new approach" — that he wrote four years ago — which could force the hand of dozens of self-exiled Democrats who fled Texas to block legislation, telling Newsmax on Monday that state Republican leaders are "open to doing it."
In August 2021, Paxton authored Opinion No. KP-0382, which could be used as the foundation of removing Democrats from membership in the Texas House for not showing up to work.
Nearly 60 Texas Democrats left the state Sunday afternoon — most headed for Illinois, New York and Massachusetts — so the Texas House wouldn't have a quorum to vote on the redistricting that could net Republicans five additional congressional seats ahead of the 2026 midterms.
"We're in uncharted territory, and that has never happened before," Paxton told "Rob Schmitt Tonight." "We've always outlasted them because we've had the Democrats leave, you know, three or four times over the last 20 years, and the governor just keeps recalling them back. And ultimately, they can't live in Illinois forever."
In the opinion, which is nonbinding, Paxton wrote that "a district court may determine that a legislator has forfeited his or her office due to abandonment and can remove the legislator from office."
In a statement Sunday night, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said he would invoke "Opinion No. KP-0382 to remove the missing Democrats from membership in the Texas House."
KP-0382 "is a new approach and something we looked at a couple of years ago that we came up with when the Democrats left again. It's an option where we would have to file in each of the counties, so it's a lot of filings, but it's an opportunity to maybe force them back; one, to court, and if not to court, potentially lose their position if they don't show up for work," Paxton said.
Paxton has seen Democrats flee the state since he served in the Texas House for a decade in the early 2000s, so he said the "time-consuming" effort might be worth it.
"It is part of the equation. But it may be worth the attempt because we've had times I know when I was in the House, they were gone from June, July, August, September, they came back in October," he said. "So whether a court process can be faster than that, we've never tested this, but we're open to doing it if we think we have an opportunity to make this happen faster."
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Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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