Judge Refuses To Let Texas Republicans Arrest Democratic Lawmakers Who Left State

A Texas judge bought Democratic lawmakers in the state a little more time over the weekend by temporarily  "delaying" attempts by Republicans to have the Democrats who fled the state to avoid a quorum arrested. The judge actually ruled that the Republicans in the state didn't clearly understand Texas law, and under the current circumstance the arrest warrants cannot be enforced or even issued. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains the legal ruling and what it could mean for the Democrats.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

A judge in Texas this week has ruled that the state Republicans both in the Senate, and of course, Republican governor Greg Abbott, do not have the authority to arrest the Democrats who left the state in order to award, avoid a quorum so that they couldn't pass their restrictive voting legislation. So that's a relief for the Democrats. 19 of them had actually sued the Republicans, again, both in the Senate and Republican governor Greg Abbott, challenging their authority after they had threatened to have them arrested for leaving the state last month. So here's the thing. The judge in this case actually said, first and foremost, Texas law doesn't have this written into it. As I've mentioned in the past, some states do. I believe it was up in Oregon, a year or two ago, Republicans left to avoid this and the Democrat actually sent out law enforcement officers to drag them back in. They had it on their books that they could do this. Texas, according to this judge, doesn't, unless of course there was a call of the House.

And now if there is a call of the House, what they can do is not arrest them. They can do the same thing that happened again, I believe it was Oregon. I may be mistaken. It may have been Washington. But either way, they, they send the folks out to physically bring them back into the chamber for the call of the House. But the judge says, in this instance, you didn't even have a call of the House. And when you did have a call of the House, it had already expired by the time you threatened the arrests. So therefore you couldn't actually do anything about it. Now, what is a little worrisome about this ruling here is first and foremost, it's only a 14 day moratorium, I guess, essentially on these arrests. So if this order is not renewed within 14 days, the Republican controlled government of Texas might be able to do their quick call of the House. Then send people out to bring these Democrats back in. And again, the other thing, because this ruling really spelled out all the steps you'd have to take to be able to bring the Democrats back forcibly. Now the Republicans do actually have a road map on how to bring them back.

Now, as I've repeatedly said, I applaud the efforts of these Democrats to avoid this voting legislation in the state of Texas. Unfortunately too, it's always just been a delay. As I've said from the beginning, it's going to happen. It is going to pass. There's not a whole heck of a lot we can do about that. These Democrats can't stay away from the state forever. They will eventually have to come back. There will be another session where they will have to be in that chamber and if not, again, the Republicans have the road map now they know how to get them back. It's going to pass. And that's all the more reason why Congress needs to get busy passing the right to vote act that could undo a lot of the damage that this Texas voting bill intends to do. But until federal Congress takes action on this, Texas is going to win this fight eventually, and it's going to be horrific for the voters in that state.