Overview

• Around 50 Democratic Texas House members remain in Illinois and New York, denying the two-thirds quorum needed for any legislative action.
• Republican lawmakers voted Monday to issue civil arrest warrants, levy $500 daily fines, strip seats from absent members under Gov. Greg Abbott’s directive.
• Absent a quorum, the special session on a GOP-drawn map granting Republicans five additional U.S. House seats cannot proceed.
• Democrats say they will stay away until the session concludes on August 19, mirroring past quorum-busting attempts in 2003 and 2021.
• Democratic governors in multiple states have offered refuge and signaled plans to redraw their own maps in response to Texas’s mid-decade redistricting campaign.