Texas Supreme Court Allows Arrest of Fleeing Democrats
The Texas State House immediately voted to allow law enforcement to arrest the Democrats and bring them back to Austin.
The Texas Supreme Court ruled law enforcement can arrest the state House Democrats who fled to D.C.
The Democrats left the state because they did not want to vote on legislation making it harder to cheat while voting. They flew to D.C. on private planes and took charter buses to cry in the arms of federal Democrats.
The Texas House Republicans could not vote on legislation because the Democrats denied them a quorum.
Gov. Greg Abbott and House Speaker Dade Phelan petitioned the court after a Travis County district judge blocked the two of them from arresting the Democrats:
The all-Republican high court’s order came at the request of Gov. Greg Abbott and House Speaker Dade Phelan, also both Republicans, who petitioned the court on Monday to overturn a recent ruling by a Travis County district judge that blocked them from ordering the arrest of quorum-busting Democrats, who were in Washington, D.C., for about a month. The House Democrats in the suit have until Thursday at 4 p.m. to respond to the court. Democrats who are arrested would not face criminal charges and could not be jailed or fined. Law enforcement officers carrying out arrest orders by state officials could only try to bring them to the House chambers.
“The Supreme Court of Texas swiftly rejected this dangerous attempt by Texas Democrats to undermine our Constitution and avoid doing the job they were elected to do,” said Renae Eze, an Abbott spokeswoman. “We look forward to the Supreme Court upholding the rule of law and stopping another stall tactic by the Texas Democrats.”
The House then voted 80-12 to allow law enforcement to arrest the Democrats right after the ruling.
On Monday, the House “adopted a procedural move known as a ‘call of the House'” so they can get the quorum they need.
The “call of the House” means they will lock the doors and prevent “members on the floor from leaving unless they have permission in writing from the speaker.”
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Comments
Can their pay be revoked for time they were off?
No. The Texas state constitution requires and sets the pay and it cannot be revoked
But no requirement that it be direct deposited. Simply change it so that they must show up at the capitol to receive a paycheck. Won’t help now but will make it harder to pull stunts like this in the future.
However the per diem is set by the Ethics Commission. It can and should set the rate for session days not spent in Austin at zero.
The Texas GOP needs to grow a spine, and deliver some consequences for this little stunt.
The Speaker needs to strip all committee assignments from the truants, cut their staff budgets by 75%, and move them to the bottom of the seniority ladder on Capitol office and parking assignments. (If you know how the Texas Capitol is physically laid out, you’ll understand that this latter point will severely tweak some egos.)
When they have a quorum (which I suspect will occur within a day or two), the House needs to pass a rule and, if the gov will amend the special session call, a statute sticking truant legislators who are deliberately AWOL after a call of the house with a crippling per day fine, with a 99% tax on donations received to pay the fines
I don’t think they can do that last item. All the rest, yes, they can and should.
Not retroactively. Legislation can ensure that if they ever try it again they won’t be paid.
Such legislation should be promptly passed, Hopefully with steep fines attached.
Or else Republicans should learn to do this when needed.
The Texas Supreme Court has already ruled that Gov. Abbot can defund the legislature due to the line item veto in the Texas Constitution. Abbot has already done that; funding for the legislature will end either at the end of this month or the end of September. Not exactly sure of the details at the moment, but funding will end and then neither the legislators nor their staff members will be paid, and they won’t have any operating funds either.
The Democrats tried to sue to have the Supreme Court overturn Abbott’s veto of their funding but the court told them to shove it.
Speaking of the Texas Constitution, this is the portion of the Constitution the activist progressive district judge in Austin declared null and void.
“THE TEXAS CONSTITUTION
ARTICLE 3. LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT
Sec. 10. QUORUM; ADJOURNMENTS FROM DAY TO DAY; COMPELLING ATTENDANCE. Two-thirds of each House shall constitute a quorum to do business, but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and compel the attendance of absent members, in such manner and under such penalties as each House may provide.”
I have no idea what mental gymnastics the clown in Austin engaged in to stay these arrests. Each House can compel members to attend, including having DPS arrest them and haul them to the state house, and despite the Texas Supreme Court ruling the House can penalize (i.e. fine) the truant members. I believe the Supreme Court was merely saying that while they ruled the House can have the fleebagger superspreaders arrested, the court itself wasn’t imposing any penalties. Law enforcement can only return them to the state capital, but I don’t believe the court was trying to tie the hands of the legislators nor claiming it had the authority to do so.
And note: per the plain language of the Constitution the House doesn’t need a 2/3 majority to have the truant members arrested, not to conduct a “call of the house.”
That’s the entire legislature, not these members. When last year’s appropriation runs out, nobody gets paid. Not the Dems and not the Reps.
Re: Penalizing the fleeing members, where did you see that the House has that power? The House Rules say that they can be arrested and brought back to the House by force, unless they are already on their way back to the House anyway. I don’t recall it saying anything about penalties.
Hm… These House members have been in direct contact with Covid infectious people. When they return, the Texas Dept. of Health should have them isolated in a different section of the House chambers and connected to the floor by way of a TV link for two weeks while they quarantine. A few cots set up in the back of the room, at least one bathroom, and a case of lite beer should suffice for them.
One riot, one Ranger?
“Officer, may I suggest you use your night stick?”
So…. the judge didn’t buy their argument that Abbott was stressing them out? I guess the only thing left to do is to check into a mental clinic and plead insanity.
No, different case.
Perp walk. Can’t wait for the photos.
These TX Dems are embarrassment – even to other Dems.
It will be interesting to see how they explain this to their constituents. The fact tat they decided one issue was more important to them than all the other issues their constituents care about. Let’s be clear — they stopped representing the people and started representing their own narrow selfish interests when they walked off their job.
Maybe their constituents, mostly Dems, like what they did because it would have let Dems continue cheating to win elections.
Still, they can’t hold up the rest of the state for their nonsense.
Still no evidence of election fraud …
From Brad Urrutia’s campaign web site:
Wish we could do that to a bunch of federal district judges. If we ever get the legislature back, then maybe.
I wish it too, but we can’t. They can only be removed by impeachment, for bad behavior, which takes 2/3 of the senate.
The governor and the legislature can still take the actions you suggest. And I for one will be encouraging the governor and my state legislators to do exactly that.
The judge’s campaign website includes one lie that immediately jumps out from his PC word salad:
“I lead one of the most progressive courts with amongst the lowest pretrial incarceration rates and with defendants waiting the least time in jail for a trial. I am dedicated to ensuring the rights of the accused without sacrificing the safety of the community.…”
There is no squaring that circle, when a judge releases defendants they are taking a gamble with public safety that places everyone at risk. We’ve had a spate of crimes committed by criminals released on bail or sometimes just on their own recognizance, particularly by lawless Austin leftists. The newly elected Travis County Soros-owned DA Jose Garza’s official policies include release of all felony defendants on P.R. Bonds (personal bonds without posting cash bail). And he gets fellow leftists like judge Urrutia to go along with his policies.
A couple of the more notorious examples. David Almost had 8 felony convictions when he was arrested in February 2019 and subsequently convicted, and sentenced to 5 years (60 months) in prison for being a felon in knowing possession of a firearm. He was released on parole in November 2020 after serving 1/3 his sentence.
In April of this year the Sealy PD (a town that’s part of the greater Houston metropolitan area) attempted to arrest him and he temporarily evaded arrest in a vehicle. For what I don’t know; the MFM didn’t say, but probably carjacking and other armed robberies as they seem to be his specialties. He then led Texas State Troopers on a cross-state car chase until various agencies assisted DPS in stopping and arresting Olmos in Travis county (Austin) where he was charged with being in a felon in possession of a firearm, evading arrest, and possession of a controlled substance.
Just four days later Garza persuaded a judge to release Olmos, a convicted violent felon and a known flight risk (Hello! Felony evading, anybody) on a personal bond. One of the conditions of his personal bond was that he was required to wear a GPS ankle monitor. His personal bond was revoked on 19 April when the police found out he had cut it off and removed it but by then Olmos was 4 days into a 10 day crime spree that involved among other things 10 armed robberies in ten days.
Stephen Broderick, an ex-Sherriff’s deputy in North Texas, was arrested in Austin last June for some pretty heinous domestic abuse and child sexual assault charges. He had been raping and beating his step-daughter for years. The Austin judge released him on a $50k bond (he only had to pay 10% of course). The prosecution asked for a $100k bond but Broderick’s attorney gave the judge a sob story about how Broderick couldn’t afford that much so the judge cut the bail amount in half. Yes, there were bail conditions but like protective orders bail conditions don’t stop bullets. And the idiot judge required the family to maintain some contact with the defendant because he and his ex-wife had one child together and the idiot judge gave this violent domestic abuser visitation rights.
And here I thought releasing a know flight risk like Olmos on a P.R. bond was the height of judicial stupidity. I realize that while I may not be bound by the evidentiary presumption of innocence the judge in this case is, but still. Why on earth would anyone require the family of the victim to maintain contact with the (ok, I’ll play the game) alleged abuser?
Sure as shooting Broderick killed his ex-wife, his step daughter, and her boyfriend when they met to give him custody of his son for their UNSUPERVISED (!?!?!?) visit as required by the court.
Broderick is being held without bond, but mostly it seems only so Jose Garza can try to make political hay out to the fact that Broderick committed this crime after he posted bond. This somehow is supposed to prove that the cash bond system exists merely to “penalize poverty and doesn’t work.” Ignoring the facts that simply releasing violent criminals on P.R. bonds without posting any bail, as his own policies dictate, works even worse. And it doesn’t even do what the bail bond system is designed to do; compel the defendant’s attendance at all required pretrial hearings and at trial. If someone like Broderick jumped bail after only posting 10% of the amount the bondsman will hire someone to track him down. With people like Olmos released on a P.R. bond no bondsman is out any money. No bondsman was ever involved. Only a law enforcement agency might look for him, and that depends on how high a priority the fugitive is. Most of the time they’ll just wait for the fugitive to get arrested again, then try to gain custody. Try; there are no guarantees.
Garza needs to go; the good news is that the Texas Rangers appear to be investigating him and his office for witness tampering. This may have also occurred in the George Floyd case in order to make convicting Chauvin a slam dunk. Garza appears to have attempted to tamper with and then intimidate an APD detective in what should not be but has been spun as a “racially charged” case in Austin. The defense, the legislature, as well as the Texas Rangers have the officer’s sworn affidavit. The judge in the case dismissed the defense’s motion to dismiss the case due to prosecutorial misconduct but without prejudice pending the outcome of the Ranger’s investigation. They can refile, and Garza may be toast.
This judge and all those of his ilk need to be removed from the bench and like Garza prosecuted if they did anything provable beyond violating the state judicial code of ethics.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/bryan-preston/2021/05/28/why-would-anyone-want-to-live-inn-austin-anymore-after-what-the-travis-county-da-just-did-n1450191
https://nypost.com/2021/04/19/supsect-arrested-in-killings-of-wife-daughter-boyfriend-report/
Oops, I missed a </blockquote> there.
A scalpel. A double-edged scalpel. Hoisted by their own petard.
“The Texas State House immediately voted to allow law enforcement to arrest the Democrats and bring them back to Austin.”
Let me get this straight — Texas LEOs are going to go to DC, arrest Texas residents and bring them home? Isn’t this a jurisdictional issue?
They can ask DC cops to arrest them on a Texas warrant. Whether DC police would cooperate is another question.
DC police? One word from Bowser and they will stand down.
I don’t think DC cops could arrest them even if they wanted to. They’re not fugitives, because they’re not suspected of any crime.
The dem fleebagger superspreaders fled a special session that Gov. Abbott called. The TX legislature only meets once every two years for their regular sessions. They’re part time legislators. They have day jobs (or should if their names aren’t Beto O’Rourke). Now they aren’t even going to get paid for being part time legislators until they return to work.
The idea, then, is that they can’t stay away from their families/jobs/businesses (income) for long until they’re forced to return to TX. Then they’ll be arrested and hauled into the state capital building in (hopefully) chains.
I don’t think any sane person would expect the D.C. PD to lift a finger. But, who knows? they might visit family in other states that would be more responsive. Maybe the TX Rangers can issue an interpol fugitive alert. A couple of these clowns are vacationing in Portugal.
Which seems to indicate that many of them just may be named Beto O’Rourke.
The arrest order has no authority anywhere outside Texas. Even a friendly state’s police could not arrest them.
And they continue to be paid until last year’s appropriation runs out, whereupon nobody gets paid.
Covert rendition? Effective if short of legal.
No. Texas LEOs can’t arrest anyone in DC. But if they find them anywhere in Texas they can arrest them and bring them to the House.
GREAT
DO IT EVERY FREAKING TIME!!!
Jail them in the same conditions as the Jan 6 political prisoners.
They can’t be jailed. They’ve committed no crime. They can only be arrested and brought directly back to the House.
I would look for the Texas legislature to propose a constitutional amendment to eliminate the two-thirds quorum either in special session or in the next session. There is no reason it can’t be a simple majority or something more workable like three-fifths.
I quoted the Texas Constitution in an earlier post. To eliminate the requirement that 2/3 of the members constitute a quorum would require a constitutional amendment. It may not be so easy.
I have a better amendment in mind. Any member who is out of state during session will have his seat considered, “unfilled” for quorum and voting purposes for the rest of the session. They get their vote back in the next session.
It’s about time a Democrat stunt backfires
Let’s hope they get the full Roger Stone arrest treatment! These fucks absolutely deserve that dame level of fucking respect!!
Hm. Couldn’t they just hold a 2am session and “find” the missing Democrats?
I doubt anyone would have standing to ask the courts to “correct” such a count. If the circus around the last Federal elections is any indication, at least.
/s
Oh, never mind. It is Republicans. So they will actually follow the law. If there was a Dem majority it would be som much easier…
“I doubt anyone would have standing to ask the courts to “correct” such a count.”
Especially if there is a warm ass in each vacant seat.
The Left doesn’t have an issue with using its institutional power to hurt others. It’s time we call them to the carpet, every way we can.