Activist Judge Throws the Fugitive Texas Democrats a Lifeline

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File

Gov. Greg Abbott has officially called another special session, forcing the Texas Democrats who fled to block a voter integrity bill to continue their foolhardy charade. But now, an activist judge has stepped in to throw them a lifeline.

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The Democrat has signed an order to block enforcement of the arrest warrants put out for the Texas Democrats. Those arrests are allowed under the Texas Constitution as a way to force the appearance of lawmakers who refuse to show up to do their jobs.

This appears to allow the fugitive Democrats to return home from Washington, DC now with no way to compel them to provide a quorum as the law requires. In other words, Texas’ government will never function again because now the minority party can literally just not show up to work anytime they want to stop a piece of legislation. The fact that Republicans have a massive majority in the Texas House becomes irrelevant. The entire legislative system in the Lone Star State has been nullified because a judge said so. Talk about tyranny.

The caveat here is that the current order signed by the judge only lasts two weeks. At that point, the arrests would conceivably be allowed again. But you can expect another order to be signed to keep this going.

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Abbott must stay on the offensive. This should be challenged immediately in whatever way it can so that this Democrat judge’s word is not final. There may also be other ways to put the Texas Democrats on ice, perhaps by hitting them financially. After all, why should they get paid if they aren’t showing up for work? If there are any executive actions that Abbott can take to enact the provisions of the voter integrity legislation, he needs to go down that path as well.

This can’t be allowed to stand because again, if it does, then the Texas legislative system might as well cease to exist.

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