Democratic Texas state Rep. Nicole Collier is spending the night time on the Texas Home ground in protest after refusing a Republican demand to be positioned below the watch of the state Division of Public Security.
When Texas Home Democrats returned to the Capitol in Austin on Monday, after having fled the state earlier this month so as to forestall a vote on a controversial Republican redistricting plan, Home Speaker Dustin Burrows put constraints on their actions.
Burrows introduced that the Democrats may solely depart the Home ground in the event that they acquired written permission and agreed to be below legislation enforcement escort till the chamber reconvenes on Wednesday morning.
The Democrats who skipped out on earlier makes an attempt to fulfill quorum for a particular session to approve the redrawn congressional maps could have an around-the-clock DPS escort to make sure their presence when the Home convenes Wednesday, a legislative aide advised CNN.
Democrats had fled to blue states — together with Illinois, New York and Massachusetts — as they confronted civil arrest warrants pushed by GOP officers in Texas to power them again into the Home chamber.
Nearly all of the Democrats complied with the legislation enforcement escort, exhibiting reporters what they known as “permission slips” they acquired to depart the Home ground and pointing to the officers escorting them across the Capitol.
However Collier refused to enter into that settlement and has been confined to the Home ground since returning. She will solely depart the ground to return to her workplace below the watch of a legislation enforcement officer, an aide stated, and can’t depart the state Capitol until she agrees to outdoors supervision.
State Reps. Gene Wu and Vince Perez plan to remain on the Home ground together with her in a single day, the aide stated. Wu posted a photograph on X detailing a few of their snacks for the lengthy stretch forward – dried peaches, freeze dried grapes, popcorn and ramen.
“My constituents despatched me to Austin to guard their voices and rights,” stated Collier. “I refuse to signal away my dignity as a duly elected consultant simply so Republicans can management my actions and monitor me with police escorts. My neighborhood is majority-minority, they usually anticipate me to face up for his or her illustration. Once I press that button to vote, I do know these maps will hurt my constituents — I received’t simply go alongside quietly with their intimidation or their discrimination.”
State Rep. Nicole Collier talks on the cellphone from the ground of the Home, the place she has chosen to stay till Wednesday, after Democratic lawmakers who had left the state to stop Republicans from redrawing Texas’s 38 congressional districts returned to the Capitol in Austin, Texas, on August 18, 2025. – Gene Wu/Handout/Reuters
Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke celebrated Collier’s protest on Monday, writing on social media, “A real hero, refusing to submit, preventing these fascists by herself if she has to. We’re with you Nicole!”
The Texas Home established a quorum Monday afternoon, for the primary time since most members of the Democratic minority fled the state 15 days earlier to stop it from having the two-thirds quorum essential to advance new congressional maps geared toward creating 5 extra Republican-leaning seats forward of subsequent 12 months’s midterm elections.
Early of their boycott, Burrows had signed civil arrest warrants for these Democrats. However DPS officers couldn’t perform these warrants as a result of the Democrats had been out of state.
At President Donald Trump’s urging, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Republicans who management the state Home and Senate launched the trouble to redraw the state’s congressional districts mid-decade — a break from most states’ typical observe of redistricting as soon as a decade, after the completion of the US Census.
It’s a part of the get together’s effort to carry onto its slender Home majority in subsequent 12 months’s midterm elections — one which additionally contains lobbying GOP officers in Indiana and Missouri to vary their maps to show Democratic-held seats into favorable floor for Republicans, and will see the get together add extra GOP-leaning seats in Ohio, which is required by state legislation to redistrict.
The Texas effort has set off a nationwide gerrymandering arms race. In California, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has vowed retribution, proposing a measure that may set off new maps that might assist Democrats choose up 5 extra seats within the state — however provided that Texas strikes ahead with its redistricting plan.
This story has been up to date with extra particulars.
For extra CNN information and newsletters create an account at CNN.com