SPECIAL SESSION STALLS AS HOUSE DEMS LEAVE STATE
(AUSTIN) — The Texas House cannot conduct business as more than 50 Democratic representatives headed out-of-state in order to stop consideration on a controversial mid-decade redistricting map that looks to add five more Republican seats to the congressional delegation. House Democratic leaders announced the quorum break on Sunday from Illinois. At 3 pm on Monday, the House failed to make quorum. Following roll call, House Speaker Dustin Burrows said that the tactic would prove fruitless. “Leaving the state does not stop this House from doing its work,” he said. “It only delays it.” The House authorized sergeants-at-arms to compel the absent members back into the House chamber, though their authority doesn’t go beyond state lines.
SB 7, by Senator Mayes Middleton of Galveston, would restrict public bathrooms, dressing rooms, and other sex-segregated areas to a person's birth sex.
House Democrats most recently broke quorum in 2021, in protest of an elections bill they said was intended to suppress votes. That lasted six weeks before enough members returned to Austin to allow the House to conduct business, and the bill was passed. In 2003, Democrats in both chambers broke quorum, the House at the end of the regular session and the Senate during the first called session, over another controversial mid-decade redistricting plan. Again, after enough lawmakers returned to Austin, that map was passed into law.
Texas is one of four states that requires a two-thirds majority, rather than a simple majority, of members present to maintain quorum and conduct statehouse business. Along with Oregon, Indiana, and Tennessee, the minority party can halt business by refusing to appear in the capitol. This happened in Oregon in 2019, though it was the minority Republican Party walking out to protest a carbon cap-and-trade bill. In response, the Oregon legislature passed a law that would make any legislator ineligible for re-election if they have more than 10 unexcused absences in any given session. When Oregon Republicans again walked out in 2023, 10 members were subsequently barred from running for those seats. Monday, Galveston Senator Mayes Middleton filed a bill to discourage quorum breaking, SB 62, one that would vacate the seat of any member in either chamber who is absent without permission from the body for seven consecutive days.
Should House members maintain their quorum break until the end of the first called session on August 19th, then that would mean that bills that have already passed the Senate, such as the THC ban, would be dead for this session. In the past, Governor Greg Abbott has called immediate additional special sessions and placed previously failed priority legislation on the new agenda, like school choice and bail reform bills in 2023.
Despite the quorum break in the House, the Senate forged ahead on the agenda laid out by the governor, in case the House can resume business. The Senate State Affairs Committee heard two bills Monday. The first, SB 7, also by Middleton, would require that individuals use sex-segregated spaces that are commensurate with the sex listed on their birth certificate. Middleton sees this as a way to protect women in places where they expect safety. “This is common sense,” he said. “It protects women and children in private spaces like locker rooms, showers, and family violence shelters that are dedicated to women.” This bill would effectively bar transgender women from those spaces. Violators could see fines of up to $25,000.
The committee also considered a measure that is intended to protect the privacy of law enforcement officials, SB 14, by Weatherford Senator Phil King. This bill would require agencies to redact certain sensitive information outside of an officer’s personnel files, such as hiring information or unsubstantiated claims against the officer. The bill remains pending before the committee.
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