Rep. Nicole Collier, the Democratic state lawmaker who spent Monday night inside the Texas Capitol, is asking a court to let her exit the building, alleging she’s facing “illegal restraint by the government” after she was told she needs a police escort to leave.
The Fort Worth lawmaker and dozens of other Democrats left Texas earlier this month to delay a vote on a GOP-led plan to redraw the state’s congressional map. The Democrats returned to Texas in recent days and they were given state police escorts to ensure they will show up when the state House convenes Wednesday, but Collier refused to sign a “permission slip” to be under escort by the Texas Department of Public Safety. Collier says she slept on the House floor overnight.
Collier told CBS News’ “The Takeout” on Tuesday that several other Democrats “tore up their permission slips” and will join her on the House floor Tuesday night.
“I refuse to comply with this unreasonable, un-American and unnecessary request,” Collier said.
Meanwhile, in a habeas corpus application filed in Austin state court on Monday, lawyers for Collier alleged “illegal confinement.”
The petition says state Rep. Charlie Geren, a Republican who chairs the House Administration Committee, told Collier: “If you leave the Capitol you are subject to arrest.” Collier’s petition does not mention the state police escorts.
Collier’s attorneys argue that’s illegal. They acknowledged that Texas law allows lawmakers who are absent from the Capitol to face civil arrest, but they say state officials have no legal right to detain legislators who are already present at the Capitol to ensure they don’t leave.
“The plain language is clear: a member may be compelled by the Sergeant-at-Arms to attend a legislative session if he or she is physically absent, but no such power is conferred on the Legislature to arrest or otherwise compel a member who is currently present (and not absent) to stay,” the Democrat’s court petition read.
Collier, a seven-term lawmaker and former chair of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus, is asking a judge to order the House Sergeant-at-Arms to “immediately release” her, and to bar the Sergeant-at-Arms from “restraining Representative Collier in any respect.”
CBS News has reached out to Geren, House Speaker Dustin Burrows and the Texas Department of Public Safety for comment.
The Texas House is set to reconvene on Wednesday at 10 a.m., when lawmakers are expected to move forward on a mid-decade redistricting effort that was pushed by President Trump. The new congressional maps could give Republicans a boost in next year’s midterm elections, as the party aims to hold onto its narrow edge in the U.S. House.
The plan was temporarily derailed earlier this month when dozens of Democratic members of the Texas House left the state in protest, denying House Republicans a quorum for the final two weeks of a special legislative session called by Gov. Greg Abbott to redraw the congressional maps. Republican officials threatened to seek Democrats’ arrest or push from their removal from the legislature unless they returned to the state Capitol.
Abbott called another special session starting Wednesday. Republicans are widely expected to pass the redistricting plan, given their decisive majorities in the state House and Senate.
The plan has sparked nationwide recrimination from Democrats, with blue states like California and New York floating their own redistricting efforts. One plan in California could create five more Democratic-leaning seats, offsetting Texas’s efforts.
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