Austin, Texas has seen a surge in Republican efforts to prevent Democrats from leaving the state. During the second special session, three bills have been filed to either punish quorum-breakers or prevent future quorum breaks. These bills include House Bill 18: Banning fundraising during a quorum break, Senate Bill 48/House Bill 64: Vacating the seat of a lawmaker with seven consecutive days of unexcused absences, and House Joint Resolution 10: Amending the Texas Constitution to reduce the quorum threshold from two-thirds majority to a simple majority.
The Texas House Republicans agreed to support each of these bills, along with supporting House rule changes to increase penalties for future quorum breaks. The rule changes include allowing the removal of chairmanship/vice-chairmanship and loss of seniority for breaking quorum, dramatically increasing the $500/day fine for breaking quorum, forfeiting a pro rata portion of their office budget for each day absent, and automatically vacating chairmanship/vice-chairmanship roles for missing two consecutive days unexcused. However, they fell just short of hitting the two-thirds vote necessary to support a censure of the Democrats who fled the state.
The fight over what to do with the quorum breakers comes after the Texas House revealed the fines accrued by the quorum breakers last week. State Rep. Venton Jones shared a letter from the Committee on House Administration charging him $9,354.25 for the quorum break, which included $7,000 worth of fines and a $2,354.25 fine to cover the expenses to have the Texas Department of Public Safety attempt to bring Democrats back to Austin. According to the Texas House Democrats, most members who broke quorum incurred a fine of the “same amount or very, very similar.”
On Friday, the Texas Senate stopped a last-ditch measure by State Sen. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston, to stall the “Big, Beautiful Map,” even further through a filibuster. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick followed up by saying a special session fundraising moratorium could hinder future quorum breaks. Bettencourt and Patrick’s attempt to ban special session fundraising would also extend to the Governor’s office, as the Governor is the only one who has the power to call special sessions.
Hours after Patrick and Bettencourt called for the special session fundraising ban on social media, Abbott added two items to the second special session agenda.
