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August 8, 2025 2:43 PM
The Democrats targeted for removal are Representatives Reynolds, Talarico, Goodwin, Flores, Hinojosa, Plesa, Lalani, Bucy, Turner, Wu, Ramos, C Morales, and Jessica Gonzalez. Paxton claims they made incriminating statements
Here’s the filing
in the Supreme Court of Texas.
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Copyright August 08, 2025, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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August 8, 2025 1:06 PM
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Copyright August 08, 2025, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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August 7, 2025 4:35 PM
In 2007, Abbott as the AG wrote “this office will adhere to the Texas Constitution's separation of powers doctrine and longstanding precedent in declining to answer questions requiring an interpretation of Senate and House Rules or questions regarding legislative parliamentary decisions.”
It would be comical if it wasn't so sad.
The Governor of the great state of Texas,
a former Supreme Court Justice and a former Attorney General is
either willfully or ignorantly misrepresenting the law in extraordinarily
consequential circumstances. The first was when he claimed that an Opinion from
the Office of the Attorney General gave him the authority to
remove elected officials, specifically Democratic State reps who are breaking
quorum. The second was being reminded by AG Ken Paxton that the governor
did not have standing to petition the Supreme Court seeking removal when only a
district attorney, county attorney, or the AG could legally initiate the
process. But this was never about the law. It’s about optics and the Fox
News audience.
Naturally, the governor’s office
disagrees with all this and the Supremes, mostly appointed by him, have asked
the other side for a response.
But, to remind the governor, an Attorney
General's opinion is purely advisory and has no force of law. These opinions
are simply that: Opinions providing a basis for future
litigation but with little relevance to justify a cause
of action.
In fact, Gov. Greg Abbott has some
experience of his own dealing with an attorney general intervening in
legislative politics. It goes back to the days when Texas House
chairmen wanted to remove a sitting speaker.
The rest of the story, subscribers only
By Harvey Kronberg
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Copyright August 07, 2025, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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August 7, 2025 3:45 PM
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Copyright August 07, 2025, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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August 6, 2025 3:02 PM
Meantime, Republicans at the Capitol in Austin objected to excusing the absence of Sen. Johnson, who’s attended NCSL in Boston
On the
60th anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act, Texas
Senate Democrats joined colleagues from around the country on the steps
of the Massachusetts Capitol to make their case against the call
to redraw Texas’ congressional maps to help Republicans pick up seats and
maintain their slim majority in Congress.
Caucus
Chair Carol Alvarado was joined by Senators Cesar Blanco, Molly Cook,
Sarah Eckhardt, Roland Gutierrez, Nathan Johnson, Jose Menéndez, Borris Miles, and Royce
West, who were in Boston for the National Conference of State
Legislatures. They were flanked by Democrats from blue, purple, and some
red states who praised their House colleagues for breaking quorum. Texas
Democrats aren’t fighting for their state but democracy and against bad policy,
they argued.
Their supporters
said the legislators are taking a brave stand against President Donald Trump,
who pushed Gov. Greg Abbott to put redistricting on the special session agenda.
The rest of the story, subscribers only
By James Russell
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Copyright August 06, 2025, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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August 6, 2025 2:53 PM
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Copyright August 06, 2025, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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August 6, 2025 9:49 AM
“This morning, a threat was made against the safety of the members of the Texas House Democratic Caucus. We are safe, we are secure, and we are undeterred. We are grateful for Governor Pritzker, local, and state law enforcement for their quick action to ensure our safety."
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Copyright August 06, 2025, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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August 5, 2025 10:14 PM
From
Paxton’s letter
to the Texas Supreme Court:
“[T]his
Court’s precedent is clear that a ‘quo warranto’ proceeding ‘can only be
brought by the attorney general, a county attorney, or a district attorney.’ In
re Dallas County, 697 S.W.3d 142, 152 (Tex. 2024) (orig. proceeding). Further,
the Constitution charges ‘the Attorney General’ with the obligation ‘to
represent the State in all suits and pleas in the Supreme Court of the State in
which the State may be a party.’ … As a result, the Court should not dismiss
the Governor’s petition until the Speaker’s Friday deadline passes
and the Attorney General can be heard on these weighty issues.”
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Copyright August 05, 2025, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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August 5, 2025 5:28 PM
The filing
in the Supreme Court of Texas is here.
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Copyright August 05, 2025, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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August 5, 2025 3:36 PM
“If you don’t show up to work, you get fired," Paxton said, presumably in Scotland where he reportedly had a recent discussion with President Trump about the US Senate race
Following
the lead of Gov. Greg Abbott, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton
on Tuesday announced his office seek to have the offices of quorum breaking
Democrats vacated so that new elections can be ordered. It's an untested theory
and one that relies on an AG's opinion written by Paxton in 2021 after House
Democrats left Texas for Washington amid a fight about a sweeping elections
law.
Paxton
pointed to Speaker Dustin Burrows' announcement that Democrats have
until Friday to return to the House chamber.
"Any
lawmaker who has not been arrested and returned or fails to appear by the
Speaker’s deadline will be subject to aggressive legal action," Paxton's
office said in a news release.
“Democrats
have abandoned their offices by fleeing Texas, and a failure to respond to a
call of the House constitutes a dereliction of their duty as elected
officials,” Paxton said. "Starting Friday, any rogue lawmakers refusing to
return to the House will be held accountable for vacating their office. The
people of Texas elected lawmakers, not jet-setting runaways looking for
headlines. If you don’t show up to work, you get fired," Paxton said,
presumably in Scotland where he had a recent discussion with President Trump
about the US Senate race, per
CNN.
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Copyright August 05, 2025, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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August 5, 2025 3:34 PM
Appearing on Fox News Channel, Burrows said he hasn't looked in that question at all and has instead been focused on reestablishing a quorum in the Texas House by Friday
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Copyright August 05, 2025, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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August 4, 2025 3:03 PM
Burrows says there will be consequences for actions of quorum-busting Democrats
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Copyright August 04, 2025, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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August 3, 2025 11:26 PM
Abbott on social
media made it sound as if he has the power to declare Texas House offices
vacant by invoking an AG opinion from Ken Paxton in 2021. It says no such thing
and isn’t the law anyway.
You can read what Paxton
said in 2021 right here, which just says courts could maybe eventually
figure out if an office was vacant.
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Copyright August 03, 2025, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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August 3, 2025 10:53 PM
Abbott also said "It seems to me that the only way some of the fleeing Democrats can avoid bribery charges is to not break quorum. It seems that would eliminate any potential quid pro quo connected to any payment they received to deny a quorum and skip a vote."
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Copyright August 03, 2025, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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August 3, 2025 3:53 PM
“This is not a decision we make lightly, but it is one we make with absolute moral clarity,” Chair Wu said. “Governor Abbott has turned the victims of a historic tragedy into political hostages in his submission to Donald Trump.”
The Texas
House Democratic Caucus confirmed Sunday afternoon that at least 51 of
their members leaving the state right now – enough to deny GOP leadership a
quorum on Monday when a proposed congressional map designed to add 5 more
Republican seats is slated for floor debate.
Various sources
indicated the number of House Democrats leaving was around 55 or 56, something
like that. It’s our understanding that those House Democrats will mostly head
to Chicago and Albany with a number of them also in
Boston, the site of this week’s National Conference of State Legislatures.
Of course, veterans know that during a quorum break, it doesn’t really matter
where they are. It matters where they ain’t. The caucus
this afternoon also launched this
website called “Rigged Redistricting.”
In a written
statement, the caucus said the move was intended to create “a firewall against
an unprecedented crisis of inaction created by Governor Greg Abbott’s
dereliction of duty and his submission to Donald Trump’s demands” to
redraw seats in Houston, DFW, Austin, and South Texas.
The rest of the story, subscribers only
By Scott Braddock
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Copyright August 03, 2025, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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August 3, 2025 3:13 PM
A statement from the caucus is expected this afternoon
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Copyright August 03, 2025, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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August 3, 2025 9:01 AM
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Copyright August 03, 2025, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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