Texas state Republican Rep. Brian Harrison told Newsmax on Tuesday that “it’s day two of no quorum” in the Texas state House and “day two of no consequences” for the Democrat lawmakers who fled the state to cripple the chamber’s ability to conduct business.
Lone Star State Republicans unveiled a new congressional map Wednesday that threatens to eliminate five Democrat-held seats by creating five additional districts that lean in the GOP’s favor. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott called a special legislative session to approve the map, but Texas state House Democrats fled to Illinois, New York and Massachusetts — all blue states — on Sunday to prevent a vote.
Harrison told “The Chris Salcedo Show” that Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows and the elected leadership actually allowed the AWOL Texas Democrats to leave the state. According to Harrison, they were released to strategize and plan their quorum break with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who serves as the minority leader for the U.S. House of Representatives.
The little-known story in Texas politics, Harrison said, is that the red state is quietly controlled by blue lawmakers.
“This is a story that the national media is not getting,” he said. “They’re not understanding this. How could the speaker have released the Democrats? Well, I’ll tell you how. The liberal Democrats, the Texas House Democrat caucus, is actually who elected the so-called Republican speaker in the Republican-dominated Texas House of Representatives. So that’s the answer to your first question. America needs to understand that even though the voters in Texas are red, the Texas House is controlled by Democrats and has been for almost two decades.”
Asked whether there has been any commitment from state GOP leadership to strip the deserting lawmakers of their privileges, Harrison said there’s been no indication.
“No, as of yet, there have been no assurances whatsoever that Democrats will be stripped of their titles or any of their privileges,” he said. “Quite frankly, that should have happened the second they crossed the state line out of Texas. The bare minimum would be to take away their privileges, take away their authorities, strip them of their seniority, take away the co-chairmanships that they have on every committee in the state of Texas.”
Harrison called the apparent lack of consequences “a betrayal of the voters of the state of Texas who want their House to work.”
“They voted for Republican leadership; they deserve bold Republican leadership,” he added.
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