AUSTIN, Texas (PNN) - July 28, 2021 - Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan has signed an arrest warrant for one of the runaway Texas Democrats holed up in Washington, D.C., to avoid debating an elections integrity bill back home.
The civil warrant seeks the arrest of Democrat state Rep. Philip Cortez, who made a jaunt to Texas last week and then returned to Washington.
The warrant calls for Cortez to be brought to the House. It currently is not enforceable while Cortez is in Washington.
In the standoff between Democrats who vow to block an election integrity measure from passing and Republicans who want it passed, Governor Greg Abbott has said he will keep calling special sessions until Democrats who left the state to ensure the state House could not have a quorum return. The current special session ends August 6.
On Monday, Phelan said Cortez “has irrevocably broken my trust and the trust of this chamber. Cortez represented to me and his fellow members that he wanted to work on policy and find solutions to bring his colleagues back to Texas,” Phelan said.
“As a condition of being granted permission to temporarily leave the House floor, Rep. Cortez promised his House colleagues that he would return,” Phelan said. “Instead, he fled the state.”
Texas Democrats have sought to have Democrats who control Congress, act to make the Republican-drafted legislation go away by passing a federal elections overhaul bill that is stalled in the Senate.
Democrats have been ridiculed for holding a “super-spreader” event because several Democrats have tested positive for the coronavirus, and according to media reports, passed the virus along to members of Fascist Police States of Amerika House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s staff and White House aides.
