Texas Legislature approves stiff penalties, fundraising limits for lawmakers who leave state to block bills

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Texas Republican lawmakers on Wednesday evening adopted a package of sharper penalties and new fundraising restrictions for members who leave the state to freeze legislative action, in a bid to deter future standoffs like what ensued when House Democrats absconded last month to delay passage of a new congressional map.

The array of new punishments includes a proposal to severely curtail how much lawmakers can fundraise should they leave Texas to deny their chamber the headcount required to conduct business. Under House Bill 18, absent members and their legislative caucuses will be prohibited from accepting daily political contributions beyond their per diem allocation — currently $221 a day, as set by the Texas Ethics Commission — and barred from spending any campaign cash on travel, food or lodging related to their out-of-state trip.

The measure passed the lower chamber Tuesday and was whisked through the Senate and on to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk late just after midnight Thursday.

Meanwhile, the Texas House also adopted new rules Wednesday that impose a handful of harsher punishments for lawmakers who break quorum, including erasing two years of legislative seniority for each day lawmakers are absent, starting after they miss three consecutive days of legislative business. The changes also include higher daily fines for lawmakers who flee the state and a new provision stripping them of committee leadership appointments.

The new rules are largely symbolic and aimed squarely at future quorum breaks, as Democrats have returned from their August protest against congressional redistricting. And the Legislature already passed the reconfigured map — ordered by President Donald Trump to secure the GOP more seats in the U.S. House — which was recently signed into law by Abbott and now faces legal challenges.

House members adopt rules anew at the beginning of each regular session on odd-numbered years. After Democrats left the state to delay a package of GOP voting restrictions in 2021, the House held off on updating the rules until 2023, by which time tensions had mellowed out.

House GOP hardliners for weeks urged state leaders to castigate Democrats for what they characterize as an abandonment of their duties, though the state Constitution permits quorum breaks.

“I think these penalties are reasonable,” Rep. Cody Vasut of Angleton, the rules package author, said Wednesday night. “I think they are strong to help deter a future quorum break.”

The calls for retribution were answered in short order. After Democrats returned and the House approved the new district lines, Abbott — who decides which topics can be considered during special sessions — expanded his agenda, giving lawmakers permission to enact the stiffer penalties.

Such legislation was needed, Abbott said at the time, “to ensure that rogue lawmakers cannot hijack the important business of Texans.”

On the House floor this week, Republican Rep. Matt Shaheen of Plano, the author of the fundraising restriction bill, argued that current law creates a financial incentive for members to protest with their absence, pointing to fundraising efforts touting the Democrats’ departure.

Democrats cast the penalties — particularly the new House rules — as vindictive and unnecessarily punitive.

In opposition speeches, they noted the “outside influences” — nodding to Vasut’s wording — that nudged the GOP into mid-decade redistricting. Some struck a defiant tone, arguing that voters could kick them out of office at the polls if they disapproved of their quorum breaking.

“When politicians change the rules of the game, it's because they know they're losing,” Houston Rep. Gene Wu, the House Democratic Caucus leader, said in a statement. “By breaking quorum, we exposed the corrupt deal between Trump and Abbott to rig Texas’ congressional maps, and turned it into a national movement.”

The fundraising clampdown sailed through the GOP-dominated Senate, though some Republicans who supported the measure said it would not solve the issue at hand, bemoaning that it stopped short of the upper chamber’s more aggressive approach of barring lawmakers from fundraising altogether during special sessions. That moratorium is already in place for the Legislature’s 140-day regular sessions that take place every other year.

During a Senate committee hearing Wednesday, Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, noted that quorum breaks generally do not happen on the spur of the moment and instead are preceded by weeks of chatter and planning, during which it will still be legal for lawmakers to raise money. Hall ultimately voted to advance the measure as part of a 9-1 committee vote.

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