An Illinois judge on Wednesday declined Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s (R) request to hold Texas Democrats who fled there in contempt.
Paxton reached across state lines to seek a ruling that would effectively force the blue state to comply with efforts to arrest the lawmakers and return them to Texas to end their quorum breaking that has blocked Republicans’ redistricting push.
“As the Petitioner has failed to present a legal basis for the court to obtain subject matter jurisdiction over this cause of action, this court is without jurisdiction to grant petitioner’s emergency motion to rule on pleadings,” Judge Scott Larson wrote in a brief order posted on the case docket.
“This court does not find that it has subject matter jurisdiction, this court does not consider the issues of personal jurisdiction, venue or the merits of the underlying petition for rule to show cause or the request to issue a rule to show cause upon the respondents,” he continued.
Texas Democrats fled the state earlier this month to deny a quorum as Republican state lawmakers began a special session at President Trump’s urging to pass a new House map that would bolster Republicans’ prospects in the midterms.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has ordered state law enforcement to arrest the lawmakers, but they have evaded it by fleeing to blue states.
Both Abbott and Paxton are asking Texas’s top court to intervene. But Paxton additionally filed cases alongside state Speaker Dustin Burrows (R) in Illinois and California, asking state judges there to hold Democrats in contempt. The California judge has not yet ruled.
“This Court must give full faith and credit to warrants duly issued by the Texas House of Representatives that compel these civil servants to return to Texas and to their civic responsibilities,” the Illinois petition reads.
It was filed in Adams County, a conservative-leaning area that includes the city of Quincy and is Illinois’s westernmost county.
THe Hill has reached out to spokespeople for Paxton and Burrows for comment.
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