By Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The FBI will help Texas track down Democratic state lawmakers who left the state as part of a collective effort to thwart state Republican efforts to redraw congressional districts, Republican U.S. Senator John Cornyn said on Thursday.
“Director Kash Patel has approved my request for the FBI to assist state and local law enforcement in locating runaway Texas House Democrats,” he said in a statement. “We cannot allow these rogue legislators to avoid their constitutional responsibilities.”
The FBI could not be immediately reached for comment.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott earlier this week threatened to arrest any Democrats who were participating in the effort to prevent their Republican counterparts from enacting the sweeping redistricting effort.
More than 50 Democrats from the Texas legislature have participated in the effort, which has denied Republicans a quorum necessary to vote on the redistricting plan that has been championed by President Donald Trump.
During Monday’s statehouse session in Austin, the Republican speaker of the Texas House of Representatives issued civil warrants for the absent Democrats – most of whom have gone to Democratic-led states including Illinois, New York and Massachusetts – to be brought back to Austin.
But the warrants apply only within the state, and breaking quorum is not a crime that would allow Texas authorities to pursue extradition from other states.
Cornyn sent Patel a letter on Tuesday urging him to assist the state’s local law enforcement with tracking the absent Democrats down. In that letter, he also said he feared that “legislators who solicited or accepted funds to aid in their efforts to avoid their legislative duties may be guilty of bribery or other public corruption offenses.” In raising this concern, he did not cite any specific evidence of such crimes.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Scott Malone and Mark Porter)
