Texas House Speaker Signs Arrest Warrants For Democrats Who Fled State Over Voting Bill

“We must hold the line against these desperate attempts to destroy our democracy," a Democratic lawmaker said.

Texas’s Republican House speaker, Rep. Dan Phelan, signed arrest warrants Tuesday night for 52 House Democrats who fled the state last month in protest of GOP plans for restrictive new voting rights legislation. The Dallas Morning News first reported that the warrants had been issued, adding that they will be delivered to the Texas House sergeant-at-arms on Wednesday morning. The newspaper added that at least two dozen lawmakers are still in Washington, D.C., and others are outside the jurisdiction of local officials. The civil arrest warrants came just hours after Texas’s all-Republican Supreme Court said the rogue lawmakers could be detained and returned to the state, vacating a lower court’s order that protected them. The Texas House voted shortly afterward to force their Democratic colleagues to return, authorizing law enforcement to find those missing and bring them home.