Governor Greg Abbott presented an emergency petition on Tuesday before the Texas Supreme Court to eliminate state representative Gene Wu after Wu and other Democrats left the State to delay republican efforts to re -draw the lines of the Congress district.
ABBOTT’s demand, a Republican, argues that Wu, the president of the Democratic Caucus of the House of Representatives of Texas, violated the state constitution and that his absence was equivalent to the position of abandonment.
With their absence, Democratic legislators have denied the Republicans that the legislative quorum had to advance with the plans to draw the limits of the congress and give the Republican party five more seats of the House of Representatives in Congress.
The lawsuit argues that the quorum provisions assistance to the State Chamber “an affirmative constitutional obligation.”
“The WU representative has openly resigned these constitutional mandates when fleeing from the state of Texas to break the quorum, obstruct the legislative procedures and paralyze the Chamber of Representatives of Texas,” says the demand.
“The junction of the State during a constitutionally mandatory session, not for legal cause, but with the purpose of subverting the ability of the legislature to function, constitutes a flagrant violation of Wu’s oath and is an intentional abandonment of its constitutional duty,” he adds.
Wu did not immediately respond to a request for comments on Tuesday night, but in a statement obtained by the Houston Khou store, he said he was not leaving his duties.
“Let me be unequivocal about my actions and my duty. When a governor conspires with a dishonorous president to cross a racist map of Gerrymanded, my constitutional duty is not to be a willing participant,” Wu said.
“To deny the governor a quorum was not an abandonment of my office; it was a fulfillment of my oath. Unable to defend his corrupt agenda about his merits, Greg Abbott now seeks desperately to silence my dissent by eliminating a duly chosen official from the office,” he added.
Wu said on social networks on Illinois Sunday that he was “on the field in Chicago … fighting for the rights of Texans and all Americans.”
Abbott said in a statement that Wu and more than 50 Democrats who abandoned the State had not met the quorum requirements when refusing to return.
“The Democrats of the Texas House of Representatives left their duty to the Texans, and there must be consequences,” he said.
Abbott had warned in a statement on Sunday that would seek the elimination of the Democrats if they were not present when the camera met the next day. During the absence of Democratic legislators on Monday, he ordered the State Public Security Department to stop them after a vote of the Chamber to force the Sergeant of Arms to “send” the return of the legislators “under order of arrest, if necessary.”
When asked if the FBI and the federal government should participate in the location and detention of legislators, President Donald Trump told journalists the early Tuesday that “they may have to do it.”
“Many people have demanded that they return. You can’t simply sit. You have to come back. You have to fight. That’s the elections,” he said.
