The Supreme Court of Texas has refused to remove Rep. Gene Wu, a Houston Democrat and party leader in the Texas House, from office over his role in the high-profile, 2025 quorum break over congressional redistricting.
The court's Friday opinion is a blow to Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton. The Republicans had asked the court to remove Wu for leaving the state. Abbott and Paxton argued Wu and his quorum-breaking Democratic colleagues abandoned their jobs when they didn't show up to debate newly proposed district lines.
While the court did not rule about the legality of quorum breaking in general, it made clear that the Texas Constitution already gives the Texas Legislature tools to deal with absent members. Those include steps like fining lawmakers, something the state did to Democrats who left the state during last summer's special sessions.
"Courts have uniformly recognized that it is not their role to resolve disputes between the other two branches that those branches can resolve for themselves," wrote Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock in the court's 5-page opinion.
Friday's move, however, does leave the door open for future attempts to remove quorum breaking lawmakers from office. That's because the Supreme Court of Texas didn't weigh in on the overall legality of Abbott and Paxton's request, saying this specific situation had already been resolved.
The 2025 quorum break by Texas House Democrats drew national attention to Texas' unconventional, effort to redraw the state's congressional districts earlier than usual. The Republican-led effort came at the behest of President Donald Trump, who instructed the state to find five additional seats in Congress for Texas Republicans.
After their two-week quorum break last year, the Democrats ultimately returned to the state Capitol in mid-August. Texas' new congressional maps were quickly passed through the legislature and were signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott.
Nationally, Texas' mid-decade redistricting sparked a race by states to gerrymander their districts ahead of the 2026 election — a fight that is still playing out today.
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