E.L. Alford's tenure in the Texas Senate lasted just 343 days. There are no photographs of him in the legislative archives. Even his full name is difficult to come by.
But Alford played a huge role in the dramatic legislative session of 1870, one that started with a walkout over a militia bill and ended in the demise of his Senate career. The governor got involved, the attorney general was consulted and the fight almost ended up in the courts.
Fast forward 155 years. On Sunday, House Democrats staged a walkout to block a redraw of the state's congressional maps that would hand the GOP five additional seats. The governor is involved, the attorney general consulted, and the fight is already in the courts.
At issue then and now: whether quorum breakers can retain their elected seats.
The biggest difference, and it's a huge one, is what led to and how Alford lost his seat. He wasn't kicked out just because he broke quorum (allegedly), but because he punched a guy (allegedly). And it was the Senate itself, not another branch of government, that took steps to kick him out — although even that could be disputed.
Alford's story is far from a perfect comparison to what's happening today in Texas (at least, for now). But historians and legal scholars said the parallels provide some lessons about what to do and, perhaps more importantly, what not to do in cases like these.
"The stakes were high then and now," said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston. Then, the issue was the power of the governor. Now, it's the fairness of our voting maps. "I can see a kind of interesting parallel in terms of the national importance of what's happening here.
"The messy history here," Rottinghaus continued, "underscores the legal complication of what constitutes viability in office."
Fights, arrests and expulsions
The Texas Capitol in the early 1870s was a wild place.
That decade, "much of the Senate would be arrested, martial law would be imposed, the governor and governor-elect would occupy two different floors of the Capitol with two different groups of armed supporters, and officials would be shot, beaten, and impeached," according to a history of the period edited by Senate Secretary Patsy Spaw.
Republicans were in the majority, but they were split over their support for Gov. Edmund J. Davis, who wanted a state militia and the power to impose martial law. Alford, a senator who represented Bastrop and Fayette counties, was part of the dissenters.
On June 21, 1870, during debate on the governor's militia bill, Alford and 12 other senators got up and left the Senate chamber. The lobby was full of members of the public and press, Spaw wrote in her history, so "the dissidents convened privately in a committee room to discuss strategy."
Without them, the Senate did not have a quorum. Then, like today, two-thirds of the members are needed for the full Senate to debate bills. The Senate leader sent the sergeant-at-arms, who Spaw wrote "crept up to a window in the room and flung himself through it" to round up the absent senators. They came back to the chamber that same day.
But upon their return, nine of the senators were placed under arrest and told they would no longer be allowed to vote on bills. Four, including Alford, were not arrested — only so the chamber could have a quorum and continue to debate legislation.
The arrested senators were outraged. They insisted the 13 who left had never intended to break quorum, and said the Senate leader had no authority "to deprive them and their constituents of a voice," according to the Senate Journal from June 24, 1870.
Despite their protests, these senators were not allowed to vote for weeks. One newspaper reported that the Senate leader even removed their chairs so that if they did show up, they'd have nowhere to sit. During that time, the Senate investigated the alleged quorum breakers and recommended that just one be expelled: Alford.
He was found guilty of breaking quorum and "forcibly closing the shutters" of the room where they had decamped on the sergeant-at-arms. The reason for expulsion was "flagrant and persistent contempt…in refusing to submit to arrest."
Expelling a member, then as now, required a two-thirds vote. Alford's expulsion passed 15-5. The eight senators still under arrest were not allowed to vote.
Reversal and special election
As if this story doesn't have enough twists, the senators considered reversing the decision a month later. With the arrested senators back and allowed to vote, a resolution to reinstate Alford passed 15-12 — a simple majority.
But the matter still wasn't settled. Two days later, after the attorney general was consulted, 11 senators said the reinstatement was not valid. According to the Senate Journal, they argued expulsions were "legal" and "final" and Alford's seat was vacant and had to be filled through an election.
Ignoring their argument, Alford kept showing up.
The saga was covered by newspapers across the country. Some came to Alford's defense, claiming he was not guilty of the violence that was the real reason for his expulsion.
"When the Sergeant-at-Arms went to the room in which they were, to make the arrest, some one whom he supposed to be Alford struck him," the Galveston Daily News reported. "It was afterwards discovered that Alford was not the man who struck the blow."
Others said he was the fall guy for all the senators who opposed the governor's militia bill.
"Senator Alford has been victimized," the editor of the Lavaca Commercial opined. "Such is Radicalism in Texas, and such its demonic action for perpetuating a power that vies with hell in its iniquities."
By then, Gov. Davis had gotten wise to the situation. He initially considered getting the courts involved to stop Alford from keeping his seat. The Galveston paper reported he wanted the Texas Supreme Court to meet so "that it might be stopped."
"But those gentlemen advised that nothing of the kind be done," it wrote. The paper also suggested that the governor had some dirt on Alford that he considered using as blackmail.
Eventually, Davis took a more subtle tack. Before lawmakers came back in January 1871, he declared Alford's seat vacant and a special election was called to replace him. Turnout was low, according to The Daily Austin Republican, but a new senator was chosen.
Both that man and Alford showed up to take the seat in January. Alford did not step aside and voted as the sitting senator for a full week before he was quietly removed from the roll call and his replacement sworn in. The order, Spaw wrote, came directly from Davis.
The end of Alford's tenure passed without mention in the Senate Journal.
The Galveston paper described it as a miscarriage of justice and proof that the ruling party was "omnipotent."
"When justice is set to one side," it wrote in January 1871, "we may with resignation contemplate the result."
That year, Davis passed his militia bill with the power to declare martial law. Alford lived in La Grange until about 1900, where he also served as a county commissioner, according to Rox Ann Johnson with the Fayette Heritage Museum & Archives.
Alford is referred to only as "E.L." in legislative records. Local historians believe his full name was Enoch Leach Alford. A man by that name lived in La Grange until about 1900, where he served as a county commissioner, and died in San Antonio in 1912, according to Rox Ann Johnson with the Fayette Heritage Museum & Archives.
His obituary does not mention his time in the Texas Senate.
Ali James, the State Preservation Board's Curator of the Capitol, said Sen. Alford's legislative portrait, and those of the other men who served in 1870, are lost to time, likely burned in a fire in the old Capitol building in 1881.
Lessons for today
Seth Barrett Tillman cautions against relying on legislative precedents from Reconstruction-era Texas.
"It is not the best thing to find precedence from the troubled era of Reconstruction," Tillman, an American legal scholar and associate professor in the Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology, Ireland, said after reviewing the details of the Alford case.
What happened to Alford, he said, should remain in the past. "I am not at all persuaded that this Alford precedent would help the governor."
Tillman said legislative bodies should be able to reconsider their decisions, as the Senate did when it reinstated Alford, and neither governors nor courts have a roving mandate to police the other branches. But courts can if they have jurisdiction and the plaintiffs have standing.
Gov. Greg Abbott has asked the Texas Supreme Court to remove Rep. Gene Wu, the leader of the House Democrats who broke quorum, so he can call a new election to replace him. Attorney General Ken Paxton has also said he will seek the removal of other Democrats.
They argue the quorum breakers have forfeited their seats by fleeing the state and, in turn, shirking their duties. The Supreme Court has said it will respond to Abbott this week.
Tillman said there is no solid footing for this argument — not even in the Alford case, where the governor avoided turning to the courts. He said courts have removed elected officials in the past, but only when there is proven wrongdoing under established law.
"Quorum breaking is hardly the same," TIllman said.
"It should bother us to no end that a governor is injecting himself into interlegislative, intercameral affairs," he added. "You're not just removing a member, you're punishing the voter."
Rottinghaus said there were too many "procedural violations" in the Alford case. "Relying on this for precedent would be pretty thin broth."
The current House rules allow a member to be expelled for quorum breaking. But just like in 1870, that requires a two-thirds vote. Multiple lawmakers have introduced bills this month to more easily kick out members with unexcused, extended absences — but they cannot be passed into law until the Legislature has a quorum.
So what, if anything, can modern Texans learn from the Alford case? When something can't be solved through politics, Rottinghaus argued, a strict and true reading of the law has to be followed.
"This underscores the importance of having institutional responsibility and following the rules as designed," he said. "To go beyond that risks a serious constitutional breach, which may not be something that can be undone."
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