{"id":296125,"date":"2026-05-16T15:29:30","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T15:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/296125\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T15:29:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T15:29:30","slug":"supreme-court-of-texas-refuses-removal-of-house-democratic-leader-gene-wu-over-2025-quorum-break-houston-public-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/296125\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court of Texas refuses removal of House Democratic leader Gene Wu over 2025 quorum break \u2013 Houston Public Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"Gene<\/a><\/p>\n

Patricia Lim\/KUT<\/p>\n

Texas Rep. Gene Wu gives a speech during a protest against redistricting at the Texas Capitol on Friday, Aug. 1, 2025.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court of Texas has refused<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

The court\u2019s Friday opinion is a blow to Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton. The Republicans had asked<\/a> the court to remove Wu for leaving the state<\/a>. Abbott and Paxton argued Wu and his quorum-breaking Democratic colleagues abandoned their jobs when they didn\u2019t show up to debate newly proposed district lines.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, something the state did to Democrats who left the state during last summer\u2019s special sessions.<\/p>\n

\u201cCourts have uniformly recognized that it is not their role to resolve disputes between the other two branches that those branches can resolve for themselves,\u201d wrote Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock in the court\u2019s 5-page opinion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s move, however, does leave the door open for future attempts to remove quorum breaking lawmakers from office. That\u2019s because the Supreme Court of Texas didn\u2019t weigh in on the overall legality of Abbott and Paxton\u2019s request, saying this specific situation had already been resolved.<\/p>\n

The 2025 quorum break<\/a> by Texas House Democrats drew national attention to Texas\u2019 unconventional, effort to redraw the state\u2019s congressional districts<\/a> earlier than usual. The Republican-led effort came at the behest<\/a> of President Donald Trump, who instructed the state to find five additional seats in Congress for Texas Republicans.<\/p>\n

After their two-week quorum break<\/a> last year, the Democrats ultimately returned to the state Capitol in mid-August. Texas\u2019 new congressional maps<\/a> were quickly passed through the legislature and were signed into law<\/a> by Abbott.<\/p>\n

Nationally, Texas\u2019 mid-decade redistricting sparked a race by states to gerrymander their districts ahead of the 2026 election \u2014 a fight that is still<\/a> playing<\/a> out<\/a> today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patricia Lim\/KUT Texas Rep. Gene Wu gives a speech during a protest against redistricting at the Texas Capitol…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[21409,2441,38209,3480,392,56,66,223,287,3311,107740,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-296125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-congressional-redistricting","tag-court","tag-gene-wu","tag-gerrymandering","tag-greg-abbott","tag-houston","tag-local","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-supreme-court-of-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}