America's Talking - Cornyn: FBI to Assist With Locating, Arresting Texas Dems Who Fled State

Episode Date: August 8, 2025

 (The Center Square) – The FBI on Thursday agreed to assist with locating Texas Democrats who fled the state to prevent the Texas House from reaching a quorum and conducting official business. On Sunday, more than 50 Democrats fled the state, many to Chicago, to prevent a House vote on redistricting, and all other votes during a special session of the legislature, by preventing a quorum from being reached. They also fled Texas to avoid being arrested by state law enforcement. On Monday, House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, signed civil arrest warrants and by Tuesday, only eight Democrats showed up for work. Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the missing Democrats to return to Austin by Monday or face being arrested and removed from office.Support this podcast: https://secure.anedot.com/franklin-news-foundation/ce052532-b1e4-41c4-945c-d7ce2f52c38a?source_code=xxxxxxFull story: https://www.thecentersquare.com/texas/article_8dee8140-5209-4c07-999f-79b94443326b.html Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings, everyone, and welcome to America's Talking, powered by the Center Square. I'm Greg Bishop, Illinois editor at the Center Square. There's been a lot of talk about redistricting, even in the middle of a 10-year cycle, as Texas House Democrats fled the Lone Star States to head to places like Illinois in an effort to block Republicans voting on new maps in Texas that could give the GOP an advantage heading into the 2026 election. and they plan to remain AWOL. And as we record this Thursday afternoon,

Texas Democrats still not in Texas, many of them in Illinois, and now the FBI seems to be getting involved. Joining me to discuss this and more is the Center Square executive editor, Dan McAulib. Dan, what is going on here? This is pretty crazy, just to offer some brief background, Texas Governor Greg Abbott called a special session of the legislature

after passing the budget and taking up other matters during the regular session. It started late last month. And one of the items that he wanted legislators to tackle was redistricting. As you mentioned, usually that happens every 10 years during the census. Abbott, at President Donald Trump's request, decided to tackle redistricting in the state of Texas. New maps came out last week, proposed maps. that have yet to be approved, that looks like it could swing five congressional districts in the Republican hands. Currently, Texas has 38 seats in Congress because of its population. Twenty-three of

those seats are held by Republicans. Fifteen are held by Democrats. Compare that to a state like Illinois, which has 17 seats in Congress where there are 14 elected Democrats and three elected Republicans. Anyway, Abbott asked for the new maps. A legislative commission drew up the new maps. As I said, they could flip five blue seats red, and Democrats don't want anything to do with it. The only way they could stop it is by, they say, is by fleeing the state. Dozens of them came up to suburban Chicago where they've been staying since Sunday. and now Governor Abbott and others have asked, one, they've issued civil warrants for their arrest. When they return to Texas, they can be arrested.

But since Governor Abbott asked for the civil warrants to be issued, U.S. Senator John Cornyn, who is a Republican from Texas, asked that the FBI could help find these Democrats. And the FBI said today, as we record this Thursday, that it will help find those House Democrats. Now, what happens if they do find them from there? That remains to be determined. And one thing that we've heard from Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, who welcomed these Texas Democrats on Sunday. Late Sunday, I was just getting to bed, Dan, while the governor welcomed these Democrats to rally together in Illinois, blasting Republicans saying that they're cheating and saying that they're breaking the rules. And then the following day, we heard more rhetoric from Democrats holding more news.

conferences, again, with the cheating rhetoric and we have to save our democracy. And then the following day, we started hearing the rhetoric heat up even more talking about bringing knives to knife fights and guns to gun fights and fighting fire with fire. Is this all just political chess pounding? Or could this possibly lead to some dominoes falling where, if Texas makes a Republican more dominant map? will Illinois even be able to do that with as gerrymandered as Illinois maps are. But other states like Texas and as at New York and California.

California here. Governor Newsom of Gavin Newsom of California has said that he will fight fire with fire. If Texas successfully redistricts its seats, he said he would come up with the same sort of plan in California. Now, California has a independent commission. that redistricts every 10 years. So how it would work in California compared to how it's currently working in Texas? I'm not sure how that would work out. California is also gerrymandered.

Let's face it, every state gerrymander, who, depending on the party in power, they gerrymander their districts to make it easier for the party in power to hold onto that power. As we talk about up front, You just mentioned Illinois. Redistricted in Illinois hasn't going to do any good.

The maps are already so distorted to favor Democrats. They're not going to be able to squeeze another Republican seat out of Illinois. The question now becomes, how long do Democrats stay in Illinois, Texas Democrats, stay in Illinois? And what can the federal government do about it? State police in Texas have no jurisdiction in Illinois to arrest. And how he governor of Pritcher said today that he was, okay with the FBI coming to Illinois, because even if they get here and find Democrats,

they can't arrest them because he says they're not in violation of federal law. But something Governor Abbott out of Texas has also said is these Democrats who came to Illinois to avoid allowing a vote in the Texas legislature, they've been accepting funds. They've been seeking, actively seeking donations. And Governor Abbott and others in Texas have said, that could amount to a bribery. Governor J.B. Pritzker, when I asked him about that outside the 2025 Illinois State Fair Ribbon Cutting, he seemed to dismiss that question entirely saying that, have you ever had to be away from your family? And we should be standing alongside these Texas Democrats calling them heroes all throughout this week.

And he doesn't really seem to have those concerns about the possibility of a line being crossed. if a elected official is getting resources to not follow through with official legislative activity. So that question of if that's bribery, definitely one that will be following here. And I imagine, Dan, this is not the last time we're going to be talking about maps in the middle of the summer of 2025. Now, it's important to note, Greg, just to close here, that next year to 2026 is the midterm elections. Every single U.S. House seat is up next year. So for control of Congress, Republicans have a slight edge in both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate. And Republicans, of course, want to keep that power, whereas Democrats want to flip one or both chambers during the midterms.

And this is all leading up to that. Well, this is America's Talking. I'm Greg Bishop, and that's Dan McAulb, with the Center Square.