(The Center Square) – The Texas Supreme Court on Friday denied Gov. Greg Abbott’s request to remove state Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, from office.
Last August, Wu led a group of 53 House Democrats to leave Austin to prevent the Texas House, and state legislature, from conducting business for two weeks during a special session called by the governor. In response, Abbott filed an emergency petition with the Texas Supreme Court to have Wu, who chairs the Texas Democratic Caucus, removed from office.
Last month, the Texas House fined all 53 Democrats who absconded $8,354 each in accordance with House rules they supported. Wu has said he paid the fine.
After they were fined, Abbott again renewed his call for the Texas Supreme Court to remove Wu from office. He also said some members may have committed felonies who were “soliciting funds” to pay the fines they incurred under House rules. “Any Democrat who ‘solicits, accepts, or agrees to accept’ such funds to assist in the violation of legislative duties or for purposes of skipping a vote may have violated bribery laws,” he said, citing Texas penal code, The Center Square reported.
Chief Justice James Blacklock delivered the opinion for the court with Justice James Sullivan filing a concurring opinion.
In his five-page opinion, Blacklock cited the separation of powers delineated in the Texas Constitution for the basis of his ruling. The authority to remove a member of the state legislature falls in the legislative branch, not judicial branch, he said.
“The nineteenth-century framers of the Texas Constitution anticipated the situation in which our state found itself in 2025,” he wrote. “They understood that in a legislature with a two-thirds quorum rule, the power ‘to compel the attendance of absent members’ can be the difference between a functioning government and debilitating gridlock.
“They entrusted the power to compel legislative attendance not to the judicial branch but to the present members of each House, to be wielded ‘in such manner and under such penalties as each House may provide.’ In a similar vein, the framers empowered not the Supreme Court but ‘[e]ach House . . . with the consent of two-thirds [to] expel a member.’ They also made ‘[e]ach House . . . the judge of the qualifications . . . of its own members,” he wrote, citing articles in the constitution.
He also cited court precedent, stating, “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.”
He also said the issue was resolved on its own without judicial interference at the time. “The robust political dynamics envisioned by our Constitution proved well suited to resolve a contentious political matter on their own, without interference from the courts,” he wrote. “Whatever wrong may have been committed by the absent House members, the Texas Constitution’s internal political remedies, none of which involve the judicial branch, were sufficient to the task of restoring the House’s ability to do business.”
Blacklock’s ruling is consistent with his stated view of his role as a judge. When targeted by former disgraced Attorney General Eric Holder in 2024, an election Blacklock won, he told The Center Square: “A judge’s job is to follow the law passed by the legislature, not to change the law. A judge’s job is to follow the constitution, not to change it. The legislature can change the laws that it has passed, and the people of Texas can change the constitution but that’s not a judge’s job.”
In response to the ruling, Wu said in a statement, “When Greg Abbott threatened to arrest and expel us for denying him a quorum, we told him he should ‘come and take it.’ … Today, the Republican-controlled Supreme Court said: no. The Constitution does not let a Governor erase voters’ choices when their choices are inconvenient to him. … Abbott was wrong, weak, and after all his bluster he couldn’t come and take a damn thing.”
Abbott press secretary Andrew Mahaleris said in response, “No elected official has the right to abandon their duties, flee the state, and shut down the people’s business. Governor Abbott’s legal action is what brought derelict Democrats back to Texas to do their jobs and pass the Big Beautiful Map. Now, SCOTX has warned them against pulling a similar stunt in the future. If Democrats abandon their offices again, the Governor will bring them right back to the Texas Supreme Court.”
