Democrats in the Texas House of Representatives have taken a page from Wisconsin’s not-too-distant political past by walking out of their state Capitol and holing up in states like Illinois.
The Texans’ goal is to stall a vote on a GOP redistricting plan aimed at protecting Republicans’ majority in Congress. In 2011, it was Democrats in the Wisconsin Senate who fled to Illinois to delay the passage of a sweeping bill they worried would all but eliminate union rights for most public sector workers.
The Texas Democrats left the state on Sunday. That same day, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said if they don’t return by Monday afternoon, he’d ask the courts to remove them from office. When his deadline passed and Democrats hadn’t returned, Abbott ordered the Texas Department of Public Safety to arrest and bring them back to the House chamber.
The same type of drama enveloped Wisconsin’s Legislature 14 years ago, when Republicans were fast-tracking collective bargaining legislation that had been introduced just days earlier by then-Gov. Scott Walker.
Former Wisconsin Sen. Mark Miller, who was the Senate’s minority leader at the time, said the union language was initially included in a budget repair bill introduced by Walker. Miller said one of his staff members noted that because the bill was fiscal in nature, two-thirds of the entire Senate, which worked out to 20 members, had to be at the Wisconsin Capitol in order for the vote to happen.
“I had contacted all the Democratic senators and asked them to pack clothes and toiletries for the next day,” Miller said. “And the next day, when we gathered off-site, I proposed to them that we go to Illinois and deny a quorum.”
Miller and 13 other Democratic senators did just that, staying in Illinois for weeks. Ironically, Miller said the idea was partially inspired by yet another redistricting-related walkout by Texas Democrats in 2003.
Wisconsin Republicans were livid. They moved to halt pay to the Democrats who fled the state and even asked Walker to send state troopers to Miller’s home in Monona to send a message. Miller said Democrats weren’t swayed, but the time away was a drag.
“It wears on you after a while to be isolated, or at least not with your family and people you’re familiar with for a long period of time,” Miller said.
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He said he sees their 2011 walkout as successful in giving the public a chance to learn about the anti-union measures included in the bill, and he doesn’t regret it. For the Texas Democrats, Miller said members of the minority party “need to take every effort” if the majority “tries to manipulate voters in such a way that they don’t get the representation they deserve.”
Another former Democratic state senator who fled the state in 2011, Jon Erpenbach, figured Wisconsin Republicans “would eventually figure out questionable ways” to pass the bill that would ultimately be known as Act 10. He said when the paychecks were withheld, he signed his power of attorney over to his chief of staff in order to continue being paid.
“So every time they tried to play that sort of game, you know, we would do something a little bit different,” Erpenbach said.
Meanwhile, union-led protests of the GOP bill were growing at the state Capitol with tens of thousands demonstrating daily and some taking up residence in the building. Erpenbach said the protests “basically exploded in size the day we left.”
Erpenbach calls Texas Republicans’ redistricting efforts “an absolute pure power grab by the Trump administration.”
“I mean, they have flat out admitted that they need five seats to be Republican seats,” Erpenbach said. “The president really never has, nor should a president ever have, anything to do with redistricting.”
Erpenbach said he and his fellow Wisconsin Democrats knew they couldn’t stop Act 10 forever but their efforts were not in vain. He said he hopes the outcome in the Lone Star State will be different.
“Hopefully the Democrats in Texas will stick together and hold out as long as it takes to stop this,” Erpenbach said.
In Wisconsin, the fight over Act 10 continues even as the law has been on the books for well over a decade. A Dane County judge ruled in December that several of its sections are unconstitutional. That challenge is currently before a Wisconsin appeals court.
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