Texas GOP signs arrest warrants for Dem lawmakers

Officers of the Texas House of Representatives delivered civil arrest warrants for more than 50 absent Democrats on Wednesday as frustrated Republicans ratcheted up efforts to end a standoff over a sweeping elections bill that stretched into its 31st day.

But after sergeants-at-arms finished making the rounds inside the Texas Capitol — dropping off copies of the warrants at Democrats' offices, and politely asking staff to tell their bosses to please return — there were few signs the stalemate that began when Democrats fled to Washington, D.C., in July in order to grind the statehouse to a halt was any closer to ending.

"It's just it's it's really sad that the you know, the governor of the state of Texas and the speaker of the House think it's OK to arrest one's political opponents," says State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, (D) Texas State House.

The latest escalation threw the Texas Legislature into uncommon territory with neither side showing any certainty over what comes next, or how far Republicans could take their determination to secure a quorum of 100 present lawmakers — a threshold they were just four members shy of reaching this week.

Democrats, who acknowledge they cannot permanently stop the GOP voting bill from passing in Texas, responded to the warrants with new shows of defiance: one turned up in a Houston courtroom and secured a court order barring him from being compelled to return to the Capitol, and in the Texas Senate, Democrat Carol Alvarado announced she would try delaying passage of the voting bill in her chamber by speaking on it indefinitely.

Refusing to attend legislative sessions is a violation of House rules — a civil offense, not a criminal one, leaving the power the warrants carry to get Democrats back to the chamber unclear, even for the Republicans who invoked it. Democrats would not be jailed. Republican Travis Clardy, who helped negotiate an early version of the voting bill that Democrats first stopped with a walkout in May, told ABC News he believed "they can be physically brought back to the Capitol."

State Rep. Jim Murphy, who leads the Texas House Republican Caucus, said while he has not seen a situation like this play out during his tenure, his understanding is that officers could go to the missing lawmakers and ask them to come back.