Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives Dustin Burrows bangs the gavel before a reading of the bills during a session as Democratic lawmakers, who left the state to deny Republicans the opportunity to redraw the state's 38 congressional districts, begin returning to the Texas State Capitol in Austin, Texas, U.S. August 18, 2025. REUTERS/Sergio Flores
Although Democrats are a minority party in Texas and struggle in statewide races, they are a vocal minority. And Democrats in the Texas State Legislature recently attracted a great deal of national attention when they left the state to protest the redistricting/gerrymandering plan pushed by Gov. Greg Abbott and President Donald Trump.
Those Democratic state lawmakers, however, returned to Texas, and State Rep. Dustin Burrows — Republican speaker of the Texas House of Representatives — demanded that they sign a pledge agreeing to have round-the-clock police escorts in case they tried to flee Texas again. But State Rep. Nicolle Collier, a Democrat, refused to sign it.
In a scathing article published by The New Republic on August 21, legal scholar and former federal prosecutor Harry Litman argues that Collier made Burrows and Texas House Administration Committee Chair Charlie Geren, a Republican, "look like the oafish jerks that they are. "
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"It's all made Burrows' tough-guy posturing look petty and overbearing, especially since the Democrats had returned to town and cleared the way for Republicans to redraw the state map to squeeze out five more seats," Litman emphasizes. "They had done so only after California Democrats had moved forward with a plan to counter Texas with its own redrawn map with five new Democratic seats, a plan the California Supreme Court has now greenlighted."
Litman poses the question: "What authority, you might ask, does Burrows have to deprive Collier of her liberty?" And his answer is "none."
"And what about federal civil rights violations?," Litman explains. "18 U.S.C. §242 makes it a crime for a person acting under color of law to willfully deprive someone of constitutional rights, and Burrows here sought to deprive Burrows and other Democrats of their liberty based on their constitutionally protected activity. Dustin Burrows, call your lawyer. All these developments, of course, depend on the independence of Texas state courts and the integrity of the Texas and federal law enforcement systems. The state, of course, is under the whip hand of Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton. It may be in that setting that all bets are off."
Litman continues, "And we can be certain that Pam Bondi's Department of Justice is not going to bring a federal civil rights case against the Texas Republican House speaker with Maxine Collier as victim. But if Burrows is able to escape the consequences of his unlawful, politicized conduct, it will only confirm that Texas has been captured by the same arrogant bullying, lawlessness, and delusion of omnipotence that have already corrupted the rule of law under Trump."
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Burrows, Litman argues, is motivated by a thirst for revenge — not the rule of law.
"Burrows has blundered badly," Litman writes. "The law is against him, as will become apparent; and his officious overreach is likely to harm him in the national public eye. Instead of the domination he seeks, he is likely to go down as a lawless, thin-skinned, vindictive bully, like the president he emulates."
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Harry Litman's full article for The New Republic is available at this link.