Illinois Democrat Gov. JB Pritzker warned Wednesday that the calls for the FBI to locate and arrest the AWOL Texas Democrats decamped in his state can be chalked up to “grandstanding,” adding that there is no federal law “applicable to this situation.”
As such, there’s “no way” that Texas lawmakers hiding out in his state can be arrested by anybody, Pritzker said.
Pritzker issued the warning in an interview with Jessica Yellin’s podcast “News Not Noise” in reaction to the many calls for the FBI to get involved to help Texas retrieve the 57 Democrats who fled Sunday to Illinois as well as New York and Massachusetts.
“They’re grandstanding. There literally is no federal law applicable to this situation. None. They can say that they’re sending FBI; FBI agents might show up just to, I dunno, just to put a show on,” Pritzker said. “Our local law enforcement protect everybody in Illinois. Our state troopers protect everybody in Illinois and anybody who’s here in Illinois.”
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, sent a letter to FBI Director Kash Patel on Tuesday, asking for his help in Texas law enforcement’s efforts “to locate or arrest potential lawbreakers.” President Donald Trump said hours later that the FBI “may have to get involved.”
Pritzker said there’s nothing the FBI can do in his state.
“And so, whether it’s federal agents coming to Illinois or state rangers from Texas … you’re basically unwelcome and there’s no way … that our state legislators here — the Texas state legislators — can be arrested,” he added.
The Democrats fled in order to thwart a quorum in Monday’s legislative session at the Texas House that would have voted on and passed redistricting measures that would most likely flip five congressional seats from blue to red ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Rather than stick around to lose, the Democrats left.
“And in Texas, they are also not following the law. They are thwarting the Constitution with the Voting Rights Act and making threats that they can’t carry out,” Pritzker told Yellin.
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