Democratic state Representative Nicole Collier refused to come to the Texas state Capitol for two weeks. After returning on August 18 she refused to leave, and fellow Democrats joined her protest.
Collier was among dozens of Democrats who left the state for the Democratic havens of California, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York to delay the Republican-controlled Legislature’s approval of redrawn congressional districts demanded by Donald Trump.
When they returned on August 18, Republicans insisted that Democrats have around-the-clock police surveillance and escorts to ensure they wouldn’t leave again and scuttle the August 20 House vote on a new political map.
But Collier wouldn’t sign what Democrats called the “permission slip” needed to leave the House chamber, a half-page form allowing Department of Public Safety troopers to follow them.
She spent August 18 and 19 on the House floor, where she set up a livestream while her Democratic colleagues outside had plainclothes officers following them to their offices and homes.
“I refuse to sign. I will not agree to be in custody. I’m not a criminal. I am exercising my right to resist and oppose the decisions of our government. So this is my form of protest,” said Collier. “My constituents sent me to Austin to protect their voices and rights. I refuse to sign away my dignity as a duly elected representative just so Republicans can control my movements and monitor me with police escorts.”
She noted that police officers following Democratic lawmakers were not on the beat, and suggested that the loss made the public less safe.
Collier also filed a writ of habeas corpus to force the Sergeant-at-Arms of the Texas House of Representatives to end her “illegal confinement” immediately.
Texas Democrats noted that being held hostage is defined as being kept somewhere against your will, under threat or coercion, to force a specific outcome. In this case, Democratic lawmakers were physically monitored, denied free movement, and subjected to police surveillance not because of any crime, but to guarantee their presence for a high-stakes redistricting vote.
The use of law enforcement to restrict the mobility of elected officials — not for safety, but for political leverage — matches the definition of a hostage situation: confinement used as leverage to extract compliance.
Dallas-area Representative Linda Garcia said she drove three hours home from Austin with an officer following her. When she went grocery shopping, he went down every aisle with her, pretending to shop.
In an interview with The Associated Press by phone, two unmarked cars with officers inside were parked outside her home.
“It’s a weird feeling,” she said. “The only way to explain the entire process is: It’s like I’m in a movie.”
The trooper assignments, ordered by Republican House Speaker Dustin Burrows, was another escalation of a redistricting battle that has widened across the country. Trump is pushing GOP state officials to rig the map for the 2026 midterms more in his favor to preserve the GOP’s slim House majority, and Democrats nationally have rallied around efforts to retaliate.
The first domino in that escalating national redistricting battle fell on August 20, as the Republican-controlled Texas legislature passed a new congressional map creating five new winnable seats for the GOP.
Under pressure from a deeply unpopular president to rig the 2026 elections to keep MAGA Republicans in power, the Texas governor called the Texas legislature into a special session to essentially hijack congressional district maps to create five new Republican-dominated districts.
Furious national Democrats have vowed payback for the Texas map, with California’s legislature poised to approve new maps adding more Democratic-friendly seats later this week. The map would still need to be approved by that state’s voters in November.
Normally, states redraw maps once a decade with new census figures. But Trump is lobbying other conservative-controlled states like Indiana and Missouri to also try to squeeze new GOP-friendly seats out of their maps as his party prepares for a difficult midterm election next year.
OTHER DEMOCRATS JOIN THE PROTEST
Texas state senator Roland Gutierrez posted a video of people outside the chamber chanting “Let Her Go!” to social media with the heading: “This is full-on authoritarianism.”
“This is the kind of bullsh*t that’s happening right now in the Texas legislature. Dustin Burrows has locked up Nicole Collier because she won’t sign some bullsh*t permission slip to be followed around by a DPS escort—that’s a cop following around for the next three weeks to make sure that she comes in and votes for this bullsh*t Donald Trump redistricting bill,” he said in the video. “What’s going on in Texas is absolutely 100% wrong and locking up members of the legislature because they won’t sign your bullsh*t document: it’s just wrong. It’s wrong. We need more people up here fighting. We need more people up here fighting alongside state representative Nicole Collier who’s doing this protest because she must. And we all must. We must fight against Donald Trump and all of this madness that’s happening in this country and fight against his constant grab for power in the United States.”
House Minority Leader Gene Wu, from Houston, and state Representative Vincel Perez, of El Paso, stayed with Collier on August 18, who represents a minority-majority district in Fort Worth.
On August 19, more Democrats returned to the Capitol to tear up the slips they had signed and stay on the House floor, which has a lounge and restrooms for members.
Dallas-area Representative Cassandra Garcia Hernandez, called their protest a “slumber party for democracy” and said Democrats were holding strategy sessions on the floor.
“We are not criminals,” Houston Representative Penny Morales Shaw said.
Collier said having officers shadow her was an attack on her dignity and an attempt to control her movements.
THE GOP WANTS 5 MORE SEATS IN TEXAS
The GOP gerrymandering plan is designed to send five additional Republicans from Texas to the U.S. House. Republicans issued civil arrest warrants to bring the Democrats back after they left the state on August 3, and Republican Governor Greg Abbott asked the state Supreme Court to oust Wu and several other Democrats from office. The lawmakers also face a fine of $500 for every day they were absent.
HOW OFFICERS SHADOWED DEMOCRATIC LAWMAKERS
Democrats reported different levels of monitoring. Houston Rep. Armando Walle said he wasn’t sure where his police escort was, but there was still a heightened police presence in the Capitol, so he felt he was being monitored closely.
Some Democrats said the officers watching them were friendly. But Austin Rep. Sheryl Cole said in a social media post that when she went on her morning walk Tuesday, the officer following her lost her on the trail, got angry and threatened to arrest her.
Garcia said her 9-year-old son was with her as she drove home, and each time she looked in the rearview mirror, she could see the officer close behind. He came inside a grocery store where she shopped with her son.
“I would imagine that this is the way it feels when you’re potentially shoplifting and someone is assessing whether you’re going to steal,” she said.
