AUSTIN, Texas — The Supreme Court of Texas has refused to remove Gene Wu from office over his role in the 2025 Democratic quorum break tied to congressional redistricting, dealing a setback to Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton.
In a Friday opinion, the state’s highest civil court rejected efforts by Abbott and Paxton to oust Wu, a Houston Democrat and Texas House party leader, after he and other Democratic lawmakers left the state during last year’s special legislative sessions to block debate on newly proposed congressional maps.
Abbott and Paxton argued that Wu and the absent lawmakers had effectively abandoned their duties by refusing to appear for legislative proceedings.
The court, however, said the Texas Legislature already has constitutional authority to discipline absent members through its own mechanisms, including fines and other penalties previously imposed on Democrats who participated in the walkout.
“Courts have uniformly recognized that it is not their role to resolve disputes between the other two branches that those branches can resolve for themselves,” Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock wrote in the five-page opinion.
The ruling did not address the broader legality of quorum-breaking tactics. Instead, the court said the dispute had effectively been resolved after Democrats returned to the Capitol and lawmakers completed work on the redistricting plan.
The 2025 quorum break drew national attention as Texas Republicans, encouraged by Donald Trump, pushed an unusual mid-decade congressional redistricting effort aimed at securing five additional Republican-held seats in Congress.
After a two-week standoff, Democratic lawmakers returned to Austin in mid-August, allowing the new congressional maps to pass through the Legislature before being signed into law by Abbott.
The Texas redistricting battle later fueled similar partisan gerrymandering efforts in other states ahead of the 2026 elections.