Rep. Nicole Collier spends night on Texas House floor after refusing police escort

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A Texas House Democrat was confined in the Capitol overnight after she refused a police escort that Republican leaders imposed on lawmakers who participated in a two-week walkout over a GOP mid-decade redistricting plan.

Rep. Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth, declined on Monday afternoon to sign a slip giving her permission from Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, to leave the House floor with a state law enforcement officer shadowing her.

“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,” Collier said in a statement Monday. “When I press that button to vote, I know these maps will harm my constituents — I won’t just go along quietly with their intimidation or their discrimination.”

Just over two dozen Democratic lawmakers, including Collier, on Monday ended their walkout over a congressional redistricting plan — demanded by President Donald Trump just four years after Republicans last redrew Texas’ map — that is designed to pad the GOP’s slim U.S. House majority in next year’s midterm election.

After the lawmakers returned to the Texas House, Burrows announced they would each be subject to an around-the-clock police escort to ensure their attendance when the chamber reconvenes on Wednesday morning to vote out the map. He added that Democratic lawmakers would be responsible for any state costs incurred in ensuring their attendance.

Most Democrats signed the permission slip required to leave the Capitol with a police officer in tow, even while objecting to the mandatory surveillance and emphasizing that they would not have returned to Austin on Monday if they planned to skip the vote on Wednesday.

“They exercised control, and they tell us we can’t leave unless we do exactly what they say,” Collier said in a video Monday. “We’ve had enough. We’ve had enough of them taking all of our rights away, and so I’ve taken a stand. I’m pushing back.”

Collier slept at her desk on the House floor Monday night and remained there Tuesday, almost 24 hours after first arriving, though she said she’d received permission to go to her office in the Capitol. Rep. Gene Wu of Houston, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, and Rep. Vince Perez, D-El Paso, stayed with her overnight, with other Democratic lawmakers and staffers coming by to provide moral support, food, clothes, pillows and other necessities.

All of it was captured on a livestream the House Democratic Caucus set up on the House floor, with up to 50,000 viewers tuning in at one point.

“Rep. Collier’s choice to stay and not sign the permission slip is well within her rights under the House Rules,” Burrows said in a statement. “I am choosing to spend my time focused on moving the important legislation on the [governor’s special session] call to overhaul camp safety, provide property tax reform and eliminate the STAAR test — the results Texans care about.”

A handful of supporters outside the House chamber were arrested Monday night for “trespassing when the Capitol is closed.” They each received a criminal trespass warning barring them from returning to the building for a year, according to a video of the incident.

The order requiring Democratic lawmakers to keep a police escort is set to expire when the House grants final passage to the congressional map, House Bill 4, later this week.

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