Rep. Nicole Collier, the Democratic state lawmaker who spent Monday night inside the Texas Capitol, is asking a court to let her exit the building, alleging she’s facing “illegal restraint by the government” after she was told she needs a police escort to leave.
The Fort Worth lawmaker and dozens of other Democrats left Texas earlier this month to delay a vote on a GOP-led plan to redraw the state’s congressional map.
The Democrats returned to Texas in recent days and they were given state police escorts to ensure they will show up when the state House convenes Wednesday, but Collier refused to sign a “permission slip” to be under escort by the Texas Department of Public Safety. Collier says she slept on the House floor overnight.
They assigned each Democrat rep a police escort, and the capital building has plenty of police present. It is physically enforced and the only way she’d be able to leave is to literally sign a permission slip allowing police to escort her everywhere and keep her under constant surveillance.
The Republicans are literally having goons follow their political rivals 24/7 and dictating where they are allowed to be, or must be, and when. This is not the time to hate both sides equally. Sometimes, the Nazis really are the bad guys.
Yeah, but how does this work in practice? They put cops in the door not letting her leave without signing? Did they say it’s illegal for her to leave and she will be arrested if she does? I’m also curious.
They said Democrat reps are not allowed to leave without a 24/7 police escort. I’m sure there are cops at the door that will arrest them if they do not comply. I didn’t find anything explicitly stating that in my 3 minutes of searching, but IMO it is abundantly clear that that is the case. There was a live stream of it all happening if you really want to know the details.
Technically, the executive branch can not say what is illegal or not. However, they control the police and can order them to do whatever or arrest you for whatever. Legal, illegal, constitutional, unconstitutional, whatever. Checks and balances kick in later. You can fight the legality of an arrest in court, but that is after you’ve been arrested, booked, and publicly shamed with a mugshot and whatnot. And you’ll need to pay thousands of dollars to a lawyer to fight it, even if you are completely innocent or the arrest was completely illegal.
See, I don’t think it would be physically enforced. They can only arrest her or not. They can’t restrict her to a location by force. The cops know that. And nothing in the “rule” says leaving without signing the slip is an arrestable offense. Even if they did arrest here, she could get out on bail very fast.
I don’t agree with any of the BS the GOP is trying to do there. But I feel like her staying is more of a stunt then actually being physically held against her will.
They can arrest anyone for anything they want. The executive branch controls the police and has that power. If it is an illegal arrest, you can pay thousands to a lawyer and spend a few months fighting it in court, but that is only after you are arrested. There is no magic “bail” number that lets you out of jail immediately, it’s set by a judge on a case by case basis and takes a day or so to set. If you are a flight risk, as they claim is true in this case, you will not be allowed out on bail. If they really want to, they can hold you in a cell without letting you in front of a judge to get a bail set. Is it legal? No. Does it happen all of the time? Yes. Will anyone do anything about it? Never. Especially when POTUS is fully backing it.
I hear you, but no. If, and that’s a big if, the local state courts didn’t put an immediate stop to any of the illegal things you suggest they can do, then the federal would.
And you are conflating multiple issues. They can have the police follow her, as far as I know that isn’t illegal. So she can easily say that she is not a flight risk. But, she will also have broken no laws by leaving the capital building. So if they arrest her, the local courts will 99% just dismiss it and let here go.
She isn’t joe nobody. She has the weight of the democratic party behind her. That’s a lot of lawyers, and a lot of money.
They are just posturing on the part about not being allowed to leave without signing the note.
I promise you, your faith in the system is admirable but unfounded. POTUS literally personally requested this, SCOTUS is full of bribe-taking jokers, and Congress is half made up of spineless tools that have demonstrated over and over again that they will defend their own in the face of literally anything, including Insurrection, rape, and child trafficking.
And, again, it literally does not matter in the slightest what the courts say, they can not go back in time and undo an arrest. And courts can’t just go around ruling on random things. They need someone to bring a case to them, and cases require time, money, evidence, and cause/damages to put together. Then it takes months or years to move through the court system. Even if they could rule on whatever they want, they have no method of enforcement. That’s the executive branch’s job.
You may find SCOTUS’s ruling on the Trail of Tears and the Executive branch’s subsequent actions quite interesting. Hint: SCOTUS said no, Andrew Jackson did it anyway, no invisible force stopped any of it happening, legal or not.
I don’t think you should say his faith in the system is admirable. It’s dishonest.
Yeah, I was being polite. Admirable like the innocence of a child, or maybe more like the naïveté of a child.