Texas Lawmaker who Slept at Statehouse Files Lawsuit
By Eleanor Klibanoff, The Texas Tribune
State Rep. Nicole Collier, a Fort Worth Democrat who has been on the floor of the Texas House since Monday afternoon, filed a lawsuit challenging the chamber’s authority to put members under police surveillance, according to a filing obtained by Courthouse News.
Collier is among the Democrats who participated in a two-week walkout to delay passage of a new congressional map that aims to give the GOP five additional seats in the 2026 midterms. Around two dozen of them returned Monday, allowing the House to resume business, but they were only allowed to leave the chamber if they agreed to be shadowed by state law enforcement officers.
Collier was the lone member who declined the surveillance, saying in a statement that she refused “to sign away my dignity as a duly elected representative.” Fellow Fort Worth Rep. Charlie Geren, a Republican and chair of the House Administration Committee, said she’d be arrested if she left the Capitol without an escort, according to her lawsuit.
She stayed in the House chamber overnight — alongside Rep. Gene Wu, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, and Rep. Vince Perez, D-El Paso — and is expected to stay until the House returns Wednesday morning to take up the map.
But in a petition filed Monday, Collier’s attorneys argued that the House has no authority to detain a member in the chamber, or require them to be followed by law enforcement, as long as they are not actively absent to delay passage of legislation. House rules allow absent members to be brought back to the chamber, including by law enforcement, but they have no authority to detain members who are already in attendance, the suit says.
“There is no calendar for the House today. There is no calendar for tomorrow, or any upcoming date. There is no pending vote. There is no action on which a quorum is needed,” the lawsuit reads. “And, more importantly, Representative Collier is currently present at the Capitol. She is not absent, and — thus — her appearance need not, and cannot, be compelled.”
The petition asks a Travis County district judge to release Collier and prohibit the House sergeant-at-arms from restraining her in any way, unless she is physically absent from the Legislature.
Collier’s lawsuit is the latest chapter in an extended legal battle between Republicans trying to restore the headcount necessary to pass legislation and Democrats who have spent the last couple weeks trying to delay the new map.
When dozens of Democratic lawmakers left the state in early August, House Speaker Dustin Burrows issued civil arrest warrants, which he later tried to get served on the missing members in Illinois and California. Meanwhile, Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton asked the Texas Supreme Court to find their seats vacant, an unprecedented move in Texas’ long history of quorum breaks; the court has asked for additional time to review arguments from both sides.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2025/08/19/nicole-collier-texas-house-lawsuit-police-escort/.
