Ear­li­er this week the House vot­ed to ini­ti­ate a Call of The House, which enables the Speak­er to dis­patch the House Sergeant-at-Arms to retrieve miss­ing mem­bers of the Leg­is­la­ture. The call is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly con­sis­tent with Arti­cle 3, Sec­tion 10 of the Texas State Con­sti­tu­tion, which allows for the com­pul­sion of mem­bers to the Leg­is­la­ture to ensure The Peo­ple’s busi­ness may be con­duct­ed when required. Addi­tion­al­ly, the Texas House unan­i­mous­ly vot­ed to adopt the pro­vi­sion with­in House Rules on Jan­u­ary 14th. 

“Iron­i­cal­ly, some Texas House Democ­rats who vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly to approve this House rule are the same ones launch­ing fal­la­cious law­suits now claim­ing the rule is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al,” said Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Bie­der­mann, “Then why did they all vote in favor of the same rule in Jan­u­ary? If it were not for dou­ble stan­dards, House Democ­rats would­n’t have stan­dards at all”.

For­tu­nate­ly the Texas Supreme Court ruled on Thurs­day to clear the way for their civ­il arrests after it tem­porar­i­ly blocked Har­ris Coun­ty judges’ orders pro­tect­ing 45 Democ­rats from such a move. If law­mak­ers are arrest­ed, they will not face crim­i­nal charges or fines and can only be brought to the House cham­ber. An 8 a.m. Mon­day dead­line for a response has been set by the court.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Bie­der­mann is a small busi­ness own­er who is serv­ing his third term and rep­re­sents Gille­spie, Comal, and Kendall coun­ties. More infor­ma­tion can be found at www.kylebiedermann.com.

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