Illinois governor says Texas Democrats who left will be protected amid arrest threats

JB Pritzker said lawmakers are ‘doing the right thing’ after a group left Texas to prevent House vote on redistricting

The Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, has vowed to protect the Democratic members of the Texas house of representatives who left the state in an attempt to block Republican efforts to redraw Texas’s congressional maps.

“We’re going to do everything we can to protect every single one of them and make sure that – ’cause we know they’re doing the right thing, we know that they’re following the law,” Pritzker said at a press conference on Sunday in Illinois alongside some of the the Texas Democratic lawmakers.

The Texas Democrats fled the state on Sunday in an effort to prevent the Texas house from reaching the quorum on Monday needed to vote on a newly proposed congressional map.