Resurrected Push to Oust Dem Gene Wu
Gives Governor Power to Override Voters
Capitol Inside
April 17, 2026
Governor Greg Abbott is trying to pressure the Republicans on the Texas Supreme Court into removing State Rep. Gene Wu from the office he won seven times at the polls on the grounds that he abandoned his job in a quorum-breaking walkout on a controversial congressional redistricting plan.
Such a move would represent a dramatic shift of power from the Texas Legislature to the executive branch with Abbott's as the only real beneficiary. The electorate would be the biggest overall loser if the state's highest civil court bowed to Abbott's push to chase Wu out of the House in a power play that would give the governor the power to override the voters when it came to lawmakers who drew his wrath.
But Abbott has refused to throw in the towel on a bid to oust Wu from the House District 137 seat as payback for the key role he had in the hardball tactics that Democrats used to stall votes on the new U.S. House map that President Donald Trump ordered the Republicans here to draw last summer with five new seas for the GOP.
After going nowhere last year in his attempt to give Wu the boot from the House, the governor revived the effort in a letter that he had his general counsel Trevor Ezell send to the Texas Supreme Court this week. Abbott appointed seven of the high court's nine current members.
Ezell cited two new developments that "reinforce" the governor claims on why the former Harris County prosecutor should be deemed unqualified to serve in the House by members of the judiciary. The Abbott lawyer - for starters - said a U.S. Supreme Court ruling April 9 in an Ohio case established that it would have no jurisdiction over an appeal from a SCOTEX order that gave Wu the boot from the Texas Legislature's lower chamber.
Ezell also contended that the imposition of monetary fines on the Democrats who disappeared for two weeks during back-to-back special sessions in 2025 demonstrated the Wu's behavior was "wrongful--not a lawful exercise of constitutional power," according to the governor's lawyer.
Wu has portrayed the governor's attacks as sour grapes from an "extraordinary stand" Democrats employed during the redistricting fight last summer. "Since then, Greg Abbott has been begging the Texas Supreme Court to punish me for standing up to him," Wu said in a statement on Thursday. .
"But I don't answer to Greg Abbott - I answer to the people of Texas," the former Harris County prosecutor added. "In denying Abbott quorum, I was exercising my right as a legislator and doing the work my constituents were asking me to do. I'll continue to fight Greg Abbott's bogus lawsuit."
Abbott's push to strip Wu of the position he claimed initially in 2012 is sizzling with racial overtones in light of the Houston lawmaker's status as the only Legislature's only Democrat who's an immigrant from China. Wu moved to the U.S. when his family moved to the U.S. to escape the communists when he was still a child.
But the case that Abbott is making against Wu has a monstrous hole that Ezell did not try to bridge in the communique that he fired off in an attempt to turn up the heat on the high court. More than 50 other House Democrats participated in the disappearing act on redistricting in 2025 - and they face the same fines and sanctions that Abbott says should disqualify Wu from serving in the Legislature.
GOP leaders and lawmakers in Austin have been doing everything in their power to keep people from China away from Texas with legislation that banned them from buying property here for any purpose other than a residence. The Republicans initially proposed to prohibit China residents from purchasing homes where they planned to live in Texas before they were forced to water down their plans to advance their bill.
Abbott and the Republicans are afraid that Chinese communists, Muslims and other foreign interests are attempting to infiltrate the United States using investments in property as cover. The governor appears to be singling out Wu as a result of the title he has as the House Democratic Caucus chair. The effort is loaded with the potential to backfire - and it's turning the Asian lawmaker who Abbott wants out into a rock star and martyr all in one.
more to come ...
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