Texas Supreme Court Rejects Abbott Bid
to Boot Gene Wu from House for Walkout
Capitol Inside
May 15, 2026
The Texas Supreme Court defused a novel power grab by Governor Greg Abbott on Friday when it spurned his push to strip Democratic State Rep. Gene Wu from the seat he's won seven times at the polls as revenge for his role in a quorum-breaking walkout on a congressional redistricting plan last summer.
The high court determined that the Republican governor had sought to interfere in a separate branch of state government without sufficient cause with an application to have the Houston lawmaker removed from the Legislature on the grounds that he had abandoned their office during the fight on a new map.
Abbott singled out Wu for an attempted ouster even though he was one of more than 50 House Democrats who refused to report to the chamber in a move that delayed a vote on the plan in special session for two weeks. A native of China who immigrated to Texas with his family as a kid, Wu was the easiest target for the governor as a result of the part he has as the House Democratic Caucus chair.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had attempted to have Wu and other Democrats tossed from office as well in the wake of the holdout in 2025. But the court essentially determined that the quorum-busting was little more than a "brief" inconvenience that was resolved with the threat of relatively minimal sanctions by the Republicans who control the House before the Democrats returned voluntarily in a move that cleared the way for a vote on the map.
"In the end, a quorum was restored in two weeks’ time, without judicial intervention, by the interplay of political and practical forces," Chief Justice James Blaylock wrote in a 5-page opinion that rejected Abbott's petition for a writ of quo warranto that would have effectively tossed Wu from the House.
Justice James Sullivan, who Abbott appointed to the Supreme Court in January 2025, submitted a concurring opinion. But Sullivan wrote that the Supreme Court's members "should be prepared to perform this grave task if legislators refuse to do their jobs again in the future" despite its refusing to do so in the case of Wu.
"Were it to happen yet again, I believe the next set of quorumbreakers had better be ready to pay us a visit," Sullivan warned in the 17-page supporting opinion. Justice Kyle Hawkins, who Abbott selected for the high court in October, did not participate in the decision.
Abbott had sought to pressure the justices on the all-Republican high court into siding with him in the bid to chase Wu from the Legislature's lower chamber. The ruling to which none of the SCOTEX judges dissented was a stinging rebuke to the state's top leader.
"Whatever wrong may have been committed by the absent House members, the Texas Constitution’s internal political remedies, none of which involve the judicial branch, were sufficient to the task of restoring the House’s ability to do business," Blaylock wrote.
The opinion began with a civics lesson on the separation of powers that appeared to be aimed at the Texas governor. "It should always be remembered that the separation of the great powers of government into different and distinctive departments, each independent in its own sphere and protected by constitutional limitations that neither can transcend but which all must respect, is the distinctive feature of our system," according to the opinion. . . .
"The preservation of these powers in their full integrity and independence is a matter of common concern, for upon the freedom of their exercise depend alike public repose and private security, and neither will long endure if their abridgment be permitted or encouraged. While the courts will not and should not hesitate to discharge their responsible functions in all cases that fall within the judicial authority, to them peculiarly is committed the duty of emphasizing the obligation that rests upon each department of the government to observe its rightful limits, and for this reason it is the more incumbent upon them not to exceed their own."
more to come ...
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