The ranking Democratic members of two key House committees have written a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel to express “great concern about the abuse of federal public safety resources” in response to reports that the FBI is helping Texas law enforcement track down Democrats who fled Texas to stop a partisan redistricting effort.
The Democrats, led by Reps. Robert Garcia (Calif.), the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Jamie Raskin (Md.), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, raised alarm over reports that the “FBI is diverting federal law enforcement away from fighting terrorism, drug trafficking and other federal crimes to instead harass and target Texans’ duly elected representatives.”
They wrote that the reports “raise urgent questions about the legal basis, scale, and appropriateness of federal law enforcement involved in a state-level political matter.”
Reps. Greg Casar (D-Texas) and Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) also signed the letter.
The letter comes in response to a claim made by Texas Sen. John Cornyn (R) on Thursday that the FBI is assisting the Texas Department of Public Safety in identifying or locating Democratic state lawmakers who left the state to stop a GOP effort to radically redraw Texas’s congressional map.
The House Democrats pointed out that Texas state Democrats from both parties have fled the state in prior years to disrupt bills from moving forward.
They noted that the House Ethics Committee reprimanded then House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-Texas) for requesting that the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Homeland Security track a plane of Democratic state lawmakers who fled Texas in 2003 to stop a GOP-led effort to redistrict the state’s congressional map.
Garcia, Raskin and their colleagues pointed out that a Texas state district judge ruled in 2003 that the state’s Department of Public Safety lacked the authority to apprehend lawmakers for breaking quorum in the state legislature.
“The court held that Texas law ‘limits the role of DPS to enforcing the laws protecting the public safety and providing for the prevention and detection of crime.’ The ruling made clear that the state cannot treat quorum-breaking as a criminal offense subject to law enforcement pursuit,” they wrote.
The House Democrats suggested that Cornyn asked the FBI to get involved in the political fight because he’s battling for his political survival in the face of a primary race next year against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
“On July 31, 2025, U.S. Senator John Cornyn, trailing far behind in a Republican Senate primary, chose to ignore this precedent and publicly called for the FBI to assist Texas authorities in tracking down Democratic state lawmakers,” they wrote. “This request has been criticized by legal experts and civil rights advocates, who raised concerns about criminalizing political protest and the potential misuse of federal resources in a partisan dispute.”
The Democrats are asking for confirmation on whether the FBI or the Department of Justice has agreed to assist with the efforts to track state lawmakers.
They want a full accounting of Justice Department and FBI personnel assigned to the state of Texas or the Texas Department of Public Safety to assist in locating and identifying state lawmakers.
They requested a detailed explanation of what legal authority the FBI is citing to pursue state-level lawmakers.
They are asking for all communications between Justice Department, FBI and Texas officials about the matter.
The FBI declined to comment on the matter.
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
