Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), Texas’s senior senator up for reelection in 2026, announced on Thursday that FBI Director Kash Patel agreed to his request for federal agents to help Texas law enforcement track down and return runaway Democratic lawmakers.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) hit back at the idea of federal agents coming into his state to detain the Democratic lawmakers who fled there. Pritzker told Jessica Yellin on her News Not Noise podcast on Wednesday, saying, “The fact is that you know our local law enforcement protect everybody in Illinois. Our state troopers protect everybody in Illinois and anybody who’s here in Illinois.” He added that “if you haven’t broken federal law” and are in his state, “there’s no way” you can be arrested by the FBI.

    • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      They have nothing to arrest or detain them for either, so it’s just abduction. You can’t arrest people for not showing up to work.

      Essentially arresting protesters for protesting.

      • mkwt@lemmy.world
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        If your work is the Texas House of Representatives, the House sergeant at arms or his designee can actually arrest you and drag you back to work. This is authorized in the Texas Constitution, and in the rules of the House.

        This power does not extend beyond the territory of Texas. The US Constitution specifically only allows extradition between states for crimes, which this is definitely not. The FBI enforces federal laws, and it has no authority to enforce the rules of a state legislature.

      • nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        Essentially arresting protesters for protesting.

        The US has done that since the citizens began protesting and now they use the media to frame it as the protestors fault, they’ve already conditioned half the country for this moment.

  • fluxion@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    How bout you help track down those Epstein files that used to exist but now supposedly don’t.

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    They are not fugitives from the law nor are they slaves to the republican agenda. What human beings are willing, able and tasked with the responsibility to prevent this?

  • robocall@lemmy.world
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    Of course Kash “Epstein totally killed himself, trust me bro” Patel signed off on hunting down democrats

  • peoplebeproblems@midwest.social
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    I hope the end result is the FBI and Illinois law enforcement just arguing over jurisdiction. Cops are cops, but I’m pretty sure cops don’t like it more when you try to take authority from them.

    This… Is going to get weird.

    • ssladam@lemmy.world
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      In this case, you can argue that “not showing up” is doing their job, since they’re protecting the voice of their constituents.

      Republicans:Dems in Texas are currently 25:12 (one vacant seat), versus if they had truly fair districting, it would be 21:17.

      They want to push it even more extreme. That seems unfair, and undemocratic to me.

    • Bilb!@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      Pretending this is some sort of work ethic problem is hilarious. Who is this for?