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.
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.