Democratic Texas State Representative Nicole Collier spent Monday night confined to the state’s House floor after she refused to acquiesce to Texas Republicans’ demand that she only leave under the watch of agents of the Department of Public Safety.
Collier posted a photo of herself Tuesday on Instagram sleeping in one of the House chamber’s seats with a sleep mask and blanket on. “This was my night,” the Texas politician captioned the photo. “Good Morning America,” meanwhile, dedicated part of its Tuesday broadcast to sharing footage from Collier’s overnight stay. “I’m tired of being pushed around and told what to do when I disagree with the actions of our government,” she told viewers.
Collier was one of a group of Texas House Democrats who fled the state earlier this month in order to stall a vote on State Republicans’ redistricting plan. Collier and her fellow Democrats returned to the Capitol building in Austin, Texas, on Monday, where Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows announced that their future movements would be monitored and restricted.
Burrows told Democrats in attendance they would only be permitted to leave Texas’ House chamber Monday if they signed a permission slip agreeing to DPS escorts that would ensure they did not leave the state again until the House of Representatives reconvenes on Wednesday morning. This rule, Burrows announced, applied to all Democrats who had previously prevented the House from achieving the two-thirds quorum necessary to vote on Republicans’ new, redrawn Texas congressional maps.
Collier and her fellow protesting Democrats had already received civil arrest warrants placed on them for fleeing to Democrat-run states like Illinois and New York. While most Texas Democrats agreed to Republicans’ DPS escort demands, Collier did not. She has, consequently, been confined to the House floor since Monday. According to CNN, she is only allowed to leave the floor to visit her office under law enforcement supervision.
She is otherwise not permitted to leave the Capitol building until she agrees to Republicans’ supervision demands.
Collier was joined on the House floor overnight by fellow Texas State Reps. Gene Wu and Vince Perez. Both Wu and Perez initially signed the permission slips agreeing to DPS escorts but ultimately chose to stay in solidarity with Collier for the duration of the night. Perez is reported to have left the House chamber Tuesday morning.
Footage taken from the House floor by Wu captured the chants of outside crowds who demanded that Republicans, “Let [Collier] out!” Former Texas State Rep. Beto O’Rourke, meanwhile, responded on X to a photo of Collier sitting alone on the House floor, writing, “A true hero, refusing to submit, fighting these fascists by herself if she has to. We are with you Nicole!”
Collier and her Democratic colleagues have been actively fighting for over two weeks Texas Republicans’ plan to draw new congressional maps in the state that would result in the creation of potentially five more red House seats before the next round of midterm elections in 2026. The move is the result of urging on the part of President Donald Trump, who has pushed Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Republicans to shore up their narrow congressional hold over Texas before next year’s midterms.
The intended redistricting marks a major break from U.S. tradition, which dictates that states only redraw their congressional maps once a decade after the completion of the latest U.S. census. As a result, the move has received major pushback from Democrats both within and outside of Texas, including California Governor Gavin Newsom.
The latter politician has vowed to redraw his state’s congressional maps and garner California Democrats potentially five more House seats in the state if Texas Republicans go through with their own redistricting plan.
You can watch Collier talk about her experience in the video above.
