A Texas state House Democrat said she was threatened with arrest after an officer assigned to follow her lost track of her on a walking trail.
Texas state Rep. Sheryl Cole (D) said in a post on X on Tuesday that an escort from the Texas Department of Public Safety, whom she said “was forced upon me to track my every movement,” lost track of her on the trail, became angry and “made a scene” in front of her constituents.
“While a little shaken up from the incident, I remain undeterred by this intimidation tactic by House Republicans to have a 24/7 state police presence to intimidate me and my colleagues,” Cole said.
Cole’s account of the incident comes as a fellow Democratic state representative, Nicole Collier, has chosen to stay on the floor of the state House chamber for more than 24 hours rather than having a law enforcement officer shadow her.
After the state House Democrats returned to the Lone Star State on Monday, ending their two-week out-of-state stint to prevent Republicans from passing a new map, state Speaker Dustin Burrows (R) declared that those who came back would have an officer with them to ensure they didn’t leave the state again.
Collier chose to stay in the state House overnight instead and told MSNBC’s Ali Vitali in an interview that she would stay “as long as it takes.”
“At the moment that the directive was issued, I felt like it was wrong. It’s just wrong to require grown people to get a permission slip to roam about freely. So I resisted,” she said.
Cole said she stands in solidarity with Collier, who has “refused to go along with this charade.”
“We will not be intimidated by this, and history will remember this,” she said.
The Texas state legislature is expected to approve a new map as soon as this week, with enough Democrats back in the state for the body to conduct business.
