If you’re going to fact-check a legal claim made by a former solicitor general, you’d better study up good and hard.
PolitiFact apparently failed to do this when it awarded Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas a “false” rating after he claimed, “There is clear legal authority to handcuff and put in leg irons legislators that are trying to stop the legislature from being able to do business.”
“False,” declared the fact-checker. “There is no legal clarity.”
The Supreme Court of Texas disagrees.
The state’s highest court this week halted a Harris County judge’s order blocking the arrest of the Texas Democrats who fled the state Capitol to hold up the passage of a voter integrity bill. The Supreme Court agrees that the state does, in fact, have the legal authority to issue civil arrest warrants for the quorum-breaking lawmakers. The Supreme Court agrees Republican House Speaker Dade Phelan does, in fact, have the legal authority to deputize law enforcement officials to compel absent Democrats in the state to return to the Capitol. (The arrests don’t mean the AWOL Democrats can be jailed, criminally charged, or fined.)
The Harris County order, the one that the Texas Supreme Court halted this week, was granted after more than 40 House Democrats filed legal measures against the arrests.
“The Dems have filed some of the most embarrassing lawsuits ever seen,” Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said this week following the court’s decision. “Time for them to get to the Capitol and do the job they were elected to do.”
And remember, the decision this week by the Texas Supreme Court comes after it had already overturned a separate ruling by a Travis County district judge blocking Abbott and Phelan from calling for the arrest of the absent Democrats.
The arrest process will begin “immediately,” a spokesperson for Phelan said this week after the court’s ruling.
“Earlier today, the House Sergeant-at-Arms deputized members of Texas law enforcement to assist in the House’s efforts to compel a quorum. That process will begin in earnest immediately,” the spokesperson added.
PolitiFact, however, thought it knew better than Cruz, who, again, served for several years as the solicitor general of Texas.
“Cruz said that there is ‘clear legal authority to handcuff and put in leg irons legislators’ who break quorum,” the group said.
It added, “The Texas House Rules states that absent lawmakers can ‘be sent for and arrested, wherever they may be found.’ But, because absent lawmakers aren’t charged with a crime, it’s unclear how the use of the word ‘arrest’ should be interpreted in this context. This is because no Texas court has reviewed how this provision is to be enforced. Thus, there is no legal clarity. We rate this claim False.”
Cruz’s office hit back this week, accusing the fact-checker of playing politics with his statement.
“PolitiFact exists to carry water for the Democratic Party, so they’re not interested in the search for truth,” a spokesman told Fox News. “Pretending that the law doesn’t clearly allow for the arrest and potential physical compulsion of delinquent legislators is patently absurd. This is yet another example of Politifact getting it wrong in their shameless attempt to make excuses for Democrat lies, under the false pretense of confirming facts.”
The last word on the matter goes to George Washington University professor Jonathan Turley, who said of the fact-check, “The decision has not only exposed the Democrats to arrest but it has exposed another claim of bias against the PolitiFact, which lambasted [Sen. Ted Cruz] who claimed that the legislature clearly had the authority to order such arrests.”
He added, “That is clear legal authority. It may not be dispositive authority according to these Democratic members. However, the federal lawsuit primarily hit the House rule on the meaning and limits governing ‘arrests.'”
