A trio of Texas Democrats slept overnight in the state house instead of traveling home with a mandated law enforcement escort ordered by the Republican leadership as they continued their peaceful resistance against the state leadership and their controversial redistricting plan.

Generations of Texas politicians have sat, voted and debated in the cushioned leather chairs on the floor of the state’s House of Representatives, but few have spent the night in one — let alone with a bonnet and eye mask.

Democratic Texas state Rep. Nicole Collier spent the night on the Texas House floor in protest after refusing a Republican demand to be placed under the watch of the state Department of Public Safety.

The Texas House gaveled in at noon with Democratic members present, marking an official end to the quorum break.

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Democratic lawmakers in Texas returned to the state on Monday, ending a two-week walkout that broke quorum and temporarily blocked Republican efforts to redraw congressional maps at the behest of U.S.

State Rep. Nicole Collier said she would not fall in line with the GOP House speaker's requirement that Democratic lawmakers be surveilled by state troopers.

Democratic lawmakers who fled their state to stymie Republican plans to redraw political maps at the behest of President Donald Trump announced on Monday they were "returning to Texas on our terms," as the battle lines harden 15 months before the U.