Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said on Thursday that the F.B.I. had agreed to his request to help track down dozens of Democratic Texas state lawmakers who left the state to prevent a vote on a redistricting plan.
The activation of federal agents could create a standoff between the Trump administration and state leaders in Illinois, where many of the absent Democrats have taken refuge.
It was not clear on Thursday morning whether federal agents had actually taken action in the case, or what role they might eventually play.
Gov. JB Pritzker has scoffed at the idea that federal agents could be deployed against the Texas lawmakers present in his state. On Wednesday, a day after Mr. Cornyn first proposed federal involvement, Mr. Pritzker said, “They’re grandstanding.” He added, “There literally is no federal law applicable to this situation, none they can say that they’re sending F.B.I.”
He suggested that federal law enforcement agents might be used in an attempt to intimidate lawmakers, even if the agents did not have cause to make arrests. “The F.B.I. agents might show up just to, I don’t know, again, to put a show on,” Mr. Pritzker said.
Several of the Texas Democrats in Illinois said that as of Thursday morning, no federal agents had been seen or reported at the lawmakers’ hotel in St. Charles, about 25 miles west of Chicago.
The whereabouts of the Texas lawmakers are widely known, but until now at least, they had considered themselves safe from arrest because they were far from the jurisdiction of Texas law enforcement agencies.
“I am proud to announce that Director Kash Patel has approved my request for the F.B.I. to assist state and local law enforcement in locating runaway Texas House Democrats,” Mr. Cornyn said in a statement.
In his letter on Tuesday requesting the bureau’s assistance, Mr. Cornyn argued that the Democratic lawmakers might have violated state bribery laws by accepting money from outside groups to support their efforts to prevent a vote in the Texas House on a redrawn political map.
No criminal warrants have actually been filed against the lawmakers in Texas. The speaker of the Texas House has issued civil warrants, saying that the Democrats violated rules of attendance for that chamber, but those warrants have not been considered enforceable outside the state during previous legislative walkouts.
Mr. Cornyn has not suggested that federal statutes have been violated. Instead, he said the F.B.I. can help state law enforcement when scofflaws leave the state.
“F.B.I. has tools to aid state law enforcement when parties cross state lines, including to avoid testifying or fleeing a scene of a crime,” he wrote. “Specifically, I am concerned that legislators who solicited or accepted funds to aid in their efforts to avoid their legislative duties may be guilty of bribery or other public corruption offenses.”
For Mr. Cornyn, the effort to force the Texas Democrats to return to Austin has figured prominently in his re-election campaign.
Mr. Cornyn is locked in a bruising primary battle against the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton. Each man has appeared eager to show how tough he can be and has escalated his threats against the absent Democrats in the last few days.
Mr. Paxton has said that if Democratic lawmakers do not return in time for a roll call in the Texas House at 1 p.m. Friday, he would petition the Texas Supreme Court to have some of their seats declared abandoned and therefore vacant. Gov. Greg Abbott has filed a lawsuit on the same lines against the leader of the walkout, Representative Gene Wu of Houston.
However, Mr. Paxton said in a podcast interview this week that such a process was untested and would be a “challenge.”
As an indication of how the U.S. Senate race and the fight over the legislative walkout have intertwined, Mr. Cornyn’s campaign took Mr. Paxton’s statements and rapidly turned them into an attack ad, claiming the attorney general was not being aggressive enough against the Democratic lawmakers.
Democratic leaders in Washington attacked the involvement of the F.B.I. as a misuse of federal law enforcement by the Trump administration. “Shouldn’t the F.B.I. be tracking down terrorists, drug traffickers and child predators?” Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, said in a statement. “We will not be intimidated.”
Dozens of Democratic Texas state lawmakers have been in Illinois since Sunday, when they left Texas to deny Republicans the quorum needed to hold a vote in the Texas House on the proposed congressional map. The map, requested by President Trump, would remake five districts currently held by Democrats so that they would favor Republican candidates in the 2026 midterm elections, when Democrats nationwide are expected to gain seats.
The redistricting fight in Texas has rapidly ballooned far beyond the state’s borders. Democratic-led states like Illinois and California have been threatening to redraw their own political maps in response to Texas, and Republican-led states including Missouri and Indiana are looking to follow Texas’ lead.
J. David Goodman is the Houston bureau chief for The Times, reporting on Texas and Oklahoma.
Julie Bosman is the Chicago bureau chief for The Times, writing and reporting stories from around the Midwest.
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