Democratic Texas state Rep. Nicole Collier is spending 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.

Chairman Abraham George recently traveled to Illinois to join Republicans there in denouncing Texas Democrats.

The chairman of the state Democratic Party said the lawmakers “are coming back to fight these racist maps in the legislature and then in the courts.”

Rep. Nicole Collier is one of dozens of Democrats who fled Texas earlier this month to block a vote on a Trump-backed redistricting plan.

Democratic state Rep. Nicole Collier says she remains locked in the House chamber because she wouldn't sign a permission slip to be under escort by the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Lawmakers in Texas are pushing to vote on new election maps that could give the Republican Party five more seats in the U.S. House. The GOP argues the maps are fair, while Democrats walked out of the Capitol.

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.

The Amarillo businessman said he would tap into the $20 million political action committee he launched last year to preserve ballot access for censured Republicans.